As recently as 2010, smartphone manufacturer Nokia was sitting high atop the smartphone marketplace. They had shipped a record number of smartphones around the world that year, and were the global leader in smartphone sales. Fast forward just over 2 years, and market share for the once proud Nokia in the smartphone arena has dropped to only 5%. That ranks them as the 3rd largest shipper of smartphones on the planet, behind Samsung (30%) and Apple (19%).
But Nokia plans on righting the ship beginning this year. The Nokia Lumia lineup was super successful for that company, and one of the few bright spots in 2012. And this year Nokia Lumia 900 owners on AT&T are slated to receive the Windows Phone 7.8 operating system update before any other smartphone owners, this proclamation coming from internal AT&T documents. And with the speedy Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network spread across over 400 markets in the United States, Nokia is wisely going to deliver a flagship smartphone for that Verizon Wireless network in 2013.
First reported online by The Verge, a website which launched in 2011 and that covers “the intersection of technology, science, art, and culture” by their own proclamation, Verge claims to have intimate knowledge of the company’s plans for the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network in 2013. The new Verizon device which is currently codenamed Laser will be an offshoot of the popular and successful Nokia Lumia 920 smartphone, but device details, features and retail price tag were unknown at this time.
You may recall that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop tiptoed around the subject of releasing a flagship phone for Verizon last month in an interview with CNET. Ever since then both he and Nokia have been deluged with requests for specific device information, but they have held their silent ground. The arrival of a flagship Nokia Lumia device on the pervasive 4G LTE network of Verizon in the United States would be the perfect complement to the Lumia 822 already running on that same network.
The Lumia 822 is currently retailing for $0.01 with a two year contract at the Amazon Wireless store online, and delivers a compact body with a large 4.30 inch display. The handset offers the exclusive Verizon NFL Mobile application, the Windows Phone 8 operating system, a speedy dual core central processor and 16 GB of built-in data storage, as well as 1.0 GB of RAM system memory.
