Nokia's decision to adopt Windows Phone 7 as its main platform shook the cell phone world two months ago. Newly appointed CEO Stephen Elop promised to change the company fast and now we have the opportunity to get an inside peek at what's going on in Finland. Russian tech analyst Eldar Murtazin got a hold of the first and only Nokia WP7 prototype and unveiled a number of interesting details about the future development of the company.
First of all is the fact that the Finns have to use a Qualcomm chipset which is reportedly Microsoft's requirement. Good as it sounds, this puts Espoo in a rather delicate situation as Nokia has been in legal battles with the chip maker for a long time. Despite Stephen Elop's efforts to have the devices ready for the holiday shopping season around Christmas, the first Nokia WP7 phones will most likely hit shelves at the end of January/early February of 2012.
Murtazin got a hold of a prototype of what's to be the very first Nokia WP7 handset, dubbed the Nokia W7 by the analyst. A Nokia X7 lookalike with a WVGA screen, it uses a QSD8250 chipset, one of the first released by Qualcomm. Nokia will probably switch to a newer one for the final model, but going with the QSD8250 which was already widely available allowed it to quickly put together a working device demonstrating WP7 on a handset. The camera on the prototype is an 8-megapixel one, with flash and... auto-focus. Auto-focus will be also one of the differentiating features separating Symbian from most WP7 handsets. Compared to current devices on Microsoft's platform, the Nokia W7 carries some resemblance to the HTC Mozart.
