Nokia to roll all-new camera features to rest of Lumia line

Nokia to roll all-new camera features to rest of Lumia line
Get ready for the Amber attack

Following the launch of the Lumia 925 Nokia has promised to bring a raft of new tricks to its existing phones.

The update, codenamed Amber, will give new life to everything from the Lumia 520 to the ex-flagship Lumia 920.

Amber will be primarily focused on offering the new camera features using the Nokia Smart Cam, which allow easy creation of action shots, object removal, face swapping and motion blur.

This will be dependent on hardware though; according to Vesa Jutila, Lumia global product marketing manager not all features will be offered on each phone due to hardware limitations.

All about the power

This makes a lot of sense, as in our hands on: Nokia Lumia 925 review we noted that the camera took a lot of processing power even with a dual core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor; we shudder to think how hard it would push the single-core Lumia 520.

However, there are a few more shiny extras for others to enjoy: for instance, the Windows Phone 8 Lumia range will soon be able to make use of the FM radio chip inside the phone as the Amber update will unlock the functionality.

Unless you've shelled out for the Lumia 620, which doesn't have the requisite hardware. Sorry about that.

Nokia has promised bring the Amber update 'later this summer', so you've got a few months to choose whether to cancel your holiday in case you're away when it happens.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.