by Ian Uymatiao

            It has been nearly a year since the news broke out that Nokia and Microsoft, two tech giants that were struggling to find a foothold in the rapidly expanding smartphone market, were entering a partnership that would have Nokia drop Symbian for its smartphones in favor of Windows Phone 7. While much has already been said about what the partnership could mean for both companies, 2012 could be considered the year the partnership will be put to the test.

           While Nokia has already released a couple of well-received Windows Phone devices during the previous year, they were mostly stopgap products for what Nokia believes will be a blowout 2012 line-up. To start the New Year, Nokia announced its newest lead device, the Nokia Lumia 900, at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. It boasts a 4.3-inch AMOLED display, a slick polycarbonate bezel, an 8-megapixel Carl Zeiss rear camera, 4G LTE support, and of course the latest Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” OS. As you can probably tell, Nokia intends for the Lumia 900 to compete aggressively with other high-end handsets.

            While other specs, such as CPU and RAM, do not quite live up to the hardware of other handsets in the market, Microsoft’s mobile OS has proven time and again that it doesn’t need the latest hardware to be fast and smooth. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop also expressed confidence that the company represents the best that Windows Phone has to offer, and that their partnership with Microsoft will finally bring the platform into the mainstream. Despite the warm reception that this new device has received thus far, both Nokia and Microsoft still have an uphill climb ahead of them. Only time will tell if Elop’s predictions are, in fact, correct.

(via Engadget and The Verge)

(photo courtesy of engadget.com)