I headed down to the Santa Clara Microsoft Store this morning after hearing about the Windows Phone challenge last night. For those not familiar, anyone who completes a task faster than a Windows Phone on their own smart phone can win a $1000 Special Edition Laptop assuming they meet some standard terms and conditions. Those who “get smoked” by a Windows Phone, have the opportunity to trade in their existing device for Windows Phone.

After signing a waiver agreeing to let Microsoft use a photo of me in their advertising, I got in line for the challenge. I was using a Samsung Galaxy Nexus which runs the latest Android operating system on the Verizon Wireless network. As requested, I shut down my phone and powered it on in front of an employee when it was my turn. (I’m assuming they don’t want anyone pre-launching any apps in advance.)

The Microsoft Store employee I was up against then explained the selected challenge. Her exact words were the following: “bring up the weather of two different cities.” The one who could do that first would win. I felt like I struck gold since I knew I already had two weather widgets on my home screen: one for my current location (San Jose, CA) and another for Berkeley, CA.

After a three-second count down, I hit the power button on my phone and said “DONE!” out loud. I had disabled the lock screen entirely, which is a rather awesome out-of-the-box feature of Android that takes you straight to the home screen with a single push of the power button. I didn’t even need to touch the screen, since the two weather widgets were already there.

On Tuesday, Nokia announced that it will be holding its annual Nokia World conference on home turf for the first time since the conception of the event in 2006. Set to take place in Helsinki, Finland, the conference will be happening in a city that was just dubbed the World Design Capital of 2012 by the International Council of Societies Of Industrial Design.

Nokia World 2012 will be taking place on September 25 through the 26th, which is interesting timing given that the Windows Phone 8 ‘Apollo’ update is set to touch down at the end of this year; Nokia will almost certainly be showing off, or at the very least discussing its plans for the new software update during the event. It’s only right that they do, it is a conference centered around the company’s latest products.

The event isn’t open to the general public, but it is to bloggers (among analysts, carriers, developers, partners, and Nokia employees of course), so there definitely will be coverage about what the company discusses during the event. Let’s just hope that there’s less Symbian, and more Windows Phone in Nokia’s future.

Samsung Offers You Top Quality Touchphones At Afforadble Price.

In the race to bring the first Windows Phone device to China, it looks like we have a winner: Engadget reports that HTC has just began accepting pre-orders for the Triumph, which is essentially the HTC Titan that we have come to know and love re-branded.

Running Windows Phone 7.5 Tango, the 4.7″ behemoth will be priced sans-contract at ¥4,399, which is roughly $700 US. That’s quite expensive, and we can only hope that subsidized, contract pricing options as we have in the West are available to allow more people to purchase the device. So, how is the Triumph different from its Western counterpart? It isn’t, for the most part; one thing to note is that local social services Sina Weibo and Tencent Weixin will replace the Facebook and Twitter integration of Tango. SkyDrive is available, but it will be forced to conform to the regulations of the Great Firewall of China.

Nokia, LG, and ZTE — interestingly enough, Samsung isn’t joining the party just yet — are all poised to release handsets in China sometime this month as well. Throughout the rest of this year onwards, we’ll definitely have to keep an eye out on Windows Phone competition and traction in the Chinese market.

Microsoft’s recent, increasingly aggressive advertising approach against competitors has been quite entertaining. What I like — and what I think people will like — about this particular campaign, however, is that, unlike the Gmail man and Googlighting videos, Microsoft is attacking the products of its competitors by showing how their own products are better. The videos attacking Google, however, are exaggerated (but I found them funny, with a true underlying message.)

If YouTube comments are any metric of public reception, the feedback of Smoked by Windows Phone has been far more positive than that of the recent Googlighting video. Also, speaking of YouTube, the videos of the challenges have been viewed over 500,000 times. This is one of the few genuinely cool ad campaigns produced by Microsoft, and it would be cool if they also produced a “Smoked” television commercial. And if Ben goes on a coast-to-coast Smoked By Windows Phone tour.
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