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A couple of weeks ago we launched a competition that challenged your creativity. It was sparked by the inspirational Caine and his Cardboard Arcade, and we threw out the challenge for you to come up with your own cardboard Nokia (or photo) in the #NokiaCardboardChallenge.

And the level of entries has astonished us. The attention to detail and sheer dedication to making these cardboard Nokias and photographs is awesome. The Nokia Lumia above from Ronilson, for example, not only has accurate icons, but  a wireless charging mat. And how about these cardboard Monster headphones – the entry of Davide Ilvicino Marin?

The other part of the challenge was to reproduce a photo that has been taken on your Nokia, and there have been some great examples, like this one from Waldemar Mlynarski:

And there’s still time to get your entry in (either in the comments to the original post, this one or on Twitter using #NokiaCardboardChallenge)! The competition doesn’t close until midnight on Sunday 21st October. Take a look at the full Ts & Cs before you get cutting and sticking, and we look forward to seeing some more amazing entries.

While the latest Nokia Lumia smartphones are capable of running high-def, 3D, physics-based games, there’s something quite charming about those retro games we all (anyone above the age of 30) played as kids. Fortunately, there’s a bunch of these games available on Windows Phone Store for those who fancy a bit of old-school gaming.

For those who remember, arcade games could only be played on an arcade machine, or in later years by buying a cassette tape and loading it up on a gaming system at home that took about half an hour to load. Now, you can play some of those same games by just pressing play on your touchscreen.

Frogger – £2.29 ($2.99)

Initially released in 1981 (yes, that makes it 31 years old), Frogger is an arcade classic.

The aim of the game is to get a family of frogs home, avoiding all the deathly obstacles in their way.

Starting at the bottom of the screen, your frog attempts to cross a busy highway. Your duty is to make sure he crosses the road safely by dragging him from his current position to the desired one. Move your frog up to progress and to reach the next lane, or left, right and backwards if need be – what ever it takes to avoid the never-ending automotive-assault.

Once you’ve made it off the tarmac, you reach the bank of the river. Here you can compose yourself, take a breath and figure out how best to proceed. Your next task is to make it across the river and to your home on the other side. Leap onto the backs of turtles, crocodiles and logs as the float and swim up and down stream.

With all moving at different speeds and in different directions, you have to time your jumps right. The chances are, you’ll need to jump backwards a few times as you’re swept downstream and away from another moving platform.

Pac-Man – £3.99 ($4.99)

Pac-Man is even older than Frogger. It was first released in Japan in 1980 – ageing it to 32 years old.

You play as Pac-Man, a round yellow man (more of a blob, really) with nothing but a large mouth that’s used to defend and attack.

The playing arena is a very simple maze that contains you, four enemies known as Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde (ghosts), and a trail of pellets. Pac-Man’s mission is to eat all the pellets to advance to the next stage. However, the four ghosts will try their best to stop you, by following you, predicting your next move in the maze and taking away precious lives once they catch you.

You can get your own back, of course, by collecting any of the four larger, flashing power pellets. Once you’ve eaten one, the enemy runs away in fear and here’s your chance to eat them. The effect is only temporary, though, so gobble them up quickly.

Progressing through the levels offers much the same gameplay as the first level, but the ghosts are less susceptible to the power pellets.

On the Windows Phone version, Pac-Man is controlled by using a virtual joystick at the bottom of the screen. Push the stick in the direction you want to go – simple.

Pong7 – £Free

Pong is the oldest game of the three, dating back to 1972 and is a simulated table tennis game.

Because the game dates back 40 years, the graphics and gameplay are very simple. A ball is bounced between two bats; one controlled by you and the other controlled by a teammate, or a computer player. If you choose the two-player option in this version, you’ll have to get your friend to sit opposite you and control the other bat on your screen – which could prove tricky, but still fun.

When the ball is released in the centre of the screen, hold your finger on your bat and drag it left and right (or up and down, depending on how you’re holding the phone) and try to bounce the ball back across the screen to your opponent. After a few volleys back and forth and the ball speeds up rapidly, making it very hard to make the return hit.

The first player to reach nine wins the game.

All these great old-school games are available on the Nokia Lumia 610, Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 900.

What was your favourite game when you were a kid? Was it one of these games? Let us know, in the comments below.

