Nokia is expected to pull back the curtains on its new slew of Windows Phone 8-powered Lumia phones on September 5, but the Finnish phone company has been agonizingly vague about what it intends to show off. That said, some new intel may have just shed new light on Nokia’s hardware plans.
According to The Verge’s sources, Nokia plans to reveal a duo of new Lumia phones — nicknamed “Arrow” and “Phi” respectively — the latter of which is apparently poised to take over the flagship crown of the Lumia line when it launches.
Rumors of the Phi have been winging their way around the geekier parts of the web for a few weeks now, and the supposed spec sheet certainly looks like a treat. Notorious Russian gadgeteer Eldar Murtazin purported that the slimmed-down Phi will sport a hefty 4.7-inch AMOLED display and a (gasp!) microSD card slot, while others pointed to the inclusion of an LTE radio, a dual-core Qualcomm chipset, and Nokia’s handsome polycarbonate body.
The Verge’s Tom Warren reports that AT&T is going to throw much of its weight behind the Phi (much like the carrier did with the Lumia 900), but the extent of that marketing push remains to be seen.
The Arrow, on the other hand, is something of an unknown quantity. The existence of a new Lumia device with a 4 or 4.3-inch screen have been thrown around a lot lately, and Warren notes that the mid-range device will hit both AT&T and T-Mobile in due course. If true, the move seems to echo Nokia’s plan for the original unveiling of the Lumia line at Nokia World last year, in which the top-tier Lumia 800 was officially revealed alongside the mid-range Lumia 710 — you’ve got to love the symmetry.
Oh, and in case you were curious, those (awfully lame) monikers are just temporary, and will probably get swapped out in favor of a blander model number soon enough. Lumia 1001, anyone?