Nokia Getting "Sirius" About Windows RT Tablet

By Kevin Parrish
published

Sirius may be the name of Nokia's upcoming windows RT tablet.

Talk of a "Lumia" style tablet has been around since at least March 2012, but the rumor received a good dose of reality last week with reports of a possible reveal in September and hardware specs including a Snapdragon 800, 32 GB of internal storage, a 10.1 inch screen and more. Of course, the original rumors slated the tablet to arrive in February 2013, so anything is possible at this point.

In March 2012, Nokia's head of design, Marko Ahtisaari, said that the company was indeed working on a tablet, that Nokia was definitely eyeing the tablet space. The device was supposedly delayed due to Microsoft's own Surface tablets, and would sport a 10 inch screen and Qualcomm's S4 chip when it would finally be revealed during Mobile World Congress in February 2013.

After the initial report, additional hardware details began to roll in, including HDMI and USB support. The company was also reportedly focusing on the actual Lumia-like form factor and the tablet's cover, which would click into place and serve as a keyboard and a kickstand. This cover would also feature an additional battery and extra USB ports.

In February before MWC 2013, Nokia chief Stephen Elop threw a curve ball into the rumor mill by saying that the company was open to any platform for a tablet OS. "We are studying very closely the market right now as Microsoft has introduced the Surface tablet, so we are trying to learn from that and understand what the right way to participate would be and at what point in time," he said. Shortly after that, Nokia "mistakingly" revealed a Lumia-styled tablet sporting a Windows 8 interface.

MWC 2013 came and went with no Nokia tablet in sight. The next supposed reveal would be Nokia's May 14 Lumia event earlier this year. By then the rumored specs consisted of a 10.1-inch screen at 1366 x 768 resolution, a 1 GHz SoC and 1 GB of RAM. The device would measure 256.6 x 175 x 9.7 mm and weigh around 676 grams. Obviously, the rumored Windows RT tablet didn't make a showing at that event either.

The device reportedly appeared on a GFXBench benchmark as the RX-114 back in July, sporting the Snapdragon 800 chip but with a 1371 x 771 resolution, suggesting a similar resolution found on Microsoft's 10.6 inch Surface screen. Yet the RX-114 could merely be an upcoming large-screen phablet that will be revealed alongside the Nokia tablet.

So now we come to the latest addition in the Nokia tablet saga. So far the specs are rumored to include a 10.1 inch screen with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, 2 GB of RAM at the least (it could be 3 GB as previously speculated), the quad-core Snapdragon 800 chip (2.2 GHz or 2.3 GHz), 32 GB of storage, a micro SD card slot, a micro USB port, a micro HDMI output, a 6 MP camera on the back and a 2 MP camera on the front, and optional LTE connectivity. A photo showing the back panel of Nokia's tablet emerged just last week.

At the moment, Windows RT still seems to be the OS of choice, and now we possibly may have an actual name: Sirius. Nokia will supposedly reveal the new Lumia-styled Windows RT tablet during an event in New York on September 26 and 27. The company typically reserves the NYC location for major launches such as the Lumia 920 and the Lumia 1020. Smaller, non-U.S. launches usually take place in London.

Pricing for the new tablet is expected to match Apple's iPad.

Kevin Parrish
21 Comments Comment from the forums
  • darkavenger123
    Err...only now they launch an RT tablet when RT is already dead??? Good Luck.
    Reply
  • lpedraja2002
    I swear its like Nokia's wish is to go down under. NEWS FLASH NOKIA... WINDOWS RT SUCKS! I'd rather they would have put that Quad-core on their new Lumia 1020 which desperately needed more processing power due to that insane high resolution camera, every review I've read it says it takes up to 6 seconds to capture an image, that is simply unacceptable. Some companies lack real common sense these days.

    Reply
  • Mark Dickinson
    Perhaps. Or Perhaps you lack the vision they do. and the foresight. That's not to say that the market isn't greatly agreeing with you since the start to now.
    Reply
  • portentous
    A good camera from Nokia would be a good feature to have as the Surface RT's camera is not very good. (Then again neither has any tablet)
    I have the RT since launch and haven't used the iPad and Nexus since. I don't know if anyone out there have the same experience (I believe those posted negative comments have actually owned/used RT?) As I commented before, yes, you almost need PhD to use the bloody thing and MS needs to make it more user-friendly (then again, where is the fun?)
    Reply
  • stevejnb
    You know, the whole RT is dead thing strikes me as knee-jerk "I hate Windows" reaction. Remember back oh, two years ago? Back when Android was the runner up in the mobile OS world, with a tiny fraction of the apps, and some advantages but also a lot of disadvantages, compared to iOS? Well, back then, I don't recall this "Oh, Android is dead" and "Android sucks" blah blah blah. A lot of people saw the potential in the OS and put up with a lesser lineup of apps at the time. Go figure, not even a year down the road, it had fleshed out a lot, and was a viable competitor. Now? RT... It's, what, about a year old? The number of apps has gone up *dramatically* and, I don't know if many of you have actually checked the app store in the past month or so, but the number of apps has grown substantially. The thing is, the argument a year ago was "it has no apps" and the argument is still the same - just not nearly as true as it was then. This "dead" OS is growing, it has some very solid hardware attached to it that is starting to get affordable. Are many of you who think it's dead/garbage stuck about 12 months in the past?