Image credit: garann

We love it when our community members take time out to review our Lumia 900 phones in great detail. Nothing beats a long and honest video review in my eyes. After all, it’s important to get to grips with everything the phone has to offer.

“This is by far my longest video yet but I think the experience with the Lumia 900 deserves the attention”.

So, that’s precisely the reason why this video review below really caught my eye recently. Martin Magnificent (from @MagnificentIsMe) took a considerable amount of time out of his hectic schedule to pick apart the Lumia 900, and believe me, he literally leaves no stone unturned…enjoy!

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Martin’s overall review was very positive and he gave the phone an ‘excellent’ rating at the end of the video (I particularly enjoyed the fact he was asked by a girl on the bus about the phone on 14:28!).

He claimed that the Lumia family were the torch bearers for the Windows operating system moving forward and even noticed a little love triangle going on:

“The Lumia 900 is based on a love triangle, the three members of the love triangle are: design, functionality and simplicity. This love triangle is what makes the phone so great!”

Don’t forget to check out his extended thoughts in the YouTube video description, once again Martin is very thorough! Thanks very much Martin…

Do you have any reviews you would to share with us? Have you managed to trial a Nokia phone yet? Well get in touch with us via @Nokia_Connects or head to our Trial a Nokia page for more information. 

The U.S. elections are coming up on November 6, which means politics, candidates and issues are at the forefront of many American conversations. Of course we have traditional media such as TV and radio to keep us “in the loop” as candidates make their pitches and issues are debated, examined and politicized. 

However, for this election season, many more of us have smartphones in our pockets, and there are some amazing apps and services for Lumia that can make your phone an important partner in your quest to be an informed citizen. 

Stay informed

There are a lot of claims being made and positions being thrown around in media, whether it’s during the presidential debates or about your local ballot measures. Here are a few ways your smartphone can help you be smarter about the political landscape:

CNN – The Nokia-exclusive CNN application is a must-have for the current news and issues at the national level. CNN’s app is updated around the clock with the latest developments from the presidential race and every other race with national significance. 

Newser – For a really nice view of the day’s top stories (with lots of election topics this time a year), check out Newser. Every day, editorial staff members select 60 of the most essential and often quirky news stories and summarize them in two paragraphs each. Newser is easy on the eyes and has a nice grid layout for getting to interesting stories fast. 

BaconIt – Reddit is one of the most visited websites on the Internet and it’s because the Reddit community always has relevant and interesting stories being discussed, no matter the time of day. Baconit is a Reddit app made for Lumia phones that brings the best of Reddit straight to your hand.

Reddit not only has relevant and thought-provoking news (with lots of elections items this time of year), but also adds humorous stories, all driven by the “upvotes” of other Reddit users.

Do your research

Sometimes you just want the facts, such as how your elected officials have voted, what committees they’re on – and what they’re saying on Twitter and on video. Congress is an app that delivers your elected officials’ names and contact information, based on your location. You can also read about their latest news stories, tweets and videos, all from this well designed and factual app. 

What is the current mood on Twitter? With election events happening each and every day, it’s interesting to see what the sentiment is on Twitter. PolitiTrends tracks current tweets about the 2012 presidential candidates. The app is updated every 20 minutes with the most talked about election news, most re-tweeted comments and candidate popularity. If you’re wondering what Twitter is saying about the presidential candidates, this app is your best friend.

2012 U.S. Elections brings you all the top images, news stories and analysis from multiple news agencies all in one app. The news sources range from the Wall Street Journal, to Politico and USA TODAY – with many others. This app is a must-have if you want perspective from across the news world via one convenient interface.

Stay light hearted

It’s so easy to get caught up in the emotion and drama of an election.  But sometimes it’s good to take a step back and bring humor back into the situation, especially  when you and your friends get into a heated discussion about an issue or candidate. Funniest Political Jokes FREE is a fantastic gallery featuring top and classical political jokes. The jokes are hand-picked and are sure to bring some humor to your day.

If you find a joke you like, you can easily share it with friends via email or text messaging…perfect for sharing the essential laugh. 

What apps are keeping you “in the loop” this election season?

Image credit: Beverly & Pack and Nidreas

One of the things that delighted me most about the Nokia Asha 311 was its extensive range of photo editing and effects options. I mentioned it briefly in my review of the device a few weeks ago but I think this now deserves to be considered in more detail. 

