China

We've known that China has been testing the Nokia Lumia 800c, a CDMA variant of the popular Nokia handset, and now we have some more information.

The handset is due in March on the China Telecom network and will come in cyan, white and black upon release. In addition, the Lumia 710 is due in April and even the Lumia 900 is expected to launch there too, though no firm date was given. All phones are expected to be upgraded to Tango.

Of course with the mention of CDMA bands, our US readers are probably wondering about a Verizon/Sprint release. While it seems technically easier to do so, we're holding out for a Verizon announcement of a 900 with LTE sometime in the future but our latest intel still has no Nokia devices for Sprint. Of course being the mobile industry, things can change fast.

Source: Weibo; Thanks, nba-lin, for the tip

For those of you near China/Hong Kong (or like ourselves, in New York City) Chinese New Year is a pretty big deal and tends to be a lot of fun. So it's very cool to see Microsoft getting into the mix by distributing traditional Chinese "Red Envelopes" to the media as a New Year's gift. In case you're unfamiliar with the ritual, here you go from MIC Gadget:

"Traditionally, the married Chinese will give a red envelope with certain amount of money inside as a monetary gift to children and unmarried adults during the Lunar New Year. The red color of the envelope symbolizes good luck and the money was known as “ya sui qian”, meaning “money warding off evil spirits”. It was believed to protect the elderly from sickness and death too. In modern day, the envelopes are not just in red color, some will used gold color. Gold represents good luck and wealthy, that is another favorite color for the Chinese. "

As noted though, there was sadly no money in those envelopes meaning the press had to find other means for cash. We're not going to lie though, we'd like to get our hands on one of these for a souvenir!

Source: ePrice (HK); via MIC Gadget; Thanks, Norman M., for the tip!

Over at the Windows Phone Developer Blog Todd Brix just announced that with the new year comes new markets for Windows Phone. Since the initial release of Windows Phone the geographic availability of the Marketplace has been spreading, and with this there are 6 new markets: Argentina, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru and the Philippines.

In the post he mentions that this does not mean that those markets are available to WP7 users there just yet, but rather that developers can now publish their application there in anticipation.

There are also a few extra rules which govern what content will pass certification. So if you have an application that may possibly have questionable content I would suggest publishing it first to the rest of the world, and then these new markets, to make sure you don't get stuck in certification hell.

With the these new rules in-place I imagine that quite a few developers will not be able to get their applications to these areas:

Examples of potentially offensive content in certain countries/regions include, but are not limited to the following:
• People in revealing clothing or in sexually suggestive poses
• Religious references
• Alcohol references
• Sexual or bathroom humor
• Simulated or actual gambling

However that's not totally a bad thing, because from the look of it these markets will never have to deal with any fart-apps!

Source: Windows Phone Developer Blog

Wait...wait...did we just write first pics of a Lenovo Windows Phone? Lenovo, last we checked, isn't on board with Windows Phone. But guess what? Here are shots of such a device. Actually, it was rumored back in December 2010 that Microsoft was in talks with Lenovo to join the Windows Phone crowd for China.

So we guess that worked out.

The images you see are of the "S2", one of reportedly two Windows Phones Lenovo are supposedly working on. No details on specs, but it looks very Samsung Focus-ish, which we suppose is a good thing. This will probably be sporting lower-end specs, like a 1GHz CPU and possibly 4GB of storage to keep costs down. But then again, it is clearly sporting a front facing camera, so perhaps not.

We should also note that the Windows keys are barely visible, if at all, which cause us to have a little caution on these shots. Then again, this could be an early prototype and not yet complete. We'll try to find out more...

Source: CNBeta.com; Thanks, talan1314, for the tip!

Reports are surfacing out of China that the Marketplace has not been fully functional for the past few days.  According to users, WP7 devices are able to able to browse the Marketplace, receive update notifications, and make purchases, but as soon as they attempt to download, they fail with an "connection" error.  It is not certain, but likely culprit is what has come to be known as the Great Firewall of China, a netwok blockade that the Chinese government uses to control the flow of information and prevent its citizens from accessing websites/services that are thought to be unsuitable for one reason or another.  Past censorship has included Google, Twitter, Facebook, news sites and the Android marketplace.

