Mobile
Nokia Planning Thinner Lumia 920 Successor For 2013
Nokia plans to release a thinner, lighter follow-up to the Lumia 920 later this year according to sources talking to The Verge.
Since the debut of the Lumia line in late 2011 every Nokia Windows Phone had a polycarbonate shell. This new Lumia device, however, will likely have an aluminum shell which will make it lighter than the current Nokia flagship Lumia 920.
The new high-end Lumia device carrier the codename Catwalk, and it will likely be much thinner and lighter than the relatively heavy Lumia 920 because of its aluminum design. The new phone will replace the Lumia 920, but have similar specs to the current phone thanks to the hardware limits Microsoft imposes on Windows Phone 8.
Before it adopted Windows Phone Nokia used aluminum in its smartphone designs. Phones like the Nokia N8, one of the company’s last Symbian phones, used aluminum shells and still came in a wide array of colors like the Lumia lineup.
By switching to aluminum Nokia can better compete with Apple’s iPhone 5 (and likely iPhone 5S by the end of 2013) in terms of weight and thickness. Nokia’s smartphones are typically praised for their industrial design. The company’s high-end Lumia phones in particular are often praised by reviewers for their appearance.
As a follow-up to the Lumia 920 the Nokia Catwalk will likely feature a PureView camera like the current flagship phone. The PureView camera in the Nokia Lumia 920 offer image stabilization as well as better low-light photos than most other smartphones and point-and-shoot cameras.
It’s not clear when exactly Nokia will announce the Catwalk, what its final name is or what carrier it will come to. Based on the company’s recent history AT&T seems like an easy bet for a carrier, though Nokia does also have mid-range phones on T-Mobile and Verizon in the U.S.
The Nokia Lumia 920 is currently exclusive to AT&T in the U.S.