Yesterday I wrote about the rumor, according to which Nokia’s first Windows Phone-powered smartphones will be launched not earlier than in Q1, 2012. But on the other hand, judging from the latest news about the Nokia Sea Ray and other smartphones running Windows Phone, the first WP-powered handsets are ready and are already being tested.
Anyway, now Nokia’s Stephen Elop is saying that the first devices based on WP7 will appear by the end of 2011 and not in the beginning of 2012.
Elop is in China at the moment, negotiating with Chinese carriers to find out which is the best time to bring Nokia’s new handsets to the Chinese market. In his yesterday’s interview Elop said that the first Windows Phone smartphones will “progress from country to country.”
Of course, it doesn’t mean we’ll see a pile of smartphones, because the company just won’t manage to produce so many handsets. So it is realistic to expect only a couple of devices, and not more. Most likely these devices won’t be high-end smartphones, but mid-range ones. But Windows Phone OS with the improvements it brings will help those phones stand out in the mobile crowd and become popular.
We can hope Nokia’s first WP phones will include the Nokia Maps service giving the users free offline navigation with traffic updates in most major countries.
