Enjoy our roundup of ten mobile phone related news stories you may have missed this week including news of Sony Ericsson’s re-branding, and the chance of Instagram hitting WP7 before Android…

Nokia has confirmed that it will be exhibiting its products at the 2012 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next month, ending a three-year exile…

This is the year millions of owners of so-called feature phones — devices which handle little beyond voice calls, texts, and photos — will finally upgrade to true smartphones.

At least, that’s the hope of Microsoft and Nokia. The two tech giants have been floundering to get a foothold in the U.S. smartphone market ever since the iPhone launched in 2007. The two companies have partnered up to make a more cohesive play in the realm of touchscreens, apps, and streaming media, and this is their most accessible U.S.-bound device so far.

The Nokia Lumia 710 runs the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system. It’s not the beefed-up, feature-filled flagship phone for Windows Phone 7 fans to rally around. We saw that device, the Lumia 800, last month. But in all honesty, the 710 is an absolutely terrific option for the entry-level consumer.

Aside from being 4G, most of its specs tends towards “good enough.” But with a $50 price point and the ability to pair it with a low-cost data plan from T-Mobile, it’s cheap enough that even those living paycheck-to-paycheck wouldn’t bat an eye.

Windows Phone Mango seems like a lightweight OS compared to something like an HTC Sense-skinned Android. Why do I say that? The 710 runs on merely a single-core 1400 MHz Qualcomm processor with 512 MB of SDRAM, and yet the experience is quite smooth — just as you’d expect it would run on stronger hardware.

The 710’s 3.7-inch, 800×480 resolution ClearBlack LCD display isn’t as bright as that of its big sister, the Lumia 800. But unless you held the two Nokias side by side, you wouldn’t really feel like you’re missing anything. Colors are rich and images are sharp. There just isn’t that Pow! you get from something like a Super AMOLED screen.

The Lumia 710 feels almost like a large pebble when you hold it in your hand. The backside is curved and rubberized, which makes for a firm, comfortable grip. Rather than rely on the capacitive touch buttons common to the faces of most Windows Phone and Android devices, the 710 has a (likely more cost-effective) raised gummy button across the bottom of the front of the handset. It acts as a home button among other things. A discrete shutter button and volume rocker grace one side of the device.

Pictures from the 5-megapixel rear-facing camera are about on-par with that of the iPhone 4 (not the 4S). If you prefer to use the hardware shutter button over the onscreen controls, your photos will turn out slightly blurry unless you have an extremely steady hand. The single LED flash is strong. All in all, the camera is good, but not graceful.

Battery life is excellent — under regular use, the phone lasted about two days between charges.

The only quibble I had with this handset as opposed to other Windows Phone devices I’ve encountered was that it often took a few tries to successfully click a link from a tweet or status update in People Hub, as if I needed to tap the link in a particular spot (rather than anywhere on the URL) for the gesture to register.

This phone is proof that you don’t need top-of-the-line tech specs for a great mobile experience. Like the other cheap Windows Phone for T-Mobile, the HTC Radar, it’s good at everything it does, but it’s not out there to wow you. Although it’s targeted at new smartphone converts, in reality, the Nokia 710 is a good option for anyone looking for a phone with a new flavor and a lot of bang for your buck.

WIRED Cheap. Comfortable size, shape and materials. Comes with enough built-in apps and services (ESPN, Netflix, The Weather Channel, My Account) to be convenient, but not overburdened. Comes in black or white.

TIRED Call quality sounds slightly muddy, even though you sound very clear to people on the other end. Can only record video by pressing the hardware button. 8GB of storage, but not expandable — there’s no SD card slot.

Photo by Jon Snyder/Wired

Stephen Elop has quashed rumours suggesting that Samsung is in talks to buy Nokia.The news comes a week after Microsoft was said to be lining up a bid for the company…

Nokia will not solely use the Qualcomm chip in their planned Windows Phone 7 handsets according to reports. Business news outlet Forbes say that at least some of the new Nokia phones will ship using a chip from ST-Ericsson, a joint venture between Ericsson and STMicroelectronics.

