This is a guest post by Ben Rudolph, better known as @BenThePCGuy
Well, I made it home from CES 2012 and Las Vegas in one piece. A little tired from a full week of 18 hour days, but given all of the awesomeness that happened in the Windows Phone world during that time it was totally worth it.
We kicked the week off with a bang by announcing 2 new phones – the HTC Titan II and the Nokia Lumia 900. The Titan II is a beast of a phone – 4.7” display, just like its predecessor, but with LTE speed and an upgraded 1.5Ghz Snapdragon S2 processor and a 16MP rear camera (that’s the highest-res camera you can get on any AT&T smartphone). If you’re a photography nerd you know that higher megapixels don’t necessarily mean better photos, but in my early testing that’s not the case with the Titan II. HTC has put a LOT of work into this phone to make sure that the photos you take aren’t just big, they’re beautiful, too.
As impressive as the HTC Titan II is, it was the Nokia Lumia 900 that stole the show. I mean that literally – CNET awarded it the coveted “Best of CES” award, and it pulled in a number of other awards along with it. It’s an amazing piece of industrial design that’s an enlarged and refined version (4.3” display vs. 3.8”, LTE speed) of the award-winning Lumia 800 that Nokia introduced at Nokia World in London back in October. I can’t wait for this one to land in AT&T stores.
So which one is better? That’s hard to say. Asking that kind of question is like asking whether the beefy Ford Mustang Shelby or the sleek Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano is a better car – it all depends on what you’re in to. I have the luxury of knowing that I’ll have both in my bag in just a few months, so I don’t have to choose. Now if I can get that Shelby and 599 into my garage, I’ll be all set…
In addition to showing the world some badass new Windows Phone hardware I had the chance to do something really fun – host the $100 #smokedbywindowsphone challenge. The short version of this is that I was so confident that we built a phone that made the everyday stuff easier and faster that I was willing to put my money where my mouth is. Beat Windows Phone at a common task and you win $100 cash, right on the spot. Lose, and all you have to do is admit that your phone just got smoked by a Windows Phone.
We ran the competition over 2 days, and netted out with a 33 win/3 loss/1 draw record. That’s an 88% win percentage – not bad, right? Watch the video to see a recap of the week’s action:
There are more videos on the Windows Phone YouTube Channel, too.
All in all, a pretty good week! Be sure to find Windows Phone on Facebook to stay current on the latest Windows Phone news, and follow me on Twitter to keep up on my antics.
