Nokia has unveiled the high-end Lumia 900 smartphone, its latest Windows Phone device, in conjunction with this year's Consumer Electronics Show.
LAS VEGAS - As
part of its major push at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Nokia
announced a new high-end smartphone running the Windows Phone operating system:
the Lumia 900.
The
smartphone, which will make its debut on AT&T "in the coming months,"
features a 4.3-inch active-matrix organic LED (AMOLED) display (with 800x400
resolution) and 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) support, along with a 1.4GHz
Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It runs Windows Phone Mango, the latest version
of Microsoft's smartphone software.
"We've
recreated the popular polycarbonate unibody design pioneered by the Nokia N9
and the Nokia Lumia 800 for this new, bigger model," read a Jan. 9 note on the
Conversations by Nokia blog, referring to two
earlier high-end Nokia smartphones. "It's really hard to do it any damage from
our experience here."
Nokia is
making a huge bet with Windows Phone, having abandoned various homegrown
operating systems (including Symbian) in favor of Microsoft's offering. If that
bet pays off, the Finnish phone maker could revive its fortunes in the face of
significant competition from the likes of Google Android and the Apple iPhone.
If the bet
fails, and users fail to gravitate toward Nokia's latest offerings, then the
company is in significant trouble. However, not all its chips rest on a single
high-end device: the
Lumia 710, a midmarket device with a 3.7-inch
screen (also 800x400 resolution) and a 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor, is slated
to appear on T-Mobile Jan. 11. In that instance, Nokia and the carrier are
marketing the device based on price-$49 with a two-year contract-as opposed to
any high-end specs.
Shortly after
Nokia unveiled the Lumia 900, analysts leapt to judge its market prospects.
"This device
signals several things: firstly, that Nokia's serious about the U.S., launching
arguably the flagship Lumia device in the U.S. before the rest of the world,"
Jan Dawson, an analyst for research and consulting firm Ovum, wrote in a Jan. 9
statement. "Secondly, that Nokia has the clout with Windows Phone to allow it
to be first to market with an LTE device; and thirdly, that AT&T is now
seriously into the business of offering LTE phones."
Microsoft and
its hardware partners are expected to unveil a number of next-generation
Windows Phone devices at CES. Even before Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took the
stage Jan. 9 for his keynote address, his company announced the
HTC Titan II, a 4G LTE-capable device also on
AT&T. Of all those companies flashing mobile hardware powered by Microsoft,
however, few have more riding on the platform's success than Nokia.
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