It was a big day in the tech world with major announcements from Nokia and Apple, so this calls for a special edition of Tech with Taylor:
1. Nokia’s first tablet
As the last major company pushing Windows Phone 8, it’s in Nokia’s best interest to make consumers want Windows smart devices.
With Abu Dhabi as the location, Nokia revealed the Lumia 2520, a tablet that looks exactly like the Lumia phones — but with a 10.1-inch screen.
Speaking of that screen, the resolution is a whopping 1920 x 1080, so it should be gorgeous.
There’s a quad-core 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor inside that helps run Windows RT (unfortunately), and 6.7- and 2-megapixel cameras grace the back and front of the device, respectively.
The 2025 might also be one of the last Windows RT tablets to hit the market — other companies aren’t exactly thrilled with the lukewarm reception Windows tablets have gotten.
It’s competitively priced with other tablets like the iPad at $499 and comes with 32 GB of storage.
Phablets
The Finnish company also announced new 6-inch Windows Phone, the Lumia 1520.
It’s a stupidly large phone, on par with the Galaxy Note III in terms of pure absurdness.
But, it has a 1080p screen, which is gorgeous, and the same quad-core Snapdragon processor found in the 2025.
There’s also a typically great 20-megapixel PureView camera on the back.
Strangely, there’s no stylus support.
Off-contract, the phone is a pricey $749, but AT&T will be the official carrier in the U.S.
Additionally, all Nokia PureView cameras on all Nokia devices also get RAW file support.
Basically, RAW files are the digital equivalent of film negatives — a type of file that can be more intricately edited than the standard JPEG.
2. Apple’s Fall Conference
Cupertino had another one of its yearly conferences Tuesday, and announced a slew of new products — all of which, we were expecting.
iPad Air
Yeah, the name sucks, but that’s an apt description for a 10-inch tablet that weighs a single pound.
It’s 28 percent lighter and 20 percent thinner than the previous iPad, and manages to pack more juice under-the-hood than last year’s model.
That’s in part thanks to the new aluminum body (like the iPad Mini) that sports a smaller bezel and overall footprint than its predecessor.
The iPad Air also has the same 64-bit A7 processor found in the iPhone 5S — delivering double the CPU and graphics performance as the A6 while keeping battery life at an efficient 10 hours.
It has the the same Retina Display we’ve come to know and love, and the same price — $499 for the 16GB, Wi-Fi only version, and $629 to add 4G support, with prices increasing with storage.
iPad 2
The iPad 2 (circa 2011) is also still on sale, with a starting price at $399 for 16GB.
What? This is like walking into an Apple store today and buying an iPhone 4 off-contract. 2011 was at least three impending government defaults ago — I like to keep my devices up-to-date.
iPad Mini with Retina Display
In another example showing Apple’s creative woes seemingly have no end, the iPad Mini with Retina Display (also known as iPMRD, a helpful acronym I’ve created to illustrate a point) is the iPad Mini everyone wanted a year ago.
Instead, we got it $70 more expensive and had to wait a year.
The iPMRD has the same internals as the iPad Air, except in a smaller aluminum body that sports a 7.9-inch display, costing a whopping $399 for 16GB, Wi-Fi only.
iPMRD with cellular starts at $529.
Yes, it’s too expensive, but what Apple product isn’t? Besides, you can always buy last year’s model:
Last Year’s Model (iPad Mini)
$299 for 16GB. It’s the price everyone wanted a year late as well.
All new iPads are available starting Nov. 1, and all are notably lacking rumored features like the fingerprint scanner found on the iPhone 5S
Okay. That’s it for the tablets. Moving on.
Mac Pro
The futuristic, weirdly designed device finally has a “concrete” release date of December, but media members were able to see the computer without plexiglass in the way. The final cost is $2,999
MacBook Pro with Retina Display
Hooray for incremental upgrades!
The 13- and 15-inch models of Apple’s hi-res laptops both received refreshes during the conference.
Firstly there’s the price — $1,299 for the 13-inch and $1,999 for the 15-inch — which is a slight improvement over the old models.
The smaller variation received the biggest upgrade, it’s slimmer, lighter and much, much faster than the first generation MBPWRD.
There are options up to 2.6 or 2.8GHz dual-core Intel i7 processors and a whopping 16GB of RAM, both of which are far, far more than what the average college student needs. But, if you’re heavy into video or photo editing, then the extra investment might be worth it.
OS X Mavericks
Arguably the biggest surprise of the conference was the immediate release of OS X 10.9 Mavericks — Apple’s latest computer operating system — for the wonderful price of totally free.
The main reasoning for this is, at least in my opinion, that Mavericks isn’t a huge upgrade. It’s more incremental, with minor updates to Finder, Safari and the addition of iBooks and Maps. It’s also claimed to be more efficient than previous OS’, at least according to Apple.
I’ve only been using it for a few hours, but I’ll have a more in-depth opinion by the next post.
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Phew. That’s a lot of news for one day.
But, we got through it all. Make sure to check back Thursday, when I’ll have updates on the non-Apple/Nokia news of the week, and as always, keep it tuned to Tech with Taylor for the latest and greatest in tech.
Also, I really like the new iPhone 5S commercial. The song, “Ooh La La” by Goldfrapp, is really good.