Another possible explanation for the cutoff could be Microsoft themselves, who have not officially released their OS in China and may be denying access to countries that fall outside the Marketplace's current group of 16 supported nations.  WP7 devices have made their way into the country and have gained a loyal following who have found ways of using the Marketplace and downloading content.  It seems, however, that if MS were the source of the outage, they would block all Marketplace activity and not just downloads.  We would also expect to be hearing reports out of other countries where users have manged to get their hands on WP7 devices.

There's no telling whether or not access to the Marketplace will be restored, or who is responsible, but for the time being, it is being reported that download access is still available for those who use a VPN service to mask there source IP address.

We'll keep you posted if we get more info on this.

Source: Penn-Olson, WPSauce

It's nothing new to find a cheap knockoff device pretending to be the real deal in China, but in what looks to be a first, a phone has surfaced that runs a fake version of WP7.  In reality, the HD7 imitator runs Windows Mobile 6.5, customized to resemble WP7.  Despite the chintzy OS, the Shanzai "HD7" sports a gigantic 4.8" screen with a 400x800 resolution, compared to the real HD7's 4.3" display.  Other specs on include:

• 1GHz processor
• Dual SIMS
• Two MicroSD slots (total of 32GB extra memory)
• 256MB RAM/512MB ROM
• WiFi/Bluetooth
• GPS

There's no word on when the phone will be available, nor how much it will cost.  But, come on...you really wouldn't buy this thing anyway.  It's just fun see what the Chinese counterfeiters come up with next.  Who knows, perhaps it might just inspire HTC to create a true monster-screen device for Windows.

Source: Shanzhai Via: UberGizmo

Although it's been rumored and hinted at for a little while that Microsoft was planning on releasing Windows Phone 7 in the second half of 2011 for China, today it was confirmed by Yang Tianyang, Microsoft's communications sector director for the Greater China region.

The announcement is pretty huge for a few reasons. For one, the market in China is obviously quite large, giving Microsoft ample opportunity to potentially sell millions of devices. In 2010, 62 million smartphones are expected to be sold, up from 21 million just one year earlier. Number two, historically, Windows Mobile was one of the top selling mobile OSs in that country, meaning Microsoft has some positive legacy to build off of. On the other hand, just like everywhere else in the world, China is plagued by mass iPhone and Android adoption, making the challenge their just as significant as it is here in the States.

The other big news is that Microsoft is in talks with Lenovo, ZTE and Huawei to build WP7 devices specifically for China. Huawei is already a huge contender in the Android market but who knew Lenovo was in on the game too? While we'll probably never see such devices over here, it's good for Microsoft to continue to augment that OEM portfolio.

Source: Network World

Conflipper recently posted some info about two HTC devices slated for 2010:  Huashan and Hengshan, named after mountains in China.

Sinces these reference-names are Chinese and not very Western e.g. Mondrian, Rhodium, Whitestone, it's a pretty good indication that these are devices that we'll never see here in the U.S. or Europe for that matter. Well that and they're on Dopod's release schedule.

Going further, Engadget are calling these Windows Phone 7 devices which is incorrect (WMPoweruser was savvy enough not to make this mistake). The following reference is inside the files:

Microsoft Internet Explorer Mobile 6

5.2

In case you forgot, this is Internet Explorer Mobile 6 (5.2), the same one that debuted with WM6.1.4 and is in WM6.5. That browser is quite at odds with the Windows Phone 7 browser based on the IE7 and IE8 Trident rendering engines. Just going by screen resolution (480x800 and 320x480) tells you nothing meaningful to differentiate between the two OSes.

So here's the deal: HTC and other lower-tier manufacturers will continue to churn out WM6.5 "Classic" devices in certain markets, namely Eastern as a low-cost alternative to the high-end Windows Phone 7 experience. Sure, both of these new HTC devices could be bumped to Windows Phone 7, but right now there is zero evidence that they are currently planning it. In fact the 320x480 device is probably just a HTC HD Mini spin off.

In other words HTC Huashan and HTC Hengshan: nothing to see here

We're getting word from some insiders that HTC will be launching the Tachi (aka Twin) in China exclusively on the Dopod network come July (see right).

The VGA (480 x 640) device will launch with WM6.5, making it one fo the first devices in the world to (legally) launch with the new OS. This is evidently a change from the original plan to launch with WM6.1. It will also have dual CDMA and GSM radios enabled and be exclusive to China/Dopod for sometime.

Some other quick specs:

• 2.8-inch screen
• WiFi
• Bluetooth 2.0
• 3.1MP camera w/auto-focus
• Front facing camera
• MicroSD

Thanks anonymous!