7 steps to better photos with the Nokia N8 camera

Until the Nokia 808 PureView arrives in stores, the Nokia N8 and its 12-megapixel camera is still the best camera phone you can get your hands on.

To make the most of it, here are some great photo editing apps to get stuck into. Whether you’re a novice photo fan or an expert, there’s something for everyone:

Magic Photos 

Size: 0.83MB

Cost: £1.50
Getting the best out of your photos sometimes requires a helping hand. Here it comes in the form of Magic Photos. The cheap Nokia N8 app is capable of giving photos an arty look by using an array of after-effects to transform them. A responsive and easy to use interface makes adjusting each snapshot taken using your N8 a cinch. Simply brush your finger along the desired area to apply effects. A zoom function lets you refine small areas. 



ShaderFX Photo

Size: 1.52MB

Cost: £1.00

ShaderFX Photo is one for the more serious photo editing fan. Available effects include vignetting, mirroring, blur, fake tilt-shift, night vision, colour separation, and more. The result is stunning photos that look as if they’ve had a makeover from the photo gods. ShaderFX Photo will even let you upload your N8 works of art to Facebook, Flickr and Twitter when you’re done.



PhotoFunia

Size: 0.62MB

Cost: £Free
This awesome cloud-based editing tool transforms your N8 photos by putting lots of fun effects at your fingertips. PhotoFunia is designed for those that simply love to have fun with their photos by letting you place your subjects and their faces into amusing scenes.

Fisheye Camera Lense 

Size: 0.58MB

Cost: £Free
If you ever admired the fisheye lens effects on other peoples photos from afar, then look no further than this simple little app to achieve the same illusion. You even get a live camera preview before taking the shot. Fisheye Camera Lense is free, so you can’t go wrong.

CameraPro N8

Size: 0.25MB

Cost: £3.00 

CameraPro N8 has all you need in a camera app, not just fun effects. With it you can toggle anti-shake, adjust ISO settings and contrast and more to transform photos from mere phone snaps into works of art you’d love to share with fellow Nokia N8 fans.

kameraku PRO
Size: 0.15MB

Cost: £1.00

Downloading the colourfully named kameraku will let you add an array of zany effects to whatever you shoot with your Nokia N8. The app features effects including night vision, thermal, cartoon and more. Pay £1.00 for the full version and you can take advantage of even more effects.

Got any favourite N8 photo-tweaking apps you’d love to share with us?

Nokia Creative Studio version 1.2 update for Windows Phone popped up on our Nokia Lumia 800 this morning but you’ll find it on all Nokia Lumia smartphones as part of the standard updates found in Marketplace.

Nokia Creative Studio – this photo editor app is perfect for Nokia Lumia 900

It’s a quick and free download, so worth getting your hands on it, so you know you’ve the latest version on your Nokia Lumia.

Nokia Creative Studio is a free download that gives you the option to add effects to your photos as you take them, using the Live Styles feature to add effects with such names as Sketch, Dreamy, Night Vision, Cartoon or Silkscreen.

They are also the now standard array of Face Warps that allow you to give images that distinctly comic look! We’ve not noticed a huge difference with Nokia Creative Studio version 1.2 update for Windows Phone so it looks like the update is more about fixing bugs and making the app load and run smoother in operation.

What we have noticed is that things tend to flow a little smoother, so getting effects to work is quicker. If you’ve downloaded the Nokia Creative Studio version 1.2 update for Windows Phone and spotted anything else then please let us know!

Check out our Nokia Creative Studio version 1.2 update for Windows Phone photo gallery:

Nokia Lumia 800 vs iPhone: Which is better at finding deals?

Nokia UK’s been releasing a bunch of videos on its YouTube page that involve sending a magician to London’s Covent Garden to pitch the Nokia Lumia 800 up against its rivals in a number of real world scenarios.

Despite the identity of the host, though, what ensues isn’t magic. It’s the peerless design of the Windows Phone OS and the snappy Nokia hardware that runs it! Just take a look at the following video for one such example.

