File this under rumor, but one that makes sense. Back in the day, we heard about three chassis requirements for Windows Phone. And while Chassis 1 (800x480 screen, 1GHz CPU, 256MB RAM etc.) has come to fruition, Chassis 2 and 3 have not been seen. When we asked Andy Lees back in February, it was clear that Chassis 1 was the focus:
"We haven't announced any details on when that form factor is coming out. We are seeing is more interest in larger screens as opposed to smaller screens...but that doesn't mean we're not going to do it but we haven't announced anything yet."
Now MS nerd, who often gets some good information, has leaked some supposed details. For one, adding Qualcomm's Scorpion CPU (Cortex A8), gyroscope and front facing camera constitutes Chassis 1.5. Chassis 2, long thought to be the front-qwerty/BlackBerry style device, will reportedly offer 480x320 resolution in the "Tango" release as well as LTE support, sometime in early 2012. Finally, Chassis 3 will add dual core CPUs as well as 1280x720 resolution, but not until Windows Phone 8 aka "Apollo" sometime in late 2012.
- Chassis 1.5 ("Mango") - Scorpion CPU, front-facing camera, gyroscope
- Chassis 2 ("Tango") - 480x320 BlackBerry style design, LTE support
- Chassis 3 ("Apollo") - 1280x720 resolution, dual core CPUs
And Lees recently spoke about LTE and dual core support, so clearly they are on the roadmap--the only remaining question was when, which this rumor seems to answer. Finally, MS nerd writes "Tegra & OMAP are targeted for #Win9" which seems to imply that Windows Phone and Windows OS finally merge in Windows 9.
Take all of this with a grain of salt of course, but there's nothing there that is exactly too crazy to be unbelievable at this point.
Source: @MS_nerd 1, 2
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