Nokia Could Announce WP8 Phones as Early as September

By Jane McEntegart
published

It sounds like Nokia is busy working on some new Windows Phone devices.

It's been just over a year since Nokia announced plans to make Windows Phone its primary smartphone OS. The Finnish company, once so determined to carved itself a piece of the smartphone pie with a proprietary OS, did an about face and adopted the Microsoft-owned OS last February. So far, we've seen a fistful of Nokia-brand Windows Phone 7 devices hit the market under the Lumia brand. Now it seems Nokia might be among the first to market with Windows Phone 8 phones.

 

Bloomberg cites a person with knowledge of the matter who says we may see Windows Phone 8 devices from Nokia in September. According to this source, Nokia plans to announce Windows Phone 8-based devices as early as next month at its Nokia World event. These phones would be scheduled for release in time for the holiday shopping season.

Nokia officials wouldn't confirm or deny the rumor when Bloomberg asked, preferring not to comment. However, if Nokia does decide to announce its new handets in September, it would be facing some pretty stiff competition. Apple is also rumored to be announcing a new phone next month. Nokia World is set to take place the first week of September, while the latest scuttlebutt has Apple's iPhone event pegged for September 12.

Microsoft gave us a sneak peek at Windows Phone 8, AKA Apollo, back in June. Windows Phone 8 will share a kernel, file system, media foundation, device drivers, and parts of the security model of Windows 8, and is due out in the fall. Packing support for multi-core processors, displays up to 1280x768, and external SD storage, Windows Phone 8 will bring Internet Explorer 10 to Windows Phone devices as well as in-app purchases, Nokia Maps, and improved enterprise features (including device management for administrators, Office apps, support for BitLocker encryption, and secure boot mode).

We'll keep you posted on Nokia's Windows Phone 8 plans, so stay tuned!

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Jane McEntegart
35 Comments Comment from the forums
  • memadmax
    Awesome... something that Win8 is MEANT for... and the only thing too...
    Reply
  • captaincharisma
    nokia lumina owner must love how they are not going to be able to get this upgrade. another fail by MS and by nokia for sticking with windows phone
    Reply
  • killabanks
    Nokia its not too late release an android phone show them how its done
    Reply
  • hannibal
    captaincharismanokia lumina owner must love how they are not going to be able to get this upgrade. another fail by MS and by nokia for sticking with windows phone
    Android 2.3 owner must love how they are not going to be able to get...
    Every phone owner is in situation where it is possible that you don't get upgrades. We allready know that old 7.5 devices are too weak for 8 and that there will be upgrade to 7.5 to 7.8...
    How many android owners can say that they will get upgrade from 2.3 to 2.x ??? Not so many.
    If you want constant upgrades you have to buy new phones... It is the same in all groups: win, android and iOS. There will be some upgrades in all of those, but one day your phone will be too old for upgrades... period.
    Maybe the situation change when the development in phones start to slow down, but not untill then.

    Reply
  • captaincharisma
    hannibalAdroid 2.3 owner must love how they are bot going to be able to get...Every phone owner is in situation where it is possible that you dpn't get upgrades. Wel allready know that old 7.5 devices are too weak for 8 and that there will be upgrade to 7.5 to 7.8...How many andoid owners can say that they will get upgrade from 2.3 to 2.x ??? Not so many.If you want constant upgrades you have to buy new phones... It is the same in all croups win, android iOS. There will be some upgrades in all of those, but one day your phone will be too old for upgrades... period.Maybe the situation change when the development in phones start to slow down, but not ultill then.
    at least droid phones have the ability to root them and upgrade the phones themselves. I never even rooted my nexus S and i am already running android 4.1
    Reply
  • monktongaz
    Got a Lumia 900 after my last iPhone and I bloody love it. 7.8 will last me for a while until WP8. I'll leave WP8 alone for a year until WP8.x comes out with some fixes :)
    Reply
  • SchizoFrog
    I'll also back up hannibal's comment and say that Apple were far more restraining with the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S which saw the introduction of SIRI among other things for example but is not available for the iPhone 4.

    Seriously looking forward to see what Nokia and Samsung and possibly HTC release for WP8 over the next few months as I intend to replace my ageing phone around Christmas.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    9388115 said:
    Got a Lumia 900 after my last iPhone and I bloody love it. 7.8 will last me for a while until WP8. I'll leave WP8 alone for a year until WP8.x comes out with some fixes :)

    May be wise! A new platform generally have some rough spots untill some upgrades comes out!
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    Cant wait! Ive been waiting for a WP7 device with SD card support, all the other perks that come with WP8 are just icing on the cake!
    Reply
  • mcd023
    Don't freak out too much over the WP8 no-upgrade. If you really needed the enterprise features, then you probably wouldn't have bought the phone. Most of the upgrades are for hardware that you don't have, anyway (except for the first gen Samsung focus, which has a micro-SD slot, which I am using). From what I understand as a developer, apps written for WP8 will work on WP7.5/8 unless they make use of something that 7.5/8 doesn't have (such as encryption)
    Reply