deadmau5 at Nokia Lumia Switch Party

Yesterday evening Nokia hosted a Lumia #Switch Party at the Flat Iron Square in Southwark. The event celebrated the launch of the Lumia 920 and 820 Windows Phone 8 smartphones, and is a sequal to last year's mind blowing '4D' projection performance at the Millbank Tower in London.

That one

So how could Nokia and deadmau5 top last year's crazy display? Well they didn't, but then again, they didn't exactly have to. As this year's performance location was kept secret (the event was exclusive to Nokia staffs, competition winners and a few guests), it was billed as a more intimate event. The rather heavy handed approach by security did annoy us a little bit (the event was oversubscribed) and  it didn't help that no one knew exactly where they should be facing so everyone just pushed forward towards the Shard.

Sure, the effects did not blow our mind like last year's, but the music at least did. Using the surrounding buildings around Flat Iron Square as props and special effects for the gig, deadmau5's cracking performance matches the area perfectly. Props to Nokia for the invite and deadmau5 for an entertaining, if chilly, night.

You can find more pictures of deadmau5 on my flickr.

Nokia announces new Lumia 820 and 920 Windows Phone 8 smartphones

Nokia today announced its latest flagship, the Windows Phone 8 powered Lumia 920 and mid-range Lumia 820 at an event in New York City.

The Lumia 920 retains the same gorgeous design language as the Lumia 800 and Lumia 900 but will come with a larger 4.5" display. The 768x1280 resolution LCD IPS display will feature Nokia's proprietary ClearBlack filter (which they dub as PureMotionHD+ - whatever) said to be able to improve outdoor legibility. Like the Lumia 800, the Lumia 920's screen will sit below a curved glass. If it is anything like the IPS display seen on the HTC One X or iPhone 4S, then you won't miss AMOLED one bit.

Powering the Lumia 920 will be Qualcomm's successful Snapdragon S4 SoC featuring a pair of 1.5GHz Krait CPUs and Adreno 225 GPU, a clear boost over the Snapdragon S2 SoC that powered the Lumia 800 and 900. 1GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage are included. Disappointingly Nokia has decided not to engineer a memory expansion slot onto the Lumia 920 despite Windows Phone 8 supporting such expansion. Oddly enough, it's lower end cousin the Lumia 820 (see below), also announced today, will feature a microSD expansion slot.

Its 8.7 megapixel PureView branded camera may disappoint pixel peepers with no photography skills, but in reality is likely to be more than enough. Nokia has made bold claims about how amazing this camera will be but they have made similar hyperbolic claims with the Lumia 800 as well, and we all know how that turned out. Still, it does look like we will see some improvements, including the introduction of a new kind of image optical stabilisation with the camera technology used here as well as the software algorithm needed to capture steady images in low light.