We expect our mobile phones to have some basic photo editing features, such as cropping, rotating or adjusting the brightness and contrast. 

There are also dozens of editing and photo effects apps that you can download in the Nokia Store. However, what really surprised me was the depth and range of photo editing options already available on the Asha 311.

You can spend plenty of time making your images look more fun, retro, sharper, colourful or downright strange using the native photo editor on the Asha 311 before you ever need to download a photo app.

The editing options 

Let’s go through some of the options and help you get started on transforming your day-to-day images into something extraordinary and artful. 

First you need to open the Gallery to look through your pictures. Tap on a specific image to bring it to full screen and then tap once anywhere on the display to bring up some options, such as delete, send or go back to the gallery view.

To edit the photo, press the ‘more’ icon with the 3 horizontal stripes in the corner – this brings up a menu where you can select ‘edit photo’. 

Here is the full list of photo editing options that will appear on the screen. 

• Rotate and flip
• Crop
• Effects
• Warp
• Frames
• Clip Art
• Text
• Brightness and contrast
• Auto enhance
• Colour

Obviously, for any given photo you will probably not go through every single effect or editing function! However, there are a couple of things worth keeping in mind.

1. You can see the changes on screen but the effect is not saved until you have pressed the tick icon.
2. Even when you have pressed the icon to save, your phone creates a new image with your changes, so the original photo is left in tact.

Hopefully, this will give you the reassurance and freedom to let your imagination and creativity run riot!

Rotate and flip

You can rotate the image clockwise and anti-clockwise 90 degrees at a time. You can also flip the image either horizontally or vertically.

You just press any of these four options along the bottom of the screen and you’ll see the image changing in real-time. If you like it, don’t forget to press save, or alternatively hit back to return to main editing menu. 

Crop

Pinch and zoom in (or out) using two fingers on the highlighted area of the photo that you wish to crop.

Using one finger, you can also move the highlighted area to crop around a different part of the photo. 

Effects

Selecting Effects lets you scroll through a horizontal menu of many different effects and filters that can be applied to your photo.

Nothing is permanent until it has been saved so you might as well have fun seeing how your photo looks in oil paint, negative, solarise, blur and so on.

Warp 

Remember those trick mirrors that they have at the circus? This is a 21^st century version of that. 

Again, there are several variations – Squish, Swirl, Bulge, Stretch and Squeeze. What’s really clever is that there is a slider where you can control how much of each specific warp is applied.

Frames 

Choose a frame to go around your photo.  To go through each frame in quick succession, you only need to swipe across the screen.

My favourites were the newspaper and the VIP access frames.

Clip Art 

This is where things start to really surreal. Ranging from crowns, comedy glasses to a magician’s hat you can adorn your friends with all manner of comedy objects. In other words, you can make them look really silly.

After choosing an object, you can also adjust the size and move it around the photo for a perfect fit.

Text

Add text to the photo by simply typing in the message box. You can add whatever you want, although I guess most common will be names, locations or personal messages such as happy birthday.

Again, once you have written the text you can move it around the photo and adjust the size.

Brightness and contrast

Here, two straightforward sliders to let you adjust the brightness and contrast of the photo. This helps you to get the exact look that you want and is especially helpful for giving dark photos a colour boost.

Auto enhance

For much simpler corrections of brightness and contrast you may want to give the auto enhance feature a try.

This has further options for auto-colour, auto-levels, auto brightness and contrast and filling in the light.

Colour 

Again, if you’d rather take control rather than using the auto-enhance options then you can also adjust the colour manually.

There is a slider each that lets you adjust the Red, Blue and Green.

All these editing options are really simple to use and lots of fun. You can see the changes to your photo as soon as you’ve tapped on the screen. Don’t like what you’ve done? Try again!

Let us know how you have been getting on with the photo editing features on your Asha Touch device.

Smartphones are an amazing tool to help us to connect to a wide variety of people using an even wider set of services. Facebook helps us connect to old school chums, Twitter lets us connect directly to our favourite celebs or brands, and Foursquare helps us share travelling experiences with anybody who will listen. Long gone is the little black book, it’s now the smartphone that controls your social life and even helps to improve it.

