Nokia Mix Radio: Making jazz rock fusion as cool as Miles Davis

Hard rock nut Justin has been working for Nokia for more than five years, during which he’s been closely involved with the Nokia Music service.

Now he’s helping to create playlists for the Mix Radio service. We spoke to him about breaking new acts, rocking all over the UK and leather jackets.

NokNok: Which playlists on Nokia Mix Radio are you in charge of?

Justin Percival: I like a lot of UK underground punk rock, and alternative bands. So there’s a mix on there called UK Underground, and I’m in charge of that one. There’s also Leather Jacket Wearing Rock! That’s basically 80s hair metal, a bit of Motorhead, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, with a bit of a mix of newer stuff that have taken influence from that kind of stuff.

There’s a couple of playlists I’m quite interested in doing at the minute like Music To Get Tattooed To! Then I want to do the same underground scene but in America. I don’t know it as well, but I’ve heard of a lot of bands in America that people probably wouldn’t know in the UK. I was thinking of putting a list together to get them more exposure.

You sound like you’re properly into your rock music

Definitely. I play in a band around the country, and I’m heavily involved in the UK Underground scene, so a lot of the bands that I’ve put on the UK Underground mix I’m either friends of or I’ve played with or I know of, so it’s kind of a bit of promotion as well as stuff I’m into.

The other stuff, the Leather Jacket Wearing rock, I’m also into. I’m more into rock, heavy rock and punk rock than anything else.

When I’m not here I’m either doing band stuff or helping other bands out and putting nights on. I’m heavily involved in music all over the place – in work and out of it! Basically I love it so much that when I’m not involved in it for a long time I start getting a bit edgy and I need to get back into it!

You sound like a busy guy – why get involved with Mix Radio?

For me it’s to show people new music. Stuff that they might have heard of, and then stuff that they might not have heard of but that’s in a similar genre. It’s mainly to give bands exposure. Especially the sort of stuff I’m into, a lot of it doesn’t really get seen or heard. I think a lot of the stuff is worth listening to.

The UK Underground stuff gives a lot of people I know and a lot of people that I know work really hard a bit of exposure. They’re getting listened to by hopefully a lot of people that would never have heard of these guys.

Has putting these playlists together helped with your work on the UK Underground scene? 

Definitely. When I’ve been researching stuff to put in playlists from bands I know you’ll find along the way there are recommendations. I’ve heard and found a lot of new things, and also made friends with other people because of it. It’s kind of like a social thing as well. I’ll say to friends in the same scene “check this playlist out” or “check these bands out”. It’s quite a cool tool to have.

It certainly is. Thanks to Justin for taking the time to talk to us.

If you want to hear the latest sounds of the UK underground, or indulge in some hoary Leather Jacket Wearing Rock, pick up a Nokia Lumia 900, 800 or 710 and start up Nokia Music.

What really makes Mix Radio for Nokia Lumia phones unique?

Nokia Mix Radio, as we’ve established, is completely unique as a smartphone service. Where else can you (legally) listen to music that you love and even download it for later listening with no sign-up and no additional fee?

In this article we thought we’d look at some practical use cases. It might be slightly difficult to see where such a unique service could fit into your busy life, after all. 

We spoke with Nokia Music Product Owner Melissa Price-Wakefield about Mix Radio and the kind of people it was aimed at.

“It kind of caters for quite a few groups of people,” she begins. “You have people who are not really up to date with their music, would like to be up to date and would like to listen to what’s new.”

Melissa goes on to explain how such dabblers benefit from using Mix Radio: “You can pick some of the bestseller mixes, you can pick the new releases and that gives you a taste of the music that’s currently popular” she says. 

But Mix Radio isn’t just for casual listeners – it’s got plenty of hardcore audiophile credentials too. “It’s also quite good for people who do have their music collection,” Melissa explains. “They do know the artists, but sometimes it just gets a bit stale. It’s a great way for those people to actually dig deeper into some of our genre mixes and find out other interesting artists or tracks that they might not have listened to before.”

