Nokia’s high-end Lumia 900 smartphone will appear in the United States in March, according to a newsletter posted on the Nokia Developer Website.
“It will become available exclusively through AT&T in March,” read the newsletter. “With support for AT&T’s 4G LTE (Long-Term Evolution) network, the Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone will offer high-performance web browsing with Microsoft Internet Explorer Mobile, as well as both video and audio streaming.”
Previously, Nokia and Microsoft were only willing to say the Lumia 900 would appear at some point within the next few months.
The smartphones features a 4.3-inch active-matrix organic LED (AMOLED) display (with 800-by-400 resolution) and a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It runs Windows Phone Mango, the latest version of Microsoft’s smartphone software.
Nokia is making a huge bet with Windows Phone, having abandoned its previous operating systems (including Symbian) in favor of Microsoft’s offering. If that bet pays off, the Finnish phone maker could reverse its eroding global market share. But Nokia isn’t relying solely on a single high-end device to accomplish that end; in addition to the Lumia 900, it’s also offering the similar Lumia 800 in international markets, as well as the midmarket Lumia 710.
Shortly after Nokia unveiled the Lumia 900 in conjunction with this month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, 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.”
In addition to the Lumia 900, CES also saw the introduction of the HTC Titan II, a 4G LTE-capable device also due at some point on AT&T. Despite some strong reviews in the year-plus since its initial release, Windows Phone has thus far failed to attract the sort of user base that would allow it to compete toe-to-toe against competitors such as Apple’s iPhone and the ever-growing family of Google Android devices. However, with a recent software revamp and a host of new devices from hardware partners such as Nokia and HTC, Microsoft is hoping to change that.