Every Nokia Lumia is armed with the necessary features to connect you to your social networks. You can directly see what your friends or followers are doing right from within the People Hub, thanks to the tight OS integration.

However, there are times when we’re all guilty of not connecting as much as we should with our friends, virtual friends or family. I’m guilty of it fairly frequently. There’s one online service that helps you keep tabs on your online activity and scores you for your efforts, and that’s called Klout.

Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820

Our first Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Be a part of it.

Klout was created to encourage people to influence the world around them and to be active, rather than just sit back and passively let opportunities pass them by.

Using clever analysis, Klout looks at how much you tweet, update, like or are mentioned online and calculates your score based on those numbers. If, when you check the next time, that number has dropped a couple of points, you’ve clearly been neglecting your online friends and followers. If it’s risen, then good job! You’re upping your social performance.

With Klout kikimeter installed on your Nokia Lumia, you’re only a Live Tile away from your Klout score. Klout kikimeter shows you precisely if your score has risen or fallen over the course of one and five days and is updated daily so you’re never caught by surprise.

Don’t take your Klout score too seriously: it’s just a bit of fun. There are far more important things to worry about in life. And really, if you’re only Tweeting or Liking to increase your score, then you’re probably just adding to the noise, rather than making a genuine connection with anyone.

Oops! As you can see by my stats, I’ve not been very active on Twitter or Facebook over the past five days, and I’m almost down a whole point. I better do something about it.

Sign up for Klout, install Klout kikimeter and pin the Live Tile to your Start Screen. Klout kikimeter is available on the Nokia Lumia 610, Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 900, for free.

Do you use your mobile phone to stay engaged with your friends, or use Klout to remind you to be active? Let us know, in the comments below.

Image credit: crest_of_the_wave

The other week, we took you through how to make the most of your camera settings in order to take the best possible photo, using the macro mode, changing the exposure value, and the ISO settings. Today, we’re looking at the rest of the camera settings on your Nokia Lumia.

Saturation

Nokia camera phones are built to produce as real to life photos as possible, but they may be times when you want to add more colour into your images. By using the Saturation option in the settings, you can fill your photos with lush, vivid colours, reminiscent of a fairytale. Or, turn it right the way down to add a certain dreary look.

With the saturation set to maximum, you’re often left with less detail on the subject as the colour takes over quite a bit.

Contrast

Should you want to, you can change the contrast of a photo before you take it. This is often an operation that’s easily achievable in desktop software, however, it’s good to have the option to change it on-board.

Flicker Reduction

This will only be useful when taking photos indoors and under certain lighting conditions. This reduces the flickering of lights – between 50Hz and 60Hz – that your camera might pick up on the photo.

Resolution

If you want to take photos in a different resolution to the standard one provided by your phone, you can. Choose between: 8MP 4:3, 7MP 16:9, 3MP 4:3, and 2MP 16:9.

Scenes

Changing settings in your phone can be daunting, especially when you’re looking at numbers and levels. If you’re looking for a simpler, and less scary, way to improve your photo taking, the Scenes section looks to be the easiest way. Using named scenarios like: Beach, Candlelight, Snow, or Sunset, you’ll know exactly what setting to use under different conditions.

White Balance

This is similar to the Scenes function. You can select a different option to reflect the lighting environment around you.

Metering Mode

This is a very clever function; let’s explain it with an example. Let’s say you’ve got a person standing against an empty sky, with the sun directly behind him, pressing the camera button will always absorb light from all of the image and mostly from the centre. This would cast a silhouette of the person and the glare of the sun would almost certainly engulf the subject. Changing the metering mode tells the camera to take light from another light-source.

If the bright sun is the centre of the screen and a person is on the right, pressing on the subjects sun-lit (but not as bright as the sun itself) face will absorb at that level – not the sun. This will give you more detail where you want it most.

Effects

Adding special effects after you’ve taken a photo is something we all do now. But you can add some effects before you’ve taken the picture, too. Admittedly, it’s not a big range of effects, but some basic ones we’re all used to: Black & White, Sepia, Negative, Solarise and Normal.

Whatever setting you’ve enabled or adjusted, don’t forget to press Save settings to make sure your next photo uses the desired effect.

Do you make use of the settings in your camera, or do you just point and shoot? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.

Shanghai surprise! Time magazine once labelled it the ‘world’s most happening city.’ It has come a long way, China’s place ‘above the sea’, from squelchy farmland to something truly spectacular. What better place then for people to get a taste of the amazing everyday. If you’re one of life’s adventurers, to whom a new city means infinite new experiences waiting to happen, here’s why you’ll love Shanghai. 

It never sleeps, stops or lives in black and white

This city’s colours would make a rainbow blush. Neon nights. Frau Ana fashion. A brave bright metropolis that attracts graffiti artists, DJs, film makers, musicians and even architecture aficionados.  

Think Art Deco, Gothic, Baroque and Romanesque buildings on the Bund (Zhongshan Dongyi Road.) Or modern hustling market life and space age buildings straight from Blade Runner in the rest of the city. The scenic Yu Garden, Shanghai Zoo….the buzz here is incredible. Increasingly popular film, art, and music festivals exist side by side with the traditional Lantern and Dragon boat festivals. It’s impossible to be bored.

It oozes art and culture

Moganshan Art Centre (called M50) is the place to be if artists telling stories in interesting ways turn you on. There are galleries, studios, workshops and painters like Wang Xingwei who attract international collectors.

Not forgetting the influx of international companies and clothes shops in the area. Art is popular: a 2,500 strong snake-like queue of people rocked up to the new Power Station of Art recently. In 12 halls, 98 artists from 27 countries were exhibited.

You can eat your way to heaven

So much choice! Choose from four menus and indulge in champagne and candlelit gazing at The Cupola. Find lunchtime treat Bouquet hidden on the third floor of Xinhua Bookstore. Or seek out delicacies like ‘hairy crab’ or even risk a Pi Dan (a so-called 1,000 year old egg) Shanghai’s ‘secret’ blend that makes up their characteristically gloopy sauce is deceptively simple soy sauce and sugar.

You can flip between fine dining and street smart on a whim. Xiaolongbao (pork dumplings) at Fu Chun will see you probably sharing a lively table with a complete stranger. Hungry for it yet?

Give your ears a treat

Every year the World Music Festival here gets bigger, an indication of just how much music matters to the region. Even the taxi drivers sing. There are gigs during the Festival happening at places all over Shanghai.

But all year round, whatever your musical taste – garage, blues or opera – you will find a somewhere to listen. Live gigs happen at The Shelter or if you fancy a bit of jazz – Cigar, Jazz, Wine is the place to hang. You can’t ignore the musicality of the city.

It’s so quirky you’ll fall in love

In People’s Park, older people pin up sheets with details of their single children – interesting facts about them, physical attributes and even salary. There are folks happily doing karaoke in Fuxing Park and outdoor ballroom dancing …. just about anywhere.

Things getting a bit frenetic? Then jump on board a boat along the Huang Pu River and get a slower, different perspective on the city. Whatever you choose, it will get the adrenalin pumping and before you know it, you will be happily Shanghaied.

Eager to visit the largest proper city in the world? Or already enjoyed its pleasures? Either way, we’d love to hear your thoughts about this incredible metropolis.

Image credit: KittyKaht + adactio + JSolomon+Malik Aberkane

Two weeks ago Nokia travelled around the world to take part in and sponsor Social Media Week, for the 4th time running no less!

During the week speakers from various companies, organisations and professions, came together to talk about the impact of social media, socially, commercially and economically.

The event is an open forum where people can come for free, to teach, listen and share new ideas. Nokia are proud to be a sponsor of such a collaborative event, and here’s a short video from some of the top bodies in the Nokia Social team, to tell you a little bit about why it’s special, and how it’s helping to educate people regarding social media.

If this kind of thing interests you or you have some ideas or insight to share, I definitely recommend that you get involved. It’s free to attend and runs in many different countries, and as Carla said in the video, expansion to more countries may be on the horizon soon.

Od jutra zmieniają się ceny następujących telefonów: BlackBerry Bold 9900 BlackBerry Curve 9360 HTC Desire C HTC One S HTC One V HTC One X Motorola RAZR XT910 Nokia E6-00 Samsung i8160 Galaxy Ace II Samsung i9000 Galaxy S Samsung i9001 Galaxy S+ Samsung N7000 Galaxy Note Samsung S5830 Galaxy Ace Samsung S8600 Wave III [...]