DIGITAL PARK

The majority of this year without releasing a thing — thanks to its make-or-break deal with Microsoft— Nokia has returned to the game with the Nokia Lumia 800 ($600). Packing the latest version ofWindows Phone, it offers a 3.7-inch AMOLED curved display, a 1.4 GHz processor, an eight-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, 16GB of storage, and a durable polycarbonate plastic body in cyan, magenta, or black. The Nokia Lumia 800is a mobile milestone. It’s the first Nokia phone that runs on Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system and is the first offering from Nokia for a long time that looks like it can go some way to reclaiming former glories. Though it runs onWindows Phone (meaning it’ll handle more or less the same as phones like the HTC Titan and the forthcoming Samsung Omnia W) that hasn’t stopped Nokia putting its own spin on the user experience by way of some custom apps. Nokia Music, a Last.fm style streaming service with offline syncing and Nokia Drive, a sat nav service with turn-by-turn directions will come pre-installed on the Lumia 800, as will a forthcoming sports new app developed with ESPN and a public transport app populated with transport information from 460 cities worldwide.