Microsoft Devices has announced that the Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphone family in the region will receive the new Windows Phone 8.1 update on all Lumia devices in the coming weeks.
“The upgrade allows consumers to make their Lumia handset more personal, fun and indispensable, with the new features there to make life simpler. With this latest upgrade, our customers will receive an unbeatable smartphone experience with Windows Phone 8.1 and signature Lumia design and experiences”, said Vithesh Reddy, General Manager Lower Gulf, Microsoft Mobile Devices.
The home screen has a third column of customized Live Tiles, plus a feature introduced with Windows 8.1 allows consumers to use a photo as a background image on the Start screen. The People Hub also gets even better, and is the one-stop shop to the address book and social networks. Action Center, is the key to all settings and with one swipe it acts as a mini dashboard to make the Lumia experience even faster. Consumers can now easily customize settings and app notifications as well as change settings such as Wi-Fi and Flight mode.
Wi-Fi Sense automatically connects a Lumia device to free Wi-Fi hotspots around the world and even takes care of the annoying part of putting in personal details automatically.
Word Flow is the most intuitive smartphone keyboard out there. When gliding a finger over the letters on the screen and the new keyboard will do the rest. Word Flow will also correct words as consumer’s swipe and predict most frequently used expressions.
The Windows 8.1 update will also improve the already powerful Nokia Camera, Creative Studio and Storyteller apps. Nokia Camera gets a simplified user interface with one-tap access to edit and share pictures, and full-resolution zooming, re-framing and Creative Studio 6 (CS6) are available directly from the renewed Camera Roll.
Among the built-in tools: Office for Windows Phone allows consumers to see, edit, save and share Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and OneNote notebooks on the go; Outlook, Skype and OneDrive to communicate and collaborate seamlessly. Microsoft’s Screen Share technology allows Lumia 1520 users to project content to connected screens like a smart TV or projector.
The update has started rolling out around the world and will be available for all Windows Phone 8 Lumia devices in the region in the coming weeks.
