14 DAY TRIAL // Back in 2014 when Microsoft took over Nokia’s Devices and Services unit, the merger included killing off several devices, such as tablets, smartphones, and wearables that were supposed to be launched by the Finnish company in partnership with the Redmond-based software giant.
One of them is the Nokia Mercury tablet, which was designed by Nokia to launch with Windows 8 and expand the range of devices powered by Microsoft’s modern operating system.
Windows 8 was the first version of Windows that bet big on touch interfaces, and in order to appeal to as many tablet OEMs as well, Microsoft also launched Windows RT, a tablet-optimized operating system based on Windows 8 but limited to the Windows Store.
The Nokia Mercury, however, was supposed to provide the full power of Windows 8, though today’s leaks photos show that performance wasn’t really the key focus of the manufacturer. A CPU-Z screenshot shows that the device was powered by an Intel Atom Z3795 chip running at 1.6GHz and paired with 2GB RAM.
A bigger Lumia phone
The design of the tablet is nothing special and it looks more like a bigger Lumia phone, which is nothing surprising given that Nokia itself designed the Lumia lineup. The device is pictured in orange, though some other colors are also very likely, including white and black.
There are both front- and rear-facing cameras, which makes sense for a tablet, as well as a SIM tray, which would have enabled LTE connectivity. There are no details as to the battery or storage options on this tablet, but we expect the device to have featured at least 32GB of storage.
Of course, it goes without saying that the Nokia Mercury will never get to see daylight and we’ll never know why exactly Microsoft discontinued it. Most likely, it’s all due to the simple fact that it brought nothing new to the market, as the same reason has reportedly been behind the decision to kill off the Surface Mini as well.
