Nokia took the wraps off its first LTE-enabled Windows Phone in Las Vegas yesterday, part of an aggressive drive by the Finnish vendor to establish its new flagship smartphone range in North America.
The Lumia 900 – the vendor's third Windows Phone – will be offered exclusively via AT&T in the “coming months” – though there were no firm details on launch dates or pricing.
The device has a 4.3-inch AMOLED display, front- and back- facing cameras, and will come preloaded with apps such as AT&T’s U-verse (mobile TV), Nokia Drive (turn-by-turn navigation), ESPN (sports), CNN (news), and EA (gaming).
"The introduction of the Nokia Lumia 900 with AT&T is another significant milestone in the on-going rollout of Nokia's global smartphone strategy," said Chris Weber, president of Nokia Americas. "The Nokia Lumia 900 is designed specifically with the US in mind and the announcement of this collaboration with AT&T, in addition to other recent announcements, signifies a new dawn for Nokia in the US."
AT&T switched on its LTE network in 11 more markets last week, including in the New York City metro areas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, taking its network deployment to 26 markets with 74 million population coverage.
Nokia had previously announced that its low-end Windows Phone – the Lumia 710 – will launch tomorrow (11 January) via T-Mobile USA costing just US$50. The firm also said yesterday that it would launch its two existing Lumia phones in neighbouring Canada, offering the Lumia 710 exclusively via Rogers Wireless and the Lumia 800 exclusively via TELUS.
Nokia first unveiled the Lumia range in October last year, the first fruits of its often painful transition from the Symbian smartphone OS to Windows Phone. The firm has lost significant smartphone share to the likes of Apple and Android during the transition period, though even in its heyday Nokia wasn’t a major player in the North American market.
AFP reports that at CES 2012 yesterday, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that Nokia planned to price the Lumia 900 "aggressively" to establish a strong beachhead on the US smartphone “battlefield” – and reiterated his goal to create a third ecosystem to compete with Google and Apple.
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