Apparently, the selfie craze isn't going to die anytime soon, with Microsoft jumping into the bandwagon and planning to release its own high-end smartphone with a focus on users who love taking pictures of themselves.
Sources who approached The Verge claim that Microsoft is nearing the launch of a selfie smartphone, which Microsoft vice president for devices Stephen Elop showed off during the company's annual internal meeting, along with another handset that is going to be marketed as an "affordable high-end phone."
Previously revealed as a smartphone code-named Superman, Microsoft's selfie smartphone is said to feature a 5-megapixel front-facing camera and a 4.7-inch display, making it the perfect handset for folks who cannot stop taking photos of themselves and admiring them afterwards. The iPhone 5, one of the most popular smartphones in the world, only has a 1.2-megapixel front camera.
The Superman, however, is not the first smartphone made for the selfie-loving crowd. The HTC One M8 sports the same 5-megapixel camera on the front and several photo-centric features that allow for snapping great-looking selfies. HTC is also rumored to be developing a Windows Phone version of its flagship smartphone.
Tesla, the second smartphone, showed up in images leaked by Chinese micro-blogging website Weibo in July. Microsoft is said to have developed Tesla with PureView, a Nokia-created, high-end, 41-megapixel camera technology that Microsoft is now pushing into the lower end of its smartphone spectrum. Sources say Tesla will replace the Lumia 720, but the leaked photos show the phone looks like a slimmer Lumia 930.
Elop's announcement of the two smartphones indicate that Microsoft will soon debut the new devices. The presentation comes just days after Jo Harlow, the company's head of its phone business under devices, revealed in an internal memo obtained by The Verge that Microsoft's focus is on delivering devices running on Windows Phone.
"Whereas successful hardware was the goal of Nokia; delighting our customers with Microsoft platforms, services, and applications through our hardware is our goal at Microsoft," Harlow writes. "