Step into any genre on the main Mix Radio Mixes page and you’ll be confronted by a dizzying array of sub-genres. Anyone who knows anything about modern music knows that there are loads of off-shoots of each genre – it’s not just about rock, pop, indie and dance anymore.

Also, as we discussed in our first Mix Radio article, you can create a custom playlist based on a particular artist. Type a couple of favourites in here and as if by magic a playlist will be constructed around your selections, intelligently choosing similar or linked artists. 

Indeed, this is the feature Melissa – a confirmed indie/alternative music nut – uses the most herself. “It’s where I can create my own mixes, and as many as I like,” she tells us. “So I have my favourite artists and I can always create a mix from those artists. I can also put wild and wacky artists together and see what music I get, or I can put similar artists together and see what I get. That’s the feature that I as consumer use the most.”

Give it a whirl on your Nokia Lumia phone. We guarantee that you’ll find something new to love – no matter how much of a music fan you are.

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

The Nokia Lumia 900 and the Nokia Lumia 800 have the premium end of smartphone design all wrapped up with their catwalk style and bold AMOLED screens. Not all of us have the funds to spend on such things, though, which is where the Nokia Lumia 710 and 610 come in.

We’ve always looked at the Nokia Lumia 710 as the mid-range champ of the Lumia range, but in truth it’s now a bit of a bargain in its own right. Indeed, it can still be had for a staggeringly low £129.95 from Carphone Warehouse. That’s for full ownership of the phone – no contract required!

Consider what you get for that price a moment. You get the same 1.4GHz processor as the Nokia Lumia 900 and Lumia 800. That means the Nokia Lumia 710 runs apps and games just as well – that is, flawlessly – and the Windows Phone 7.5 OS (which is the exact same version) will be just as slick to boot.

The Nokia Lumia 710 comes with a decent 3.7-inch LCD screen, which is the same size as the Nokia Lumia 800′s, but is perhaps not quite as vibrant. It’s possibly even sharper, though! Then there’s that 5-megapixel camera, which takes super-fast snaps, has a dedicated camera button, and is capable of shooting 720p video.

Then there’s the Nokia Lumia 610. It’s not out in the UK yet, so we’re not sure exactly what the price will be. There’s a guide price of €249, which is around the £200 mark, but you can be sure that the final device will soon we a fair bit cheaper. We wouldn’t be surprised if you saw it for around the £100 mark before too long, but that’s just speculation!

So what will you get from the cheapest Lumia device on the market? To all intents and purposes you get virtually the same Windows Phone 7.5 experience as can be found on the other Lumias, but there will be one or two background changes to allow for the slightly reduced hardware capabilities. These take the form of an 800MHz CPU and half the amount of RAM. Still, with the same GPU on board, activities like games and web browsing will still run silky smooth.

Elsewhere you get a similar 3.7-inch LCD screen to the Nokia Lumia 710, but without Nokia’s ClearBlack Display technology for crystal clear outdoor viewing. You also get a similar 5-megapixel camera that’s capable of 720p video recording – pretty impressive for such a cheap phone!

Both the Nokia Lumia 710 and the Nokia Lumia 610 are top value smartphones. The Nokia Lumia 710 has possibly the best bang-per-buck of any Lumia device, but for those on the strictest of budgets the Nokia Lumia 610 is a great choice. Either way, you’ll be getting a bit of a bargain!

Nokia Lumia 900 vs Samsung Galaxy S3: The people’s debate!

We recently compared the two large-screened phones. Obviously this being a Nokia fan site we came down on the side of the Nokia Lumia 900 – chiefly for its superior design and more intuitive Windows Phone OS.

But for a lot of people price will play a major role in deciding which of the two phones is for them. Let’s take a look at the two UK operators that are supplying deals for both phones and compare the prices:

Orange

You can have the Nokia Lumia 900 for free on Orange, via Phones4U, for just £31 per month. This will snag you 3,000 texts and a choice of 400 minutes and 750MB of data (our personal preference) or 600 minutes and 500MB of data. That’s a generous alliance and a great price.

