Nokia tablet joins Microsoft's gadget push

Nokia’s first Windows tablet, introduced last week, is a colourful device born under some curious omens.

For starters, the Nokia device, named the Lumia 2520, was announced on the same day that Microsoft’s new tablet, the Surface 2, went on sale. Microsoft does not yet own Nokia’s devices business. If it did, it is questionable whether the Surface 2 and Lumia 2520 would both exist, because they are similar in several ways.

The Lumia 2520 and Surface 2 both have screens around 10 inches and run Windows RT, the variation of the Windows operating system designed for thinner, low-power mobile devices based on the ARM class of processors.

The $499 (Rs 30,651)  Lumia tablet comes with access to wireless LTE networks, which Microsoft does not offer in its Surface tablets. (It plans an LTE model next year.)

The Lumia tablet comes in red, blue and other colours, making it look festive compared with the more serious, professional-looking Surface 2. A $149 (Rs 9,152) cover that doubles as a keyboard will be available for the Nokia, as similar products are for the Surface.

Microsoft will not say how it plans to reconcile its Surface product family with Nokia’s tablet when its $7.2 billion deal to buy Nokia’s device business closes, which is expected to occur in the first quarter of next year.

The new Nokia tablet also had the misfortune of being announced on the same day that Apple announced upgrades to its popular iPad products in San Francisco.

Nokia held a press event to announce its new tablet in Abu Dhabi, which is likely to inhibit the attention the product receives.

Nokia chose the location partly because it also announced a range of new mobile phones, and sales of those devices have been better outside the United States and other Western markets.

The most prominent of those new phones is the Lumia 1520, a Windows Phone that will come with a 6-inch display - a giant screen for a smartphone that puts the device firmly in the tablet-phone hybrid category.

The Lumia 1520 will be offered in the United States exclusively on AT&T’s network.
Microsoft and Nokia also took steps to address one of the most glaring holes in the selection of apps available for Windows Phones.

Instagram, the photo site owned by Facebook, will release a Windows Phone version of its app “in the coming weeks,” Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s chief executive, said
in a statement.

Microsoft has been providing financial incentives to developers to encourage more of them to develop apps for Windows Phone, and it has succeeded in getting many of them, including Pandora, to finally join the party. But Instagram, a wildly popular app with young mobile users, had so far eluded Microsoft.

Microsoft also said that Flipboard, a popular app that puts social media news feeds and other information into a magazinelike layout, will be available for Windows 8 tablets like the Lumia 2520 and Windows Phones.