Tag: Microsoft

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AT&T Reveals Availability for Moto360, Kyocera DuraForce, Lumia 830, and LG G Watch R

It’s a huge day at AT&T. Big Blue took the wraps off of their release schedule for four huge devices.

Moto360motorola moto 360 smartwatch teaser announced (1)AT&T is becoming one of the better stocked retail outlets for wearable tech, and they were early in embracing smartwatches. Now the Moto360 has an official home at AT&T stores. Starting November 7th, you can get a Moto360 for $199 if you bundle it with the purchase of a Moto X Smartphone.

LG G Watch Rlg_g_watch_r_black_storyI TOTALLY CALLED IT! We have official pricing for LG’s round, premium smartwatch, and it looks like that extra bit of style will run you $299. It’ll be stocked and ready to buy starting November 5th!

Lumia 830Lumia-830_group1Windows Phone fans have probably been feeling a little neglected of late, but AT&T will be the first carrier to bring the Lumia 830 to our shores. The mid-ranger will sell for $449.99 or you can grab it for $99 on two-year contract. If you’re signing up on contract, you can also grab a free FitBit Flex for a limited time.  You can see a brief hands on with the Lumia 830 from my trip out to CTIA!

Kyocera DuraForceduraforce_story
Kyocera is finally leaving their exclusive relationship with CDMA carriers, dropping one phone on T-Mobile, and now the DuraForce on AT&T. It looks like a redesigned version of the Brigadier which launched on Verizon a couple months ago, but there’s no word yet if the DuraForce will also have Kyocera’s incredible sapphire display. It looks like it’ll be AT&T’s most rugged phone however, and you can grab one for $389 or $49 on two-year contract. You can catch our long term review of the Brigadier to whet your appetite!

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Microsoft Unveils Health App and $199 Band Smart Fitness Tracker

microsoft band smartwatch fitness trackerThe rumors of a Microsoft smartwatch are true!

Taking the wraps off of a new app and new hardware, the Microsoft Band will retail for $199. It features a 320×106 pixel capacitive touchscreen, built in GPS, a heart rate sensor, skin temperature sensor, Galvanic skin monitor, UV and Ambient light sensors, and a microphone. They’re only rating it as dust and splash resistant, so it might not be a good option for swimmers.

microsoft band smartwatch fitness tracker exploded view disassemblyInterestingly enough, there are two 100 mAh batteries, about half the capacity of the new LG G Watch R, but Microsoft is estimating 48 hour battery life.

While it’s built around fitness tracking, it will also pair with phones over Bluetooth for the standard collection of notifications and alerts. Happily, Microsoft is making this watch cross platform, so it will work with Windows Phone, iOS, and Android, though only Windows Phone users will have access to Cortana from their wrist.

microsoft band smartwatch fitness tracker heart rate monitorThe Band is being launch alongside a new Health app, which is also cross platform for Windows Phone, iOS, and Android. While Health is designed to be a fitness tracking service, both the Band and the app will leverage cloud services and will work with other fitness services like RunKeeper and UP by Jawbone.

Are these the features you’ve been looking for in a smartwatch? Leave us a comment below!

 

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Microsoft Unleashes Unlimited OneDrive Storage for Office365 Users!

OfficeUNLIMITED_SISU_finalBrandedThe cloud storage wars rage on! This is really helpful for me as I’ve got promotional DropBox space expiring this month, but I am an Office365 subscriber!

Starting today, if you’re paying for the monthly version of Office, you will now receive unlimited storage from Microsoft, with no restrictions for Home, Personal, or Student customers.

To put that in perspective, DropBox or Google Drive will cost you $9.99 a month for 1TB of storage, OR you could pay $9.99 for 5 PC’s and 5 tablets to have monthly access to Office, one hour of Skype calling, AND unlimited cloud storage through OneDrive.

Not bad at all. You can read all the deets on Microsoft’s OneDrive blog.

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Microsoft Doubles Quarterly Surface Sales, Moves 9.3 Million Lumias

Microsoft CEO Satya NadellaDuring their earnings call, Microsoft had some good news for their hardware divisions.

