Nokia starts US push with Lumia 900

Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop celebrated his firm’s return to the US market with the arrival of the Lumia 900.

Last year, Nokia released the Lumia 800, its first Windows Phone handset since signing an exclusivity deal with Microsoft. However, the Lumia 800 was only available in Europe.

At CES, Stephen Elop took to the stage – with a surprise visit from Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer – to unveil the Lumia 900, launching exclusively on AT&T in the US.

Nokia admited the design of the 900 “reflects” its European sibling, with a similar shape and the same polycarbonate body. It will be available in black and cyan, but not the bright pink seen on the Lumia 800.

The first LTE handset from Nokia, the Lumia 900 features a 1.4GHz processor, and a 4.3in AMOLED screen, larger than the 800. It features a pair of cameras – one on the front, the other on the back – with wide angle, 28mm focal length, Carl Zeiss lenses.

It features a 1800mAh battery, which Elop said would help the handset stand up to the higher energy demands of an LTE network. “The battery performance on the Lumia 900 will be very superior on the LTE networks,” he claimed.

The Lumia 900 will be exclusive to the AT&T network. Nokia did not reveal specific prices or release timing, only saying it would be “aggressively” priced and arrive in the “coming months”. There’s no word on whether the device will launch in Europe, but Elop said the Lumia line would be targeted around the world.

Windows Phone rivals

Elop reiterated his claim that the Lumia smartphones are the first “real” Windows Phone handsets, despite rivals releasing devices running Microsoft’s mobile OS many months earlier.

However, he welcomed other handset manufacturers making Windows Phone devices. “I’m so happy that companies like Samsung and HTC are introducing Windows Phone devices,” as that will help build the ecosystem, he said. “Our principle competition is the other ecosystems at this point,” he added.