Author: Clinton

For day two of the 12 Days of Deal promotion running at your local Microsoft Store, you will be able to pick up the BLU Win HD 5″ Windows Phone for $99, $80 off the regular price of $179.  For those who can’t get to a Microsoft Store, you can pick up the phone for $129 online, a savings of $50. This is similar to the savings you could have on the Toshiba Encore Mini tablet today.

The BLU Win HD is unlocked and comes with a 5″ display, 8MP Camera, 8GB of Storage (expandable with up to a 32GB MicroSD card) but the biggest feature is that this is a dual SIM phone for those who want two carriers or travel internationally.

BLU Win HD Windows Phone – $99 in Store or $129 online – Microsoft Store

Microsoft has updated their Office Lens app for Windows Phone today, adding an experimental Business Card mode to the whiteboard and documents capture app even more powerful.  If you are not familiar with Office Lens, it allows you to snap a photo of a whiteboard, blackboard or document and it will scan them and save them to your Windows Phone and/or OneDrive.  The app is very powerful and is able to handle taking photos from side angles to give you a front facing view. It is a free app and one I recommend.

Office Lens for Windows Phone – Free – Download Now

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Microsoft 12 Days of Deals promotion and they are starting off with an impressive offer.  Starting tomorrow at Microsoft Store retail locations you can pick up the Toshiba Encore Mini 7″ Windows tablet for an impressive $49.00.  It even comes with a 16GB MicroSD card for additional storage.  The deal is labeled as a “door buster” so it is likely a limited number of these that will be offered at this price and it will only be at their retail locations.  For those who don’t have a store nearby or would simply prefer to avoid malls (Clinton raises his hand), you can get the tablet for $79 all day.

Microsoft has released Windows Phone Build 14219 for those who participate in the Preview for Developers program.  The update is either ready for you in your Phone Update in Settings on your device or can be downloaded by tapping the Check for Update button on the same screen.  While the Preview for Developers program is a free app and service, I’ll remind everyone that it is beta software and sometimes behaves as such.

The biggest news with this update is support for Cortana in France, Germany, Italy and Spain as part of an update posted on the Microsoft blog this morning.  Now Windows Phone users can enjoy the personal assistant feature that has been available to those in the United States and other countries for a few months.

One of the things that I have missed since leaving the iOS wilderness has been a tablet device.  I loved my iPad Air and I increasingly found that I was having to schlep around my Windows powered MacBook for what I use to do on my iPad. With Black Friday coming up last week, I decided to pick up an inexpensive Windows tablet to fill the gap.  I didn’t want to spend a lot of money in case I absolutely hated the experience and thought it would be a good launch point for a more advanced tablet if I wanted to go that route. In that vein I ended up getting the Toshiba Encore 2 for a mere $132 from Amazon. At that price, I didn’t expect a lot nor was I in deep cost wise if I hated it.

After a couple of days of using the Encore 2, I have to say that I am quite pleased with the purchase and you can still get it for a great price of $149 at the Microsoft Store.  For that price it’s hard to beat.

As part of their Cyber Monday sale, Microsoft has the Lumia 635 Windows Phone on sale today for just $39.00, $60 off the normal price of $99.00.  The phone is locked to AT&T however there is no contract on the phone.  If you remember, the Lumia 635 was on sale on Black Friday at Amazon for $49.00 so this is an even better deal on what is one of my favorite budget Windows Phone devices.

Lumia 635 (AT&T) – $39.00 – Microsoft Store