What makes this interesting is that the use of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 1GHz processor has been standard across existing Windows Phone 7 handsets, and a part of Microsoft’s guidelines for the platform. While Qualcomm’s name has never explicitly been mentioned, they command more than 40% market share, and are used in the majority of devices from HTC, Samsung and LG.

The chip rumoured to be used in the forthcoming Nokia phone is the NovaThor u8500 system-on-a-chip. The dual-core processor is the first to offer 1080 progressive scan video recording and supports cameras up to 20 megapixels, which should certainly appeal to Nokia’s love of high-end camera phones. Additionally, it has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS, plus built-in USB 2.0 and HDMI-out capabilities. The u8500 is built around the ARM Cortex A9 and has a 3D graphics accelerator.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how the u8500 performs in comparison to its Snapdragon and Tegra peers, and according to ST-Ericsson, they’re in talks with seven of the nine top smartphone manufacturers; so we could be seeing the NovaThor in other devices soon too.

Enjoy our roundup of ten mobile phone related news stories you may have missed this week, including four new US handsets which look very familiar to us, some big Nokia news, Samsung’s latest app download figures and a very disconcerting dancing Android.

1.  Samsung Passes 100 Milli0n App Downloads

Since its launch in June 2010, Samsung Apps has grown to incorporate apps for other devices such as televisions, and has this week passed 100 million downloads.  Not bad at all when you take into consideration there are only 13000 apps available, however the store is accessible in 120 countries around the world.

2.  Android Rocks Out!

There is something faintly disconcerting about this dancing, green Android.  We know it’s a man in a suit, but the way he dances about just looks so strange you begin to wonder if maybe it’s not.  We don’t know if it’s the funny little arms, or the rigid body that’s more freaky; just that it is.  It’s an Xperia Android too, meaning it could be related to that Android with the human thumbs.  We’re going to stop thinking about it now.

3.  Are You ‘In’ Enough to Use Color?

If you own an Android device or an iPhone, grab Color from your friendly app store and give it a try.  The new photo-sharing app has been all over the news this week after attracting more than $40 million-worth of investment.  It’s something like a public diary/scrapbook, which shares your pictures with anyone using the app in a 50ft radius, and vice versa.  Only trouble is, if no-one else is using it, not much sharing goes on, so you’ll need to be hanging with the cool kids to get the most out of this one.

4.  LG’s Optimus G2X Announced Stateside

The first of four new phones announced for the US we’re going to cover, however all but one are devices already out or announced for Europe too.  The first is the LG Optimus G2X, a Tegra 2-powered smartphone running Android.  Think it looks familiar?  Well, it is, as we know it simply as the Optimus 2X.  The difference seems to be on the connectivity side, as the G2X will work on T-Mobile USA’s ’4G’ network.

5.  Nokia Astound Hits the US Market

Just in case you’ve seen the Nokia Astound’s name about over the past few days and thought ‘wow, that’s a nice looking phone’ and tried to find it for sale in the UK; don’t bother.  The Astound is T-Mobile USA’s name for the Nokia C7, a 3.5″ touchscreen phone with Symbian^3 and an 8 megapixel camera.  This is the version you need to look for!

6.  AT&T Launch the LG Thrill 4G

The CTIA 2011 show didn’t make quite such an impact on Europe, as the majority of new devices unveiled were for US networks.  The LG Thrill will be coming to AT&T and will be compatible with their ’4G’ network.  It has a 4.3″ touchscreen with glasses-free 3D, a 1Ghz dual core processor and a 5 megapixel camera that can shoot 3D stills and video.

7.  AT&T Also Launch the HTC HD7S

Another CTIA 2011 announcement, this time from US network AT&T.  The HTC HD7S is a rebadged version of the familiar HTC HD7, therefore running Windows Phone 7.  The phone has a 1Ghz processor, 5 megapixel camera, 4.3″ touchscreen and most interestingly of all, the NoDo update already up and running.

