Nokia Refocus: An Innovation That Will Be Imitated

Nokia, one of the oldest surviving players in the mobile phone space, has in recent years changed its tune, and wisely so, by focusing on the mobile software part as much as the hardware. The 808 PureView marked the company's giant leap as far as the camera department was concerned with PureView Technology backed by a never-before-heard-in-a-mobile-phone 41 megapixel image sensor. Taking note of the fact that the weaker Symbian platform held it back, it was only a matter of time before the Finnish manufacturer brought out Windows Phone devices equipped with PureView tech cameras and the latest among them being the Lumia 1020 with a similar 41 megapixel image sensor.

Talking of camera software, there is a plethora of software that Nokia brought to the Lumia series to get the most out of their cameras. The latest one to arrive is Nokia Refocus, which works on the Lumia 920, 925, 928, and 1020 (and also the upcoming Lumia 1520 phablet), all as long as they are running the Amber software update.

How To Get Early GDR3 Update For Your Windows Phone

As you already know, Microsoft has announced the rollout of GDR3 update with enhanced features for Windows Phone 8 devices. That being said, it will actually take up to a few months for most of us to get the update on our handsets because the rollout is done in a phased manner. However, there is still a way to download the GDR3 update to your WP handset, or at least the preview, as long as you have developer credentials.

Guide: How To Backup And Restore A Windows Phone 8 Handset

Windows Phone 8 is still the newest kid on the block as far as mobile OSes are concerned. There are some things that many users who have taken the leap of faith to this new platform, do not know about this OS. One such feature is the ability to backup and restore the phone settings. In this guide, we will take a look at just how this can be done.

Backing Up Your Windows Phone
In case you are wondering, there is no special software that will really let you back up your Windows Phone 8 data to your computer unlike Zune could for Windows Phone 7.x devices. Everything happens in the cloud, which may not be to everyone's taste. However, something is better than nothing, and we really hope that Microsoft will allow for a way to back up your phone data to your hard drive in the near future. Until then, we will have to go in the following way.

Backup is an automatic feature on a Windows Phone handset. To enable backup, you must go to Settings > backup. Here you will get to see that you can back up your apps list and settings, text messages, and even your photos and videos. The latter can upload to the cloud in the best quality only over Wi-Fi, although it is possible to upload photos in "Good" quality over mobile internet. It is best to disable backup of photos and videos and simply copy them to your hard drive as this will save a lot of your time while restoring. Once done, your phone gets backed up periodically whenever a data connection is available.

Restoring Your Windows Phone

You may opt to restore your Windows Phone in two scenarios:

1) if you have factory reset your phone for some reason,

2) if you have bought a new Windows Phone. In either case, the procedure is the same.

When you start up a new or reset Windows Phone, you will be presented with a screen asking you to sign into a Microsoft account, create a new one, or sign in later. In order to restore your backup, you are required to sign into the Microsoft account associated with your previous backup at this point. It is also necessary that you must have some sort of a mobile data plan as Wi-Fi cannot be used at this point.

Clicking on next after entering your credentials will take you to the next screen where you will be presented with the available sets of backups that can be used to restore the Windows Phone handset. You can choose one and click Next. The backup data starts downloading. This can take a long time depending on the amount of data being restored.

Image Credit: Nokia Conversations

You can now enter your credentials for various accounts from the original Windows Phone handset such as Hotmail, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, etc and click Next. Your apps will start downloading once the phone reaches the Start screen. At this point, it is wiser to quickly connect to Wi-Fi and then switch off mobile data to save data charges.

Is This Really A "Backup"?

While some of the data does get backed up, this is not really a total backup of the phone data. This is more so with third party apps as only the unique number associated with these apps is stored online and passed on to the handset. Also, any additional settings associated with such apps such as the progress of a game are lost.

Another major problem is that the restore functionality totally depends on the mobile data connection, so you need to have a SIM card inserted into the phone during this process and the SIM must have a data connection (preferably 3G). If you miss this step and go to the Start screen, then the only way to restore the data is by resetting the phone and doing the procedure all over again.

