14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia is full steam ahead to bring its first Android smartphones to the mass market. Its X family of devices was officially introduced early last week and one of the handsets unveiled is already available for purchase in many countries.
Nokia X is the first smartphone powered by Android platform launched by the Finnish company, but two more models, the X+ and XL will follow shortly.
Unfortunately for Windows Phone fans, Nokia did not announce any WP-powered smartphones last week at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014 trade fair.
Rumors coming from various insiders claimed no company will make any Windows Phone announcement due to everyone waiting for Microsoft to officially launch the next version of the mobile platform.
Even though a few unannounced Windows Phone handsets leaked several days ahead of MWC 2014, they were not part of Nokia’s press conference and were not showcased at the trade fair.
Nokia Lumia 630 and its dual-SIM counterpart Lumia 635 are among the new devices that the Finnish company is expected to launch on the market in the coming weeks.
However, due to the fact the current version of Windows Phone does not support dual-SIM capability we can safely assume these devices will ship with Windows Phone 8.1, which has been confirmed to come with dual-SIM support.
This means they will not be available on the market until later in Q2 given the fact Microsoft will only announce its Windows Phone 8.1 operating system in early April at BUILD developer conference.
In fact, according to @evleaks, these two smartphones, along with the recently leaked high-end Nokia “Martini” handset, will be officially introduced on April 19.
Nokia event April 19th?
— @evleaks (@evleaks) March 5, 2014
Unfortunately, the assumption that Nokia might held a press conference on April 19 is pretty far-stretched given that would mean the Finnish company will announce new devices on a Saturday.
Still, we can expect Nokia and/or Microsoft to announce new smartphones powered by Windows Phone 8.1 as soon the new operating system goes official.
The possibility of that happening sometime in April is very plausible, so @evleaks information might not be just slightly inaccurate not entirely off the grid.
Windows Phone fans should also expect more than one company to introduce new smartphones based on the new platform, including new comers on Windows Phone market such as Micromax, Karbonn and XOLO.
One thing is clear, it’s highly unlikely there will be any Windows Phone devices announcement until early April when Microsoft will unveil the next version of its mobile platform.