So how much is the Samsung Galaxy S3 on Orange? This time the deal is through Carphone Warehouse, where you can get the Android phone for free on a £36 per month deal. This provides a similar allowance of 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of data. There are no cheaper Orange deals at the time of writing.

Vodafone

So how about the other UK operator that stocks both devices, Vodafone? For the Nokia Lumia 900 it’s a similar story to Orange, with the possibility of getting the phone for free on a £31 per month contract. The allowance here is 900 minutes, 3,000 texts and 500MB of data.

As for the Samsung Galaxy S3 on Vodafone, it’s very similar to the Lumia 900. You can have it for free on a £31 per month deal, and that gets you just 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data.

Check out more Nokia Lumia 900 deals on Nokia UK

Pretty even then, as you’d expect. But for our money the Orange Nokia Lumia 900 deal with 750MB of data for £31 per month is the best of this particular lot. What do you think?

The Nokia 113 is a single SIM version of the Nokia 110 which was recently announced. As such you’ll find that it comes powered by the Series 40 operating system, which offers you pretty much everything you’ll ever need straight from the box.

Check out the Nokia 110 and Nokia 112 Dual-SIM budget Series 40 phones launched

It has a 1.8-inch screen and the candybar design comes in a whole host of colours, with just Blue, Pink and Yellow as a taste of the range on offer, giving the Nokia 113 a highly youthful and fun feel. The candybar design means you can text at speed, so Twitter and Facebook are a must straight from the homescreen.

Measuring a snip at 110 x 46 x 14.8mm and weighing a slip at just 80g, it’s a great phone for anyone who just needs to cover the basics or is looking for a stonking battery life in return for cutting back on the cutting-edge features.

Did someone mention battery life? You’ll find that with a stand-by time of 33 days you can pretty much slap the Nokia 113 in your bag and forget about it until you need it. The 800mHh battery is good enough for 7.83 hours of talk time.

It’s not only the battery that has been designed to save energy as the latest Nokia Browser means the internet will be cost-effective and quick as it allows users to consume less data by up to 90%. It does this by compressing websites so that it won’t eat into your data allowance.

The VGA camera on board offers snaps of 640 x 480 pixels in quality and even comes with a basic video recorder, so you’ll be able to record bursts of footage at 10fps and with a resolution of 176 x 144 pixels. Now, this isn’t going to make you the next Spielberg but for getting a quick video message across it’s more than enough.

When it comes to storing those movies, you’ll find a mere 10MB of user storage but the microSD slot means you can store up to 32GB of additional storage, which is pretty amazing for such a budget phone. There is also a built-in music player, so if you’re not into storing short movies, you can also make this your sole music player!

The Nokia 113 comes with a bunch of free games, such as Asphalt 6, Diamond Twister 2, and Real Football, but you’ll also be able to access the Nokia Store to download hundreds of other apps and games, making the Nokia 113 a truly versatile budget phone.

The Nokia 113 will be hitting UK markets and has already made an appearance as a ‘Coming Soon’ device on the Nokia UK website. Now, there is no price listed yet, nor when the device will actually hit the shops but if you’re on the lookout for a low-cost entry-level phone this may well be the one for you.

While no official UK price has been mentioned, the estimated retail price for Nokia 110 and its single SIM versions is set to be about EUR 35, which is something of a steal in this current climate.

Check out the Nokia 113 at Nokia UK

Nokia Lumia 900 vs Samsung Galaxy S3: The people’s debate!

What do we mean by ‘better supported’, exactly? Let’s consider the competition. When we look at the sprawling Android platform, we see a fragmented and chaotic OS.

This can be witnessed in the numerous versions that exist across dozens of different devices. Do you know how many Android handsets have the latest stock version of the software, as originally conceived by Google, with absolutely no tinkering? We can think of two – and they’re both the officially endorsed Nexus family. There may be a couple of additional ones on certain networks in certain countries, but the predominant trend is for bespoke interfaces.

Every Android handset manufacturer applies their own tweaks to the core Android operating system, which – combined with the ludicrously loose hardware requirements for the OS – means that updating to the latest version can take months or even years. Even if you prefer a certain manufacturer’s take on the OS, is it worth all these delays?