The challenge here is to find out the latest footy scores as quickly as possible. One ambitious iPhone 4 owner takes up the challenge, but is soundly beaten by the might of the Lumia 800. How was this achieved?

As with the previous challenge, it’s all thanks to Windows Phone’s unique Live Tiles feature. This enables app developers to create a shortcut on your start screen not simply to their app, but to specific functions of their app.

In this case the ESPN app is used. Now, ESPN is a general sports news app that covers the full spectrum of world sporting affairs. However, go into the Football section and select Pin to start and you’ll have a shortcut to the latest footy news right on your Start page! 

It’s no wonder the Nokia Lumia 800 won, as its popular rival has to either load up a web page or start up an app and navigate to the appropriate section.

Check out how this all pans out in the video below.

Nokia Lumia 900 Vs Samsung Galaxy S3: The people speak!

There are a lot of improvements made with the Nokia Lumia 900, including the biggest (4.3-inch) and best (RGB AMOLED) screen ever seen on a Nokia device and a blisteringly fast 1.4GHz processor.

Undoubtedly the biggest improvement, though, is the Windows Phone 7.5 OS the Lumia 900 runs on. It’s completely different to the Symbian operating system you might be used to, which might make you worry about being able to transfer across all the contact information you’ve accrued on your faithful Nokia phone over the years.

Fear not, though – there’s an incredibly handy piece of software included with the Nokia Lumia 900 especially for dedicated Nokia fans. It’ll make the process of bringing your contacts across completely painless.

The Contacts Transfer app that comes preinstalled on your Nokia Lumia 900 uses Bluetooth connectivity to bring your numbers across. From the Lumia 900′s start page, simply tap the arrow to go to the second page menu, or just slide your finger left on the screen. Now scroll down until you see the Contact Transfer app and enter it.

Once you’ve started Contact Transfers on your Nokia Lumia 900 you’ll be taken to the Bluetooth menu. Ensure that Bluetooth is turned on here, as well as on your old phone. You should now be able to see your old device listed on the Lumia 900 screen. Select it and accept the pairing on both phones. One linked you’ll find that contacts are sent over automatically. Ridiculously easy, right?

There’s another way of transferring contacts of course, and that’s through your email account. If you have a Gmail or Hotmail account simply go into the set-up email tile on the start menu, or into email+accounts in the settings menu and then add an account. Now select the appropriate service and input your details.

In addition to being able to synch your emails and calendar entries to your new Lumia 900, you’ll find that you can synchronise contacts from this email account to your Lumia 900. Once this box is ticked, you’ll find that contacts from your Gmail or Hotmail account will appear in the People hub with all the relevant details – including their profile photo and (where supplied or added) their telephone number.

Whether using Nokia Contacts Transfer or the in-built email account synchronisation, transferring contacts to your Nokia Lumia 900 is as easy as you could hope for.

Nokia Lumia 610, 710, 800 and 900: which is right for you?

Taking pictures on smartphones has become an integral part of their function, and the Windows Phone OS makes it easier than ever to get snapping in an instant. But what does the Nokia Lumia range offer in terms of hardware?

The four devices in the Nokia Lumia range can be divided loosely into two types of camera – 8-megapixel and 5-megapixel.

The high-end Nokia Lumia 900 and the original champ, the Nokia Lumia 800, both use similar 8-megapixel camera units. Both also use Carl Zeiss optics for brilliantly sharp pictures, and also include an f2.2 aperture. This allows in more light than your average smartphone for less image noise in low-light situations.

This f2.2 aperture also means you can get some lovely depth of field shots, with the subject brilliantly clear and in focus and any background (or foreground) detail blurry and out of focus. Of course, you can control this effect as desired!

Another way in which both phones excel is their 28mm wide-angle focal length, which means you can squeeze more into every picture.

So what of the other two Nokia Lumia phones – the Nokia Lumia 710 and Nokia Lumia 610? These being the more affordable additions to the range, their snappers aren’t quite the high-end examples found in the Nokia Lumia 900 and Nokia Lumia 800. Both use 5-megapixel units, though, which is more than enough for general snaps.