If you thought you could manipulate the backup from the cloud in some way, you are gravely mistaken. The data that is present in the cloud is not available to the user and there is a total lack of transparency not only about what exactly is being sent up and when, but also about the visibility of the content to the authorised user. Thus, if you want to take a look at a particular SMS sent on a particular day, you will not be able to view that because such a facility simply doesn't exist.

Contacts are not backed up in Windows Phone 8 as they are simply stored on the users Gmail or Hotmail accounts present in the phone. So your contacts become available once you log into those accounts in the restored handset.

It is also strange that simple settings such as the placement of Live Tiles, ringtone, theme, etc are not backed up to restore. You are therefore better off taking screenshots beforehand to save the trouble.

This issue can be easily resolved via a software approach like Zune does for Windows Phone 7.x devices. While it is no secret that Windows Phone 8 is a remarkably different and fresh mobile operating system with oodles of capabilities as compared to other veteran mobile OSes, there are a few simple things that need to be addressed to allow it to stake a claim as a stronger third alternative.

New Exclusive Shots Of Nokia Lumia 1520, Giant 6" Windows Phone By The Verge

The Verge has got its hands on the Nokia Lumia 1520, which is the largest Windows Phone offering from the Finnish manufacturer. The Lumia 1520 has been in rumourville since the past few weeks, but the exclusive photos on the website alongside a Sony Xperia for comparison's sake seem to be authentic. The upcoming handset sports a 6" screen, thus making it official that Nokia is also going to join the large screen mobile phones bandwagon after most Android phone manufacturers have already done that.

The large screen boasts of pixel dimensions of 1080x1920, thus allowing it to natively display Full HD movies. There is a 16 MP camera at the back with a Carl Zeiss lens and PureView technology. The camera is capable of shooting still shots at 16 MP and saving an additional 5 MP photo to quickly share on social networks. An LED flash is present on top. There are buttons for volume control, lock, and camera shutter on the right of the handset, while the left has caddy slots for micro-SIM and microSD cards.

Judging from the photos, the Lumia 1520 appears to have a unibody design, which basically means that the battery will not be replaceable, but you may not want to complain about that because the device seems to be considerably slim. The thin bezels should make it good to watch movies, but it also increases the chances of inadvertently triggering the touch interface. As expected, the large screen handset runs GDR3, which bears the codename "Lumia Bittersweet shimmer". Nokia provides several Lumia-exclusive apps as can be seen in one of the photos. Check out a few of the shots below and visit The Verge at the above URL to view them all:

Nokia Lumia 920 GDR3 Screenshots Posted

Even as GDR2 is still in the process of being rolled out to Windows Phone 8 handsets, The Verge has posted quite a few screenshots of the GDR3 update on a Nokia Lumia 920. As you may already know, the GDR2 or General Distribution Release 2, also known as Amber, is an update for WP8 that is analogous to a Service Pack for the desktop Windows OS. GDR2 has brought in several nifty updates including major improvements to the camera app and enabling of the dormant FM Radio in supporting handsets.

GDR3 update brings in a few more sought-after improvements. The screenshots show that there is finally a screen rotation lock that will lock in the orientation of the screen, so you can even read web pages while lying in bed.

There is a Driving Mode that turns off all notifications except texts and phone calls when you enable it while you are driving. It is also possible to turn off calls and texts completely or set the mode to automatically reply with a preset text message. Of course, emergency calls and alerts will still be allowed to go through. The Driving Mode can also automatically be triggered when you connect a Bluetooth device to the phone.


The GDR3 update screenshots are taken from a Nokia Lumia 920 and the update itself bears the codename "Lumia Bittersweet shimmer". The screenshots only show a few of the updated features that can be expected with GDR3, since this is still a work in progress. The update is expected to appear later this year to all Windows Phone 8 handsets, while the number of updated features available to a handset may be limited by its hardware. Take a look at the screenshots from The Verge below: