Engadget’s smartphone buyer’s guide: fall 2012 edition

Engadget's smartphone buyer's guide fall 2012 edition

Shopping for a smartphone can be an exciting and arduous experience. Along with the promise of something new and fantastic, it brings the fear of commitment, and even worse, the prospect of saddling yourself to a lousy device for two years. Fortunately for you, Engadget spends tons of time playing with the latest gear and we're constantly on the lookout for what's coming next. If you're wanting to take the pain out of shopping for a smartphone, you've come to the right place. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Engadget's smartphone buyer's guide: your one-stop resource to finding the best and most exciting handsets on the market today.

Before you dive in, however, we've introduced a few changes to the buyer's guide, so take a minute to prepare yourself for what's in store. First and foremost, you'll now find alternate selections to supplement our top picks. This should already be familiar to many of you, which is the same format we use for our seasonal gift guides. The next one is a biggie: we've dropped the QWERTY selection. By and large, manufacturers and carriers alike have shifted their focus away from keyboard-equipped smartphones, and you'll rarely find more than one option on any given carrier. That said, if you still insist on the tactile experience, you'll always find everything you need to know in our reviews. Finally, whenever possible, you'll now find prices from Amazon Wireless, which allows us to provide you with more compelling budget selections and highlight the substantial savings that you can score by circumventing the carriers. It's not like they need your charity, anyway.

If you're curious to see how it all unfolded -- and we know you are -- join us after the break, where we round up the very best smartphones of the season.

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Engadget's smartphone buyer's guide: fall 2012 edition originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia Lumia 810 for T-Mobile hands-on

Nokia Lumia 810 for TMobile handson

T-Mobile's not being shy in its selection of Windows Phone 8 offerings, so far announcing plans to release the HTC Windows Phone 8X, 8S and Nokia Lumia 810, but unfortunately it does have to be shy in actually showing them off. The carrier's booth at tonight's MobileCon 2012-related event had the latter device, but wasn't able to turn it on for us (a situation that we've sadly come to expect with virtually every public appearance by a WP8 device). Technically, the 810 is being dubbed a T-Mobile "exclusive" in the US, but that takes on very little meaning when given its use of a AWS-friendly HSPA+ 42Mbps radio. It bears some family resemblance in specs and looks to its cousin, the Lumia 820, but it still keeps to a distinct design; the 8MP rear camera panel is laid out vertically (see also: Lumia 800) rather than horizontally, the LED flash is off to its side, and the 1.2MP front-facing camera is on the opposite side of the earpiece. It's still a little thicker (10.9mm, 0.43 inches) and heavier (5.11 ounces, 145g) than we'd like to see on a midrange device, which is mainly a result of the 810's exchangeable wireless charging shells (it's available in cyan and black). The Lumia 810 also features a 4.3-inch OLED WVGA (800 x 480) ClearBlack display offering a pixel density of 217ppi. Naturally we'll need to put this to the test once we're allowed to turn it on, but we expect this to be roughly the same quality as the Lumia 900. We'll let you know when more specs come our way, but in the meantime take a look at our hands-on images below.

Myriam Joire contributed to this post.

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Nokia Lumia 810 for T-Mobile hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile to offer the Nokia Lumia 810 exclusively in the U.S.

TMobile to Offer the Nokia Lumia 810 exclusively in the US

T-Mobile announced on Monday that it will exclusively offer the Nokia Lumia 810 in the United States. Set to be available "in the coming weeks," the 810 features a 4.3-inch OLED WVGA Clear Black display, an 8-megapixel Carl Zeiss optics rear-facing camera, a 1.2-megapixel Skype HD-certified front-facing shooter, Windows Phone 8 and support for T-Mobile's HSPA+ faux 4G network. If those specs sound a little familiar, they should -- the 810 seems quite a bit similar to the already announced 820. There are some details absent from this release, however, including CPU, storage, RAM and pricing, but we expect this to be remedied in the coming days. Now that T-Mobile and Ma Bell have called dibs on some of Nokia's first wave of Windows Phone 8 devices, we're left to wonder if America's other two major wireless carriers will soon get with the program.

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T-Mobile to offer the Nokia Lumia 810 exclusively in the U.S. originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Oct 2012 15:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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