Windows Phone AT&T iPhone 6 Killers Coming On November 7?

With sales of Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus off to a pretty brisk start, it seems Microsoft and its partners are planning a big Windows Phone comeback of their own – at least as far as AT&T’s wireless network is concerned. According to one set of rumors both the AT&T Lumia 830 and the AT&T HTC One M8 for Windows have launch dates of November 7th.

Windows Phone website WPCentral¸ which has produced accurate information on Microsoft’s future Windows Phone plans before, says that sources they’ve spoken with confirm the AT&T HTC One M8 for Windows and Microsoft’s own Lumia 830 will arrive on November 7th. The outlet also says the sources it’s spoken with couldn’t confirm pricing for either devices. As such, it’s completely unclear how these two iPhone 6 alternatives will stack up against Apple’s device pricing.

Presumably, Microsoft will aim for a lower two-year contract price for the Lumia 830 when compared to the iPhone 6. When it announced the Lumia 830 in early September it couldn’t help but refer to the Lumia 830 as an “affordable flagship.” It’s hard to imagine that affordable flagship would translate to anything more than $99 with a two-year service agreement, especially considering the Lumia 830’s specifications.

The Lumia 830 is an iPhone 6 alternative point for point. The Lumia 830 has a 5-inch AMOLED screen that isn’t able to hit 1080P resolution for videos, but does manage 720p playback. Inside is a Snapdragon 400 processor with four cores and 1GB of RAM. Users get 16GB of storage inside or they can remove the rear-facing color panel and add even more storage with a MicroSD card. A front-facing camera and support for NFC pairing technology with other phones and accessories are included. The Lumia 830 absolutely blows shines when compared to the rear-facing camera of the iPhone 6. Whereas the iPhone 6 has an 8 megapixel camera the Lumia 830 sports a 10 megapixel camera with optical image stabilization.

Likewise, HTC finds itself in a similar boat with the HTC One M8 for Windows. That device debuted at Verizon recently, but it’s not exactly a new. Instead, it’s a Windows Phone-flavored rehash of the HTC One M8 with Android that HTC launched in the early spring. The HTC One M8 for Windows does have better specs than Microsoft’s Lumia 830.

The 5-inch display on the HTC One M8 for Windows is completely capable of 1080p video playback. Inside is a Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor that runs at 2.3GHz not the 1.2GHz that the Lumia 830 does. The HTC One M8 has 2GB of RAM instead of the 1GB of RAM the Lumia 830 does too. Users take pictures with a rear-facing 4 megapixel camera that has an enlarged sensor.

For comparison, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus each feature dual-core 1.4GHz processors with 1GB of RAM. Both devices have 8 megapixel rear-facing cameras, but only the iPhone 6 Plus offers the same optical image stabilization that the Lumia 830 offers. All four phones sport support for AT&T’s speedy 4GLTE technology.

To be clear, AT&T Wireless, Microsoft nor HTC are confirming these details at this point. Each has confirmed that their devices will come to AT&T Wireless at some point, but any information beyond that has been hard to come by. For now T-Mobile users are mostly left out of the festivities. T-Mobile confirmed that it will have its own version of the HTC One M8 for Windows, but hasn’t said when it will arrive. It could come at or around the same time as AT&T’s HTC One M8 for Windows. T-Mobile hasn’t said if it plans to carry the Lumia 830 on its network. Today both carriers offer the Lumia 630. It’s less of an iPhone 6 rival and more of a decent way to get into the Windows Phone experience. It’s meant for first time smartphone buyers.