8.  Google’s Think Quarterly Publication Appears Online

If you’re a business type or have a strange obsession with data, sharing, metrics and advertising, you may be interested to read through Google’s Think Quarterly book which has appeared online.  Inside there are interviews with Vodafone UK’s CEO, Google’s economist Hal Varian and some pretty pictures for the rest of us.  Download it or view it online using the link above.

9.  Nokia Launches an Exciting New…Font!

Wow, this should get everybody talking!  Nokia have revealed their new corporate font, called Nokia Pure, and it has been described by their brand and marketing director as having a ‘natural, flowing form’ while still being ‘highly functional and neutral’.  Of course it is.

10.  iPhone Survives 1000ft Fall

Maybe that glass rear panel isn’t so delicate after all!  A US Air Force Combat Controller clumsily let his iPhone 4 fall from his pocket, but rather than being a few feet away from the ground, he was in a plane 1000ft up in the air at the time!  Once back on the ground, he located and recovered his phone using MobileMe’s Find My iPhone service, and amazingly, it had survived and worked perfectly!

Enjoy our roundup of ten mobile phone related news stories you may have missed this week, including leaked Amazon App Store pricing, BAFTA’s for iPhone games, some interesting Nokia Beta Labs apps and another Xperia Play advert! Or if you’re eyes aren’t up to reading all this text click the video above for our bitesized version.

1. Amazon App Store Pricing Spotted

Amazon are preparing to launch their own Android app store, and a preview accidentally went live yesterday, giving us a sneak peak at the pricing and apps on offer. There were several apps priced a little cheaper than their equivalents in the Android Market, but the savings were minimal due to the low pricing of apps anyway. T he store is expected to go live very soon.

2. Google Planning NFC Tests in US

Google are said to be planning a series of NFC mobile payments tests in key US locations in the near future. They’ll supply and pay for the installation of the contact-less payment registers, ready for Android users to pay for goods and services without using cash or card.

3. Cut the Rope Wins BAFTA

iPhone puzzle game Cut the Rope becomes the first iOS game to win a BAFTA award after it scooped Best Handheld Game! Having sold around six million copies, Cut the Rope was hugely successful on the iPhone, and it beat several Sony PSP and Nintendo DS games also in the running for the award.

4.  iPhone 5 could get NFC after all

At the start of this week, The Independent threw a spanner into the iPhone 5 rumour mill by reporting that Apple won’t be including NFC technology on its devices until the iPhone 6. Now, we’re back to square one after Forbes reporter Elizabeth Woyke tweeted: “Just met with an entrepreneur who says the iPhone 5 *will* have NFC…according to his friend, who works at Apple.” Guess that solves it.

5. Trio of HTC smartphones leaked

HTC has been subject to some leak-action this week as three handsets made it out into the open. First up is the HTC Pyramid, the firm’s first dual-core smartphone which will apparently run Honeycomb. The HTC Ignite and Prime also showed up and will be joining the Windows Phone clan.

6.  Nokia Shoot and Tag Lets You Skip to the Best Part

We’ve got another Nokia Beta Labs project for you, and it’s perfect for the brilliant N8 video camera fan. Shoot and Tag automatically adds tags to your freshly shot video, a little like chapters on a DVD, to any point where it sees a change in the onscreen action. You can add your own tags to a finished video too. See it in action in the video below:

7.  HD Horizons Will Demo Nokia N8′s Camera Ability

Jason Hawkes, a respected aerial photographer, will be using the Nokia N8 to shoot stills of some of the UK’s incredible landscapes, all from a helicopter. The photos will appear on Nokia’s Facebook page on the 21 March, and you can see the teaser video below.

8.  Another Stolen Body Parts Video from Sony Ericsson!

Remember the Xperia Play ad where we saw a pair of human thumbs being grafted onto an Android? Here’s the prequel, explaining where the thumbs came from!  Nice, Sony Ericsson, really nice.

9. +YvesBehar Phone Costs Lots, Does Nothing

The +YvesBehar phone is another entry into the designer device canon, where function takes on that of a very basic feature phone, but the design is catwalk cool. Designed by Yves Behar (who’d have guessed!), who also did the UI, the phone costs $10,000/£6,200.