Redmond managed to more than double their revenue on the Surface line up of tablets, reaching $908 million over last quarter’s $400 million. Lumias also had their best quarter yet moving 9.3 million phones, built largely on the popularity of low cost handsets. In all the Devices and Consumer Hardware division revenue grew 47% over last quarter to $10.96 billion.

However, following restructuring costs and Nokia’s hardware integration, Microsoft’s stock is down $0.11 a share.

While it’s not earth shaking news, it is positive growth, and any positive traction in this market means we’ll be seeing more competition moving forward. Fingers crossed this means we’ll see new Microsoft Branded Lumia phones sooner rather than later.

Microsoft Earnings Report

microsoft earnings

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Verizon to Retire Lumia Icon Eight Months After Release?

nokia lumia icon rear panel long term review somegadgetguyA frustrating development for Windows Phone fans on Big Red. It looks like VZW is pulling the plug on the Lumia Icon only eight months after the phone was launched.

Internationally known as the Lumia 930, Verizon was the exclusive carrier to offer it here in the United States. While the rest of the world has officially been updated with Windows Phone 8.1 and Nokia’s Cyan software, the Icon has languished under Verizon’s ultra-strict and very slow upgrade approval process. Galaxy Nexus owners likely understand the frustration of watching the rest of the software world pass you by.

Now with word from @VZWSupport on Twitter, that the Icon is retired, it seems even less likely that there will be an official 8.1 update for the Icon. I also doubt that we’ll see a 930 variant arrive on any of the other carrier with AT&T focusing on launching their HTC One W8 and the Lumia 830 mid-ranger. As it pertains to Windows Phone, T-Mobile largely seems content at the entry level with the Lumia 635.

Very frustrating indeed as the Lumia Icon/930 is a solid flagship phone, but all smartphones are only as good as their support, and this move removes one of the precious few options for a WP flagship here in the States…

(via WPCentral)

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Will Nokia End HERE Maps Support for Windows Phone?

wp_ss_20140925_0001When Microsoft acquired Nokia’s hardware division, they did not get all of Nokia’s assets. One team to remain under the Nokia badge was the HERE mapping division, and it’s quickly become a favorite of Windows Phone users, bringing terrific turn-by-turn directions and downloadable maps to Microsoft’s ecosystem.

Reported today by The Next Web, a Nokia Executive Sean Fernback was quoted in regards to future HERE development:

“today we still maintain the [HERE] Windows Phone apps, it has our brand on it so we need to look after it, although we’re not particularly investing in them at the moment, that could still change. With the Nokia X program, we were authorized to continue to work on it until about now really, but that work is about to cease. I think there have been a number of different programmes that have continued through the year onto different platforms, but now it’s just going to focus on the two – Android and iOS.”

We’ve known that HERE Maps would be making a transition to Android, specifically on Samsung devices, and it would make sense that the team would be turning more resources to the newer (and larger) platforms. HERE Maps is not leaving Windows Phone, but for fans of Microsoft’s OS (and ostensibly Nokia’s hardware) a reduction in support could be a worrying proposition. There are already precious few outlets developing for the WP platform.

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Review: Lumia 635 – Two Weeks with Nokia’s Inexpensive Fantastic

Playing with phones like the 635, it further reinforces my belief that the flagship phone market is maturing and plateauing. The exciting growth for manufacturers will be at the entry level. This little Lumia shows us how far we can stretch a dollar with few compromises. Let’s take a look!

Shop the Lumia 635 on AT&T!
Shop the Lumia 635 on T-Mobile!

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CTIA 2014 First Look – Nokia Lumia 830, Lumia 730, and Green Lumia 1520

After being announced at IFA, Nokia dropped a pair of new mid-ranger Windows Phones. Let’s take a quick look at the Lumia 730 and Lumia 830. Plus I finally got to see the Hulk green Lumia 1520 in the flesh!

Review: Nokia Lumia 635 – An incredible bang for buck!

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