    Back when Android was the clear #2 and , it was popular for a few reasons. Despite the vastly inferior app selection, I believe the top two of those reasons were 1) it was much less controlled than iOS, and 2) it was not the big evil Apple that everyone loved to hate. If we look at RT right out the gate, it had the virtue of having vastly superior multitasking compared to the competition and came with full MS Office - not small things, both of which are still true. So why, when Android was given this free pass, does everyone have it out for RT so much?

    I'm honestly curious - what's the difference here? Why was Android not so bad two years ago, but RT is the devil now? And how many of you who keep on harping on the "it has no apps" thing have actually checked the Windows store since the release of RT? And don't get me wrong - RT tablets WERE overpriced, they DID have a sad app selection. I'm not sure either one is true any more.
    Reply
  • portentous
    11429346 said:
    You know, the whole RT is dead thing strikes me as knee-jerk "I hate Windows" reaction. Remember back oh, two years ago? Back when Android was the runner up in the mobile OS world, with a tiny fraction of the apps, and some advantages but also a lot of disadvantages, compared to iOS? Well, back then, I don't recall this "Oh, Android is dead" and "Android sucks" blah blah blah. A lot of people saw the potential in the OS and put up with a lesser lineup of apps at the time. Go figure, not even a year down the road, it had fleshed out a lot, and was a viable competitor. Now? RT... It's, what, about a year old? The number of apps has gone up *dramatically* and, I don't know if many of you have actually checked the app store in the past month or so, but the number of apps has grown substantially. The thing is, the argument a year ago was "it has no apps" and the argument is still the same - just not nearly as true as it was then. This "dead" OS is growing, it has some very solid hardware attached to it that is starting to get affordable. Are many of you who think it's dead/garbage stuck about 12 months in the past?

    Back when Android was the clear #2 and , it was popular for a few reasons. Despite the vastly inferior app selection, I believe the top two of those reasons were 1) it was much less controlled than iOS, and 2) it was not the big evil Apple that everyone loved to hate. If we look at RT right out the gate, it had the virtue of having vastly superior multitasking compared to the competition and came with full MS Office - not small things, both of which are still true. So why, when Android was given this free pass, does everyone have it out for RT so much?

    I'm honestly curious - what's the difference here? Why was Android not so bad two years ago, but RT is the devil now? And how many of you who keep on harping on the "it has no apps" thing have actually checked the Windows store since the release of RT? And don't get me wrong - RT tablets WERE overpriced, they DID have a sad app selection. I'm not sure either one is true any more.

    Great post. Finally someone with much better insight.
    If more manufacturers bring out RT tablets (much like the Android), the price will definitely come down, people will have more choice. Everyone (I) will be happy.
    Reply
  • Kamen_BG
    11429346 said:
    You know, the whole RT is dead thing strikes me as knee-jerk "I hate Windows" reaction. Remember back oh, two years ago? Back when Android was the runner up in the mobile OS world, with a tiny fraction of the apps, and some advantages but also a lot of disadvantages, compared to iOS? Well, back then, I don't recall this "Oh, Android is dead" and "Android sucks" blah blah blah. A lot of people saw the potential in the OS and put up with a lesser lineup of apps at the time. Go figure, not even a year down the road, it had fleshed out a lot, and was a viable competitor. Now? RT... It's, what, about a year old? The number of apps has gone up *dramatically* and, I don't know if many of you have actually checked the app store in the past month or so, but the number of apps has grown substantially. The thing is, the argument a year ago was "it has no apps" and the argument is still the same - just not nearly as true as it was then. This "dead" OS is growing, it has some very solid hardware attached to it that is starting to get affordable. Are many of you who think it's dead/garbage stuck about 12 months in the past?

    Back when Android was the clear #2 and , it was popular for a few reasons. Despite the vastly inferior app selection, I believe the top two of those reasons were 1) it was much less controlled than iOS, and 2) it was not the big evil Apple that everyone loved to hate. If we look at RT right out the gate, it had the virtue of having vastly superior multitasking compared to the competition and came with full MS Office - not small things, both of which are still true. So why, when Android was given this free pass, does everyone have it out for RT so much?

    I'm honestly curious - what's the difference here? Why was Android not so bad two years ago, but RT is the devil now? And how many of you who keep on harping on the "it has no apps" thing have actually checked the Windows store since the release of RT? And don't get me wrong - RT tablets WERE overpriced, they DID have a sad app selection. I'm not sure either one is true any more.

    Android was different. It's an open operating system. It came out at a time when Symbian was struggling and iOS was king, but also very hated.
    The world needed a new OS.
    Right now, if you're in need of a tablet for entertainment purposes, go with Android.
    If you want proper multitasking and productivity, go with Windows.
    Windows RT just doesn't fit.
    Reply
  • ojas
    RT can work, imo, at the right price.

    You get Office, you can connect to an external display, have a file system, and a full USB port...potentially useful in a lot of situations.

    A well made tablet at Nexus 7 prices could be good.
    Reply
  • damianrobertjones
    " yes, you almost need PhD to use the bloody thing " - I'm stunned. if a 56 year old couple can use an Ativ S and Surface RT then you might need Windows 8 RT for dummies
    Reply
  • apache_lives
    Windows RT is a great os / platform with 1000x more potential then the others

    the fact that you can actually manage files and use it for actual office work makes it a clear winner over the other closed platforms

    Try copying a simple file to a Apple iOS based device, or Android device and actually finding WHERE the file went let alone how to open it

    give it time it will own the rest, and ill refer back to this article when it (or its sucessors) dominate the market and laugh at the haters
    Reply