Last week Hard Candy was invited to attend a top-secret event Nokia event in NYC,  all we were told was there would be a ‘surprise musical guest’, we love a good surprise so quickly agreed to attend. Early Friday morning, I headed down to Times Square, on my way passing a ‘big blue box’ with a countdown on top, which was set to be the location of the evening’s activities, details of which had not yet revealed…
Pushing through the crowds, I soon arrived to the hotel to meet up with David from the agency in London that represents Nokia, and a small group of bloggers selected to be a part of the project, which included our friend PopBytes, and an awesome handful of tech bloggers, who proved invaluable to the less tech savy among the group! After getting acquainted over an enjoyable lunch at Garage we were told there was surprise waiting for us when we got back to the hotel. When we arrived back we were ushered into an exclusive side of the hotel where nine shiny blue Nokia boxes greeted us!  We excitedly opened them up, secretly hoping to find the brand new Lumia 900 phone which ‘the blue box project’ was rumored to be a launch party for. Instead, we found a card with instructions, and inside a phone shaped space, a timer counting down to the main event which was taking place in a few hours time. Nestled at the bottom of the box was a super sexy pair of Monster headphones, specially designed for Nokia, which we were told would come in useful later! Later in the afternoon we met up again and headed to the R Bar at the Renaissance Hotel to attend a VIP party, that was indeed for the launch of the Lumia 900!  After enjoying several cocktails and running into some friends (well hello MuuMuse & The Culture Of Me), we met back up with the group and headed down into the large crowd that had gathered in Times Square awaiting the arrival of the surprise guest. Soon after it was time to trade in our countdown timers and much to our delight David presented us with the phone, which we were the first people in the world to own! As if wasn’t sexy enough, it was also personally signed by none other than Nicki Minaj! We then turned our attention back to the stage, right at 7.30pm the curtain dropped and revealed Nicki Minaj on stage, where surrounded by a stunning light show, she performed a medley of hits from her new album Roman Reloaded, the monster hit Superbass, and then proceeded to film a video for a special Nokia remix of Starships featuring the excited revelers gathered around the stage! We then made our way back to the R Bar for more cocktails and performances by Nicki’s dancers. The lady of the night also made a brief appearance at the party much to the excitement of the crowd and perfectly ended the main event (our party was off to have more fun elsewhere!)

As an iPhone user I must say that it is usually hard to impress me with other phones, but this one managed to do just that. The first thing that impressed me was the excellent photo and video quality. I was able to shoot some incredible video footage of the performance (which you can watch below) and I found it also takes fantastic pictures, the most exciting part about that is that even in low light the device excels!

I still have a lot of playing around to do with it, but I’ve been impressed with the usability, it hasn’t taken me long to feel comfortable with it at all. Those of you that are interested in learning more can check out some cool videos on Nokia’s YouTube. The Lumia 900 is available in North America exclusively on AT&T starting at just $99.