When we saw the Lumia 900 at CES this year, we knew it was an important release for Windows Phone 7—a larger version of the well-received Lumia 800 that would serve as Microsoft’s flagship handset, and hopefully help the OS gain some traction. According to rumors about AT&T’s 2012 roadmap, the device has an even better shot at making a splash than we thought, thanks to a $99 on-contract price tag. If the reports are true, that would put Microsoft’s top-shelf, LTE phone firmly on the low end of the smartphone spectrum, and that’s exactly the kind of competitive move that the platform needs.
The report also specified March 18 as the Lumia 900 release date, falling right in line with past rumors. At $99, are you willing to give Windows Phone 7 a second look?
To review, the main features of the Lumia 900 are the 4.3” screen (a sizable increase from the 800’s 3.7” display), 4G LTE, and wide-angle front and rear cameras. The phone runs on a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm processor, with 512MB of RAM (a less important spec than usual, since Windows Phone 7 is tuned for the hardware) and 16GB of internal memory.