14 DAY TRIAL // Together with the Surface Mini, Lumia McLaren was one of the most exciting Microsoft products that never came to be, despite the fact that they both had pretty exciting features that could have outclassed competition easily.
McLaren, in particular, was a high-end device that was canceled last year for no clear reason, with Microsoft keeping absolutely all details secret. Information regarding the project, however, leaked to the web every once in a while, and now we have more photos showing the device in all its glory.
We've already known that the McLaren was supposed to come with a monster camera and these leaked photos published by BlogJack come to confirm that this was indeed the case. Lumia McLaren was meant to be a direct successor to the Lumia 1020 which had a 41-megapixel camera, so it's not at all surprising that Microsoft decided to go for a similar approach.
And yet, the McLaren was equipped with a 20-megapixel PureView Carl Zeiss camera with a huge bump on the back of the phone supposed to put the photo shooting capabilities of the device in the spotlight.
Made of aluminum
The McLaren was expected to be made of aluminum, or at least some specific versions of the device, so it was pretty clear from the very beginning that Microsoft wanted to build a high-end model to compete against expensive devices running Android and iOS.
Innovative features were also part of the project, including exploding tiles for a more interactive Start screen, but also 3D touch, which was really huge at that time.
Unfortunately, McLaren was never released and some people still hope that Microsoft would give it a chance at some point, but for the moment, this is very unlikely. The company already has two flagships on the market, the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL, so launching another expensive phone that could cannibalize sales of these models doesn't make sense. Unless it's a Surface Phone, of course.