10. Music Video Shot on an iPad 2

Unsure of whether the iPad 2′s 720p video performance is up to much? The music video below should silence the doubters, as it looks really great!  The fast movements and low lighting conditions are difficult for any consumer-grade video camera, but the final result, shot and partially edited on the iPad 2, shows this probably won’t be the last time Apple’s new camera-equipped tablet will be used in this way.

Smartphone sales are skyrocketing with a 72.1 % increase in sales last year, according to Gartner’s end-of-year report. The phone market has massively increased in size and complexity, accounting for a fifth of all mobile sales last year — and “all” is one point six BILLION brand new handsets. The complexity comes in with a radical rearrangement of the old order: established brands like Sony Ericsson and Motorola were bumped out of the top 5 by Apple and Research In Motion. Even the cellphone  trinity of Nokia, Samsung and LG saw serious dips in their market share as the high-tech invaders dominated the new market share.

The most interesting entry on that list is the only non-name brand. Mysterious “others” have almost doubled their market share as the urge for the latest and greatest in gadgets enables all kinds of crazy companies to sell new hardware. Brand loyalty has become the new military intelligence, with customers shuttling between services the very instant their old hardware annoys them — and if there’s one thing that can annoy people, it’s a computer. If there’s two it’s a computer and a new phone.

Ahead of Nokia’s Strategic and Financial Briefing scheduled to take place later this morning, the mobile phone manufacturer has announced a partnership with Microsoft to create Windows Phone 7 devices.  This represents a huge change in direction for the Finnish company, who have previously only produced hardware running their own Symbian and Maemo/MeeGo platforms.

Nokia published an open letter on their Conversations blog, and the key changes are as follows.  Windows Phone 7 will become Nokia’s primary smartphone platform and future devices will be the product of close collaboration between the two companies, up to and including the marketing.  Bing will become the standard search engine on all Nokia phones, and Microsoft’s adCenter will serve them with advertisements, plus Nokia Maps will become a part of Bing Search too.  Finally, Nokia’s content and app store will be integrated with Windows Marketplace.

If anyone is unsure as to how the two giants see this all working out, take a look at the open letter’s closing statement:

“There are other mobile ecosystems. We will disrupt them.

There will be challenges. We will overcome them.

Success requires speed. We will be swift.

Together, we see the opportunity, and we have the will, the resources and the drive to succeed.”

We think that sends a clear message!

Nokia will also be changing the company’s structure by creating two separate units, Smart Devices and Mobile Phones.  Smart Devices will concentrate on the Windows Phone 7 initiative along with Symbian and MeeGo devices, while Mobile Phones will deal with the lower range phones and S40.

These changes confirm that neither Symbian nor MeeGo are going anywhere despite the adoption of Windows Phone 7, and Nokia say they still have plans to release a product running MeeGo later on this year.

As Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop have pointed out, this moment sees a lot of very big brand names come together, Nokia, Microsoft, Bing, Xbox Live, Zune, Nokia Maps and so on.  Inevitably, there will be individuals who will refuse to see the potential in this alliance, but here, we can’t wait to see the first Nokia Windows Phone 7 handset!

The Nokia N9 has reportedly been scrapped days before it was due to be made official at Mobile World Congress. Reuters reported that two industry sources informed the agency of the decision after seeing an internal memo sent from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop to his employees explaining that MeeGo might not be the “platform for winning high-end smartphones”.

The Nokia N9 has had a rocky ride over the past couple of weeks after Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin caused a mass of confusion after implying on his Twitter account that the MeeGo smartphone was no more. He later retracted his comments, explaining that the confusion arose out of Nokia’s new naming policy and mentioned a new device called the N9-01. Following reports that Nokia has ceased development of the Nokia N9, the industry is now wondering whether the N9-01, thought to be a tablet or keyboard-less version of the N9, will be the debut MeeGo device.

Elop also mentioned in his message yesterday that there may only be one MeeGo device landing this year, suggesting that not all is well in Nokia HQ. The firm has an event scheduled for tomorrow, February 11 which is shaping up to be an interesting watch.