To save costs, neither of the more affordable Lumias has Carl Zeiss optics. On the other hand both have LED flashes, which other affordable smartphones have been known to omit in the past.

Both the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 610 camera sport f2.4 apertures, which doesn’t let in as much light or allow for the same depth of field tricks as the Nokia Lumia 900 or Lumia 800, but is more than up to the task of producing some great snaps. Both affordable phones also have a host of advanced features like autofocus, geo-tagging and face detection, so they’re far from bare-bones efforts.

It’s worth noting, too, that all four Nokia Lumia phone cameras can shoot video in 720p HD and at an impressive 30 frames per second. In other words: super sharp and silk smooth.

Whichever Nokia Lumia smartphone you opt for, then, you’ll get a phone that can capture the moment nicely. Despite differences in optics, megapixel count and aperture size, all benefit from the advances made to mobile photography by the Windows Phone OS. This means a decent set of image options, easy picture sharing and – most importantly in our books – fast access to the camera from sleep.

Happy snapping!

Best Nokia Lumia 800 freebie deals: Xbox 360, Monster headphones, Nokia Amazing Days Experience

In the first part of an ongoing series, Nokia sends someone out to Covent Garden, London, to pitch the Nokia Lumia 800 against the opposition. The task? To find a local deal as fast as possible.

This video shows a brave iPhone owner gallantly accepting the challenge – and then being blown out of the water by the Nokia device, which managed the task in just six seconds.

How was this achieved? Through the Groupon app and its custom, Windows Phone-only Live Tile. This lets you pin the latest local deals to the Start page. These update in real time, and you can jump straight to the featured offer in seconds!

Check out the full shebang in the video below.

LinkedIn for Windows Phone is a major piece of the social networking jigsaw, particularly for business types, as it boasts over 150 million users worldwide. While it may not grab the headlines in the same way as Twitter and Facebook, it’s just as vital a component of this modern age.

Nokia Lumia 800 explored: Faster social networking with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

That’s why LinkedIn for Windows Phone hitting Nokia Lumia 900, Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710 is great news. This is the first time that LinkedIn has actually built an app for the Windows Phone platform and is further proof that Windows Phone is gaining momentum and filling those essential apps that users have been asking for.

The app is free and is a quick download from the Marketplace. We’ve installed it on our Nokia Lumia 800 and found the app to be quick, fast and easy to use. So much so that we already thinking that it may well replace the desktop version as our main entry-point. This is largely due to the use of the Metro UI which offers a clean layout and an accessible and fast interface.

The guys over at Nokia Conversations, the official Nokia blog, have been speaking to Joff Redfern, head of mobile products at LinkedIn, who told them, “LinkedIn delivers important insights and information to help professionals make smarter business decisions everyday — wherever they work,” before going on to say “It’s great to be working with Nokia and Microsoft to now make this experience possible from Windows Phone devices.”

If you’ve already downloaded LinkedIn for Windows Phone onto your Nokia Lumia smartphone, what do you think of it? Let us know in the Comments below.

DOWNLOAD: LinkedIn for Windows Phone

Check out our LinkedIn for Windows Phone hits Marketplace image gallery:

Aimed at The Next Billion, the Nokia 110 and Nokia 112 are two phones that bring a level of urban style and vitality to emerging markets, to mix great looks, cool features and a killer price point.

Check out the Nokia 110 at Nokia.com

Both the Nokia 110 and Nokia 112 look set to appeal across Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks direct from their homescreens. With Nokia Browser on-board the internet will be a doddle to traverse as this technology allows users to consume less data by up to 90%, by compressing websites in the cloud. Both devices offer.

The Nokia 112 also features preloaded eBuddy instant messaging service right out of the box, so users can use popular chat services to keep conversations going 24/7.

Both the Nokia 110 and Nokia 112 are Series 40 phones and come with a 1.8-inch TFT LCD screen with a 128 x 160-pixel resolution. The only difference between the two is that the Nokia 110 weighs just 80g and measures, 110 x 46 x 14.8mm, while the Nokia 112 weighs a slightly heftier 85.5g and measures 110.4 x 46.9 x 15.4mm.