Another result of this lack of clear direction is a fragmented app store, with certain apps and games only running on certain devices – and running optimally on even fewer.

Contrast that with Windows Phone. Microsoft has carefully provided relatively strict hardware requirements for devices running the OS. These stipulate the kind of processor and GPU that can be used, the amount of RAM, as well as a fixed screen resolution. These requirements have just been opened out ever so slightly as Nokia pushes to get an affordable tier of devices into play with the Nokia Lumia 610.

Even then, though, Microsoft’s continued support and refinement of its OS means that even this entry-level device will run the vast majority of applications, and will have full access to Windows Phone services.

In fact, the core Windows Phone 7.5 experience is uniform across all devices, from the aforementioned Nokia Lumia 610 right up to the top of the range Nokia Lumia 900. There are no sweeping modifications – handset manufacturers like Nokia can provided exclusive access to a handful of specialised apps, but the core Windows Phone OS and the Metro UI remain the same.

Why’s this such a good thing? It means that the Windows Phone device you buy will give you the full, uncompromised Windows Phone experience. It means that you won’t have to worry about app compatibility. And it also means that when you hear about an OS update being released, you won’t have to wait for the best part of a year until it finally rolls around to your device.

Some people prefer the openness and freedom of the Android platform, but we’d take the assured user experience and maximum compatibility of the Windows Phone OS any day. What about you?

The Nokia Lumia 900 clearly has its design roots in the Nokia Lumia 800, and before that in the Nokia N9 Meego smartphone which didn’t hit the UK. We find a unibody device that is made from one piece of polycarbonate, so you don’t need to slip the battery in before you can start playing with it. 

Check out our Nokia Lumia 900 unboxing review 

The 4.3-inch screen is an AMOLED display with a reasonable 800 x 480-pixel resolution, so you’ll find that icons and text looks sharp but not overly so on the the display. The use of Nokia ClearBlack Display technology means you’ll be able to use this smartphone out and about in any lighting condition. We’ve been impressed with how bright the display is, and images look great, making it ideal for viewing a web page, reading a message, or even just getting around using Tube Map.

Nokia has made the Nokia Lumia 900 available in black, cyan and white and as you can see from our review images, we’ve kindly been loaned the cyan version. It’s a great looking smartphone and – surprisingly given the size of the screen – it feels highly comfortable and pleasing in the hand.

The Nokia Lumia 900 weighs in at 160g, which is a reasonable weight for this class of smartphone, and it measures in at 127.8 x 68.5 x 11.5 mm. It’s actually a little thinner than the Nokia Lumia 800, which helps add to the overall comfort of the device.

There have been design tweaks from the original Nokia Lumia 800, most notably with the top of the smartphone, as the plastic USB port cover has gone and Nokia has also changed the way you access the microSIM port. These changes make for a smoother profile and hooking up your Nokia Lumia 900 is certainly a lot less fiddly than previously.

The function buttons on the side of the Nokia Lumia 900 have been streamlined but are still as easy to access as with the Nokia Lumia 800. Allowing for the larger screen, Nokia has also tweaked the basic layout of the handset front too. For instance, you’ll find the three touch-sensitive navigation buttons below the screen sit lower and are almost on the lip of the phone, rather than higher on the Nokia Lumia 800.

Then there is the addition of a front-facing video camera – something the Nokia Lumia 800 lacked – so those people who like to carry out video calls can do so with ease.

On the back of the Nokia Lumia 900 you’ll find the now standard 8-Megapixel camera with dual-flash and Carl Zeiss optics. The camera itself is capable of delivering images of 3264 x 2448 pixels in size and the camera comes with a 3x digital zoom.

The big change with the Nokia Lumia 900 software is on the main menu, as you can switch between the front and rear cameras with the tap of a button. The front-facing camera delivers images of 1280 x 720 pixels in resolution from its 1-Megapixel CCD.

We’ll review how well the camera handles in a separate, more detailed review, but for now we can say that it works exceedingly well. The larger screen size makes for a great viewfinder and the Windows Phone Tango update delivers some enhanced photo features.

