Nokia Lumia 900 Images Leak Before CES

Images purportedly showing the upcoming Windows Phone powered Nokia Lumia 900 have been leaked via a Christmas card sent by a Microsoft partner, according to Pocket Now.

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) smartphone, also known as the Nokia Ace, is expected to be formally unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES)  in Las Vegas next week.

Season’s Greetings

The leaked images suggest truth in internal rumours from the company that the Nokia Lumia 800 was a “quick fix” to maintain market presence and the Lumia 900 is the first model completely designed to run Windows Phone 7.

The Lumia 900 is expected to have a 4.3-inch WVGA display, compared to the Lumia 800’s 3.7-inch screen, 512MB of RAM, an eight megapixel rear facing camera, a front-facing video conferencing camera, and should weigh 160 grams, 18g more than its predecessor.

There is no suggestion that any new software update will accompany its release and that the phone should launch with the Mango build of Windows Phone, with more details to be revealed at CES.

Windows blogger, Paul Thurrott has suggested the Lumia 900 could be the first of a number of Windows Phone devices which feature LTE support to be released in the next few months. He added that the Lumia 900, which he says will be released on 18 March, would be joined by the HTC Radiant and Samsung Mendel before the middle of 2012.

Last Hurrah For Microsoft

Nokia unveiled its first phones running the Windows Phone operating system in October last year, the first products of a strategic partnership between the Finnish manufacturer and Microsoft.

The company is still the biggest mobile manufacturer in the world by volume, but it has seen its share of the smartphone market erode in recent in years as a result of increased competition from devices running rival operating systems such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

CES may also witness the rumoured appearance of an LG device powered by Intel’s new smartphone chip, the debuts of the HTC Radiant and a quad-core Tegra 3 Toshiba Tablet as well as a range of Windows 8 powered tablets and a plethora of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich powered smartphones.

However this could be the last year of big announcements from Microsoft as the computing giant is set to follow Apple’s lead and withdraw from the exhibition. From 2013, the company says that it will not only relinquish its opening keynote speech but also its booth.