Besides Dual-SIM capabilities you’ll find they come with a VGA digital camera, FM Radio and Media player,GPRS/EDGE, 2.0 mm Charger Connector, Bluetooth v2.1 with EDR, 3.5 mm AV connector.

Check out the Nokia 112 at Nokia.com

The Nokia 110 and Nokia 112 come with access to 40 EA Games, valued at EUR 75 if bought separately, including well known titles like Tetris, Bejeweled, Need for Speed: The Run, Monopoly Here & Now, and SimCity Deluxe. Once they have accessed the offering, they will have 60 days to download the games of their choice, keeping the games forever. 

The Nokia 110 and Nokia 112 are both Dual SIM phones and come with Nokia’s Easy Swap technology. This enables users to switch between SIMs quickly without having to remove their battery or turn off their phone. The Easy Swap technology can personalize and remember up to five different SIM cards, giving consumers full control over their costs.

The Nokia 110 will also be available as single SIM versions - Nokia 111 and Nokia 113, with this last one available in Europe and Eurasia only.

The estimated retail price for Nokia 110 and its single SIM versions is about EUR 35 and they are expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2012.

The estimated retail price for Nokia 112 is about EUR 38, excluding taxes and subsidies, and is expected to start shipping in the third quarter of 2012.

 Check out the Nokia 110 and Nokia 112 photo gallery:

Each game is available from the Nokia Store, and all are free. We’ve done our best to pick out something for most types of players to get stuck into. Check ‘em out.



Guns’n’Glory

This gun-toting western-themed title places you in the boots of the infamous Billy the Kid, Jesse James or Bitch Cassidy out to become the baddest cowboys the west has ever seen, controlling and forming gangs with Mexicans and Indians. 


Bomberman


Bomberman is a true classic in which you run around a grid planting timed bombs, hoping for foolish enemies to walk into their explosive trail of destruction. With 50 levels of bomb-induced explosive action, this game really is ‘da bomb’.


Nokia Golf Tour 3D


Nokia Golf Tour 3D looks great on the Nokia Asha 302. The game uses 3D rendering tech to bring courses to life. There are some nice physics effects, too. A nice leisurely game to play on the long journey home, this. 


Crazy Hospital

Bit of a crazy one this, hence the name. You wake up with nightmares, unable to remember a thing. The only thing to do is to exact revenge on everyone. Apparently. Lots of shooting action abounds in this free time-waster for your Nokia Asha 302 .


Force



In Force you play as an undercover cop – no, a super cop – in a Robocop-without-the-armour one-man fight against heavily armed enemies across a number of levels. This side-scrolling action game is one of the more enjoyable of its kind on the Nokia Asha 302.

Fatal Attack


Fatal Attack at times feels like one of those tower defence games where you stand your guard and defend against incoming punishment. Here said punishment comes in the form of gunfire, RPG shells, tanks, enemy Apache helicopters, and more. Luckily you’re armed to the teeth in this all action game.

Alien Invaders

When aliens bring their unwanted attentions it’s down to you to shut them up with a bit of laser fire. Alien Invaders is your classic ‘the world is under attack and you must save it’ kind of game in a fun fight for survival.

Free Kick

Free Kick is a nice little game of skill and accuracy that comes well suited to wasting a way a few minutes on the bus or train. The idea is to curl in as many free kicks past the wall and goalkeeper and into the net as possible. It gets tougher as you go on, so don’t get too complacent.

Bounce Tales

Bounce Tales is a smart puzzling adventure. It’s a little odd, mind. You get to control a shiny red ball, bouncing its way to an end of level goal, solving puzzles and avoiding obstacles along the way.


Bowling


Another nice little timewaster, this. You roll the bowling ball using your fingertips to knock down all the pins. Earning a strike is tougher than you’d at first think. It’s not the most action-filled game but it’s still a great one for journeys.