Nokia's WinPho 8 double date announced
Flagship waving
Nokia will unveil Windows 8 phones during its joint event with Microsoft this September, sources stating the bleedin' obvious revealed.
The two handsets – codenamed Arrow and Phi – will form part of the firm's Lumia range, with the former joining the mid-range party and the latter succeeding the Lumia 800 and 900 as its flagship handset, the Verge reports.
Aside from talk of polycarbonate bodies, further details are hazy but tech being announced at a Nokia/Microsoft soiree is hardly surprising.
Still, thanks to a looming date with the Cupertino colossus merely a week later, the timing of Nokia's, as well as various other handset manufacturer's events, has left many scratching their heads.
Whatever products Nokia launches on 5 September, Motorola unveils the same day, or Amazon discloses 24 hours later, it seems they're all looking to be seen before the likely eclipse that will follow with Apple's announcements.
Yet Apple kit doesn't comes cheap and there are hordes of mobile customers out of contract looking for a new handset, with retailers such as Carphone Warehouse predicting busy times, labelling the season 'super-upgrade autumn'. Maybe so, but will the current crop of WinPho 7 users be tempted enough to forgive the Nokia/MS love-in for leaving them with phones that can't be upgraded? ®
COMMENTS
I am curious.
Why on earth have you got yourself into such a state that you actually are cheering the possiblility that Nokia might go down the Swanee? What has the company done to you or yours that you feel impelled to log on and excrete that kind of steaming odoriferous rubbish? Just to give one example, my lady and I to not have a single item of Apple kit in the house - do you see me logging on here howling "Apple must die"? Get a life.
Re: WP7 not upgradeable?
I have the Lumia 710. I don't feel particularly bothered by the lack of upgrade. I bought my device SIM-free for £160 and it will still do all the same things after Win8 is released as it does now. The loudest people on how unfair it is not to have an upgrade on these forums have typically been those who are anti-MS in the first place.
I don't need anyone to be angry on my behalf, thanks. I grew up in a time when phones weren't upgradeable and I don't see it as some human right that after having bought it, someone should come along for free and magically grant it the hardware it needs to run a newer OS that was released long after it was designed. I get security updates, etc. Sure, it's nice with other phones if you can install a future OS on it (and that this doesn't cause your legacy hardware to run like a dog, which often seems to be the case), but I knew what I was buying and I still like it.
Why would you celebrate the end of a company (which you've hardly shown will happen)? Competition is good. If you (I am presuming) have an iPhone or Android device, then the better Windows Phone devices are the happier you should be as it provides stimulus for the companies that make your device to keep pushing forward.
What's in a Name
I misread one of the codenames - thought one of the handsets was called Phil, which in my opinion is a splendid name for a phone to take on the world.
WP7 not upgradeable?
Possibly not, but that might beat the way Apple do it: give more headline features so that the upgraded iPhone will run like a dog afterwards and people have to downgrade. :)
As a WP7 user I would love the upgrade, but I'm not too worried. As long as any changes they make don't spoil the phone, I'm happy with any upgrade I get now. And at least we get the new UI as a minimum.