Windows Phone Tango on the Nokia Lumia 900

The Nokia Lumia 900 is the first handset we’ve seen to come with the Windows Phone Tango update, which is the latest version of the operating system. While it doesn’t bring as many updates or new features as we saw with Mango it does offer an insight into how the platform is developing. For example, you’ll find that Marketplace has now been personalised to suit Nokia more, as denoted by the ‘n’ on the icon, something Microsoft didn’t previously allow.

We’ll look at Windows Phone Tango update features elsewhere, but its most important new feature, support for lower-specced smartphones, isn’t really relevant to the Nokia Lumia 900. However, support for video attachments in text messages and a cap of eight background tasks rather than the previous five are.

Perhaps the big change for Nokia Lumia 900 users is that Internet Sharing, or tethering, is now a reality straight from the box and allows you to hook up your laptop to the internet through the Nokia Lumia 900.

Nokia Lumia 900 Verdict

The Nokia Lumia 900 may bring with it a bigger screen but it is still very much a sleek and highly usable Nokia smartphone. The screen has proved to be bright, bold and highly usable in all situations and with a healthy battery life to match, we’ve found you’ll easily get a working day of checking email and making the most of web services and even the multimedia functions it has to offer.

If you’re in the market for a large screen Windows Phone there is clearly none better than the Nokia Lumia 900. Right now you can even pick it up at a bargain price from Nokia UK, so it’s well worth checking out.

Check out our Nokia Lumia 900 review photo gallery:

Nokia Mix Radio: Revealing the hidden side of John Williams, Ennio Morricone and Disney soundtracks

Matthew is a software engineer involved with the “services behind the scenes that support the software that lives on the devices/phones”. He’s also a bit of an authority on jazz, which is where his work on Mix Radio comes in.

Here we discuss Matthew’s jazz credentials, Miles Davis and the ‘F’ word (fusion, we mean).

NokNok: So, what made you volunteer for the jazz playlists on Mix Radio?

Matthew Daley: I’m a jazz pianist in some of my spare time and I have much experience of playing different types of jazz. So it seemed natural to be involved in some of these playlists.

I play piano in two 17-piece jazz big bands and do occasional small group modern jazz gigs.  I am doing a part time course on composing music for film and television so I write music in a whole range of genres from classical to jazz, rock, electronic; well basically anything as required. Have a look at http://soundcloud.com/matt-daley and send any film composers you know my way

You compiled the “jazz fusion” playlist – you’re not a jazz purist, then?

I am a fan of various forms of jazz.  But I have to say that in creating the jazz rock and fusion playlist I wanted to create a historical view of those forms of music.  I am very keen on fusion (especially works by Pat Metheny and Chick Corea) and some jazz rock music. However, a lot of the early jazz rock I don’t like at all (for example I love lots of what Miles Davis did but his jazz rock records – like Bitches Brew – don’t appeal to me at all. They are harsh and seem directionless). 

However, I included a whole range from the two genres so people could listen to a representative selection of these forms of music from their start in the early 70s to now.

So then, to the ultimate question: Miles Davis or Thelonious Monk?

Miles Davis – for cool, minimal, elegant, thoughtful trumpet (in his work in the 1950s, try albums Miles Ahead or Sketches of Spain) or Miles Davis – for angry, blaring, alienated discordant trumpet (in his jazz rock days, try the album Bitches Brew).

So Miles Davis, then! Thanks for your time, Matthew

Want to see if jazz rock’s for you? Check out Matthew’s playlists on Mix Radio by picking up a Nokia Lumia 800, 900 or 710 and heading to Nokia Music. You won’t regret it.

What is Mix Radio on Nokia Lumia Windows Phone?

Mix Radio is the part of the Nokia Music suite that allows you to stream or download customised playlists based on a genre of music you like.  So what makes it stand out from the crowd? After all, there are plenty of high profile music-streaming services.

We asked Nokia Music Product Owner Melissa Price-Wakefield what she thought made the Mix Radio service unique, and she had this to say:

“It is quite unique. It’s a great service because once you’ve got the phone you don’t have to create an account, you don’t have to pay for any music, you can basically start listening to music for free as soon as you turn on the device. There’s no faffing around with cables (either).”

