14 DAY TRIAL // Redmond-based software giant Microsoft already announced to the world that it would impose stricter hardware specifications requirements to OEMs when it comes to the newly unveiled Windows Phone 7 Series, but no specific details on the matter were unveiled. While we all know that the company is trying this way to enhance the experience users will receive from the upcoming mobile phones, the move might not be seen with good eyes by manufacturers, which won't have the opportunity to bring in the form factor and hardware components they would like to.
However, it seems that, in the end, things might not be as bad as they look like. We already caught word that the set of minimum requirements offers OEMs the possibility to enhance their devices as much as they like above a certain limit, and now we learn that there might be three Windows Phone 7 chassis specs in the wild, offering a wider spectrum of choices. According to a recent post on ZDNet, the info comes from the “Frankly Speaking” podcast (dated February 20), during which Michael Kordahi and Andrew Coates talk about the three chassis specs.
“Chassis 1 is for PC makers developing “big touch screen” phones, the hosts said. These will be touch-only devices, with 1 GHz processor (hello, Snapdragon!) and a dedicated graphics processor, the Frankly Speaking guys said. These are the phones that will be out first at launch this holiday season. Chassis 2-compliant phones will support real sliding keyboards plus touch, the podcasters claimed. They said these would be more Palm-Treo-like. There also will be Chassis 3 phones, about which the pair didn’t have any details. One of the hosts (I couldn’t tell which) said he expected Chassis 3 phones might be candy bar phones. The pair didn’t say when Chassis 2 and 3 phones might ship,” ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley notes.
The idea of Windows Phone 7 chassis is not a new one. We already learned some details on the matter last year, but only on one of the hardware specs Microsoft imposes to its partners, and now it seems that three of them are actually there. Since a wide range of users are looking into having both touchscreen and QWERTY keyboards on their devices, chassis 2 would be a great thing for them, yet it still remains to be seen what chassis 3 is all about, since the first one should emerge as soon as this year.