Rumors

Just ahead of Nokia's new device revaluation in London, which is supposed to spearhead a whole new wave of new Lumia phones and an exciting new year for the manufacturer, there comes rumor that Chinese Windows Phone OEMs will play their cards cautious for 2013.

Citing insider sources, Chinese tech site WPDang claims that Huawei will churn out one single new Windows Phone for the new year: the Ascend W2, which reportedly sports a 5" screen. Not much to look up to, just this one shot.

The operation team behind Chinese app Love Wallpaper HD recently found new device codenames from Samsung, Huawei and Nokia. Yesterday the guys had another look at their updated server log. And guess what they found? A new device from HTC. That makes almost a full house (save for ZTE) for the next wave of Windows Phone devices.

The guys behind popular Chinese app Love Wallpaper HD has dug out traces of several interesting devices out of their server log. Among the traces left by various handsets, the following oddities were caught:

• Huawei H889L
• Samsung SCH-I930
• Nokia RM-860_nam_usa_100
• Nokia RM-877_nam_att_205

As to what exactly these devices are, we can only make wild guesses. Huawei isn't working on a lot of Windows Phone devices, so that one should be fairly easy. Most likely H889L will be the rumored Ascend W2. As to Samsung, we know the Ativ S is codenamed GT-I8705, and Aive Odyssey SGH-T900M. Therefore SCH-I930 should be a whole new device, instead of some new variation of existing ones.

We've seen renderings, images and even a video highlighting the screen assembly on the Nokia Lumia 928 that is destined for Verizon. We are now hearing rumors that Nokia will officially announce the Lumia 928 on April 25th with availability in stores a few weeks later.

The Lumia 928 is expected to sport a 4.5" Super AMOLED screen and an 8.7MP OIS Pureview camera. Basically, a lighter, slightly redesigned version of the Lumia 920.

We have no way of verifying the authenticity of these two images, but it appears to be of the upcoming Nokia Lumia ‘Catwalk’, a follow up to the Lumia 920 that reportedly sports a new aluminum chassis to help reduce the size and weight. The images showed up on the popular Chinese social network Sina Weibo.

No other details were given, but earlier information about Catwalk stated the device as having 4.5” display with an OCTA display, S4 1.5GHz dual-core CPU, 16GB of storage (down from 32GB), 2000mAh battery and an 8.7MP OIS camera with LED flash.

There is speculation that with the Windows 8.1 update users will have the option to boot up directly to the traditional desktop view. The 8.1 update, code named Blue (that will also impact Windows Phones), will still have the hot corner functionality for access to the Charms and Start Screen.  The option will simply launch the desktop view on the computer at boot up.

No word on whether or not the Start Button will be making a comeback (wouldn't hold your breath) but it will be nice to have the option to go straight to the desktop view. Especially for those who prefer the more traditional Windows view.

Source: The Verge

Shh, don't tell Nokia, but the Lumia 928 isn't exactly a secret. The high-end Lumia is destined for Verizon Wireless here in the United States. Further adding to the growing evidence are these parts for the Lumia 928. If you're planning on some DIY repair adventures you'll want to check this out. 

We've already covered rumours of Microsoft looking to add 1080p support for Windows Phone later this year with the GDR3 update (this is all before the anticipated "Blue" update), but now the company may well be addressing the larger real estate issue that will occur with Live Tiles. Should you own a Samsung ATIV S, the three columns of tiles can appear to be rather limited at times, but Mary Jo Foley from ZDNet has learnt that the Windows Phone team is looking at a solution - to add more tiles. 

Sources within Microsoft revealed to the Wall Street Journal that the Redmond company is set to unveil a 7-inch tablet later this year. It will be part of the Surface family and launch alongside other Surface branded devices.