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One year after forging partnership with computer giant Microsoft, and less than 6 months after rolling their first Windows Phone powered devices, Nokia dislodges HTC and stakes claim as the King of Windows Phone.

Speaking to Gulf News, Tom Farrell, vice-president of Nokia Middle East formally and quite comfortably claimed the position stating:

“Our strategy is working. When we formed an alliance last year with Microsoft our intention was to regain lost share. After one year, it is still working. We are the number one Windows phone in volume in the world. Our momentum is accelerating.”

Market research company, Kantar revealed that Nokia accounts to 87 percent of Windows Phone sales in the UK in 3 months ending February 19th. We have reported weeks ago that HTC Titan, HTC’s Windows Phone device had been silently pulled out of the market. Similarly, Samsung had also pulled out their WP powered Focus S leaving Nokia as the remaining Windows Phone manufacturer.

Windows Phone has a smaller selection of apps available to users than Android or iOS, but the average quality is exceptionally high. As the platform becomes more popular, the range of apps will increase and hopefully the quality will remain as high, or even higher, than it is now. Here are few apps that prove the worth of the platform.

Mobile news reading has become a boom area with solutions like Flip board and Pulse taking many of the headlines, but Waves is up there the very best. Lots of example content is built in to the app and you could in theory your news every day with just the sites that are pre loaded. This app and UI are breathtaking.

The tile system employed by Windows Phone has started lots of debates over its usefulness. Some say that it hides too much, others beleive it to be too simplistic. AppoinTile cleverly uses the tile system to offer immediate information to the user as soon as they turn on their phone. You appointments are sensitively displayed using the tiles to their full effect. This app is ideal for anyone who needs to be organized.

Like AppoinTile, TileMemo also uses the tile formate to full effect. It is, however, very easy to describe what it does-you can write a memo immediately in a tile and it will be displayed on the front screen. That’s it, but this is all you want a memo app to do right? Its all about the speed.

There are many Navigation apps for Windows Phone. But if you buy in just 5 euro, you grt onboard maps, driving and walking directions, routes calculated using time, distance andtraffic data, and an interface that fits the operating system perfectly.

Managing your money when mobile offers many advantages; you can transactions as soon as they are made and you will always have an up to date view of your current financial situation so that you can be sure that the purchases you make are viable. Account Manager leverges the simplicity of the Windows Phone interface well to make money management feel much complex than previously.

Now that we’ve established pretty much a significant proportion of the voting MNB Readers want the Nokia 808 PureView, the next decision to make is which colour. We haven’t seen that many comparisons yet for actual pics, but here are the press ones. As you can see, they display the curve edge of the screen. Sometimes, the way the light bounces off the glass makes it seem like there’s a raised edge. The more I’m seeing it in videos, and more pictures and more angles – the nicer it looks as I’m getting a better appreciation for the curves. The back has a bit of a Jennifer Lopez thing going on there. I’m guessing, based on the tweets and feedback, this is one of those phones that looks much better in person.

Anyway, we’re not here for the design so much but for the colour choice. The colour scheme is newspaper – black, white and read all over :p. (Oh dear :p) No, we’ve got the very classics white, red and black. You could almost think of this combination as silver, red and black, a very macho, masculine. It reminds me of sporty things, speed, motorcycles, a ferrari.

The camera portion stays black, and the front of the device is black with glass overlaid. The rest of the body comes in either white, red or black.

We’ve added ‘other’ on the poll also if you’re perhaps not content with these three options. Who knows what other colours Nokia might add into the mix. Perhaps some classic nokia blue?

Skype Beta is now available for download in Windows Phone Marketplace. The full version will be available soon. Here is the official video

After acquisition of Skype by Microsoft last year it was expected that Windows Phone will eventually have Skype available on it. To the dismay of many, Skype was not offered with Windows Phone Mango update but MWC 2012 has finally brought Skype on Windows Phone.

In my honest opinion this announcement should have been made a couple of years back as users do not wait for features and jump to other OSs. I have disposed off my HTC HD7 due to unavailability of Skype and many other (basic and) essential features provided by Android and Apple but missing in Windows Phone. Do you own a Windows Phone? What do you think about this release?