It’s an interesting point – the key differentiator between Mix Radio and other, more regular music subscription services is a matter of accessibility. While other services have you signing up, filling out online forms and putting in your payment details, Mix Radio lets you jump right in. 

“I don’t know of a service that allows you to do that,” Melissa continues. “Plus be able to find out about gigs. Plus be able to listen to your own music collection – all without a sign-up fee.”

Indeed, when you consider the savings you’ll make with Nokia Mix Radio, it’s even more compelling. Consider the fact that a Mix Radio playlist may be comprised of as many as 300 full music tracks. If you were to purchase those 300 tracks from an MP3 store such as iTunes you could expect to pay around £240!

We’ll get onto the Gigs feature of Nokia Music at another time. For now, just keep in mind that Nokia Mix Radio is the only pre-loaded smartphone music service that lets you listen to and download music for free with absolutely no sign-up. Compelling stuff!

Nokia Lumia 900 vs Samsung Galaxy S3: The people’s debate!

The Nokia Lumia 900 has the biggest screen ever seen in a Nokia device at 4.3-inch, but the Samsung Galaxy Note’s 5.3-inch display fairly dwarfs it. We questioned whether that was a good thing in our original piece – at what point does portability go out of the window?

We also highlighted the Samsung Galaxy Note’s dual-core processor and wondered whether the Android OS – and the vast majority of apps and games – was up to exploiting the extra power. We pointed out that the Windows Phone OS runs beautifully and efficiently on single-core architecture.

You can read the original article here. Right now, we’re going to deal with the feedback we got from Android and Windows Phone fans alike!

Macho agreed with our assertion that the multi-core arms race is somewhat futile when the Nokia Lumia 900 can get similar – and often better – results in key tasks with a single-core processor. “No matter how much power they put in Android with multicores,” he says, “if the OS is crappy and messy where icons and panels are flying everywhere in disarray, the user experience is off-course… uncomfortable.”

Fair point. Macho also reckons that “Nokia Lumia 900 is still the most pleasant phone paired with the elegant, smooth and responsive Windows phone,” and points out that “Metro apps are more attractive compared to iOS/Android counterparts.” We’d agree there – the extra effort developers put in to make their apps fit in with the Windows Phone OS really pays off.

Android fan Dave doesn’t agree. He disputes our point about Android fragmentations, saying that “‘Fragmentation’ in the Android space is actually called ‘choices’ by those of us who aren’t WinPhone or iPhone drones.” Call it what you like, Dave – the fact remains that certain apps and games don’t run on certain Android devices. If that’s what you call choice, well…

One interesting point Dave does make goes back to the old cloud storage debate and the benefits there-of. “As for the cloud,” he says, “how much is your carrier going to charge you for moving a few 4GB movies up and down from the cloud, with your 2GB Limit? And how long will that take?” It might be an issue over a mobile network, for sure, but most of us have frequent access to a Wi-Fi hotspot or five, and are already in the habit of saving any heavy downloading for such times.

Indeed, Google’s pushing as hard as any company in the Cloud storage space, so Android owners might be a little disappointed if they stick to this line!

One final point we’d like to contest is Kamransheikh’s defence of the Samsung Galaxy Note’s size. ”It is only 0.8cm bigger” than the Lumia 900, he suggests, “which makes it an outstanding phone. Who has a pocket which cannot take a 0.8cm bigger device?”

We dare say it’s true that we could all fit a device that’s 8mm bigger than the Lumia 900 in our pockets without issue. Alas, the Galaxy Note is not that device. In fact, it’s 19mm longer and 14.5mm wider than the Nokia Lumia 900. Oh, and 18 grams heavier.

What do you make of the arguments that have been put forward? Would you take the Galaxy Note’s sizeable screen over the Lumia 900′s practical form? Is dual-core really necessary yet? Do you prefer customisation or a streamline UI in your mobile OS? Please do continue the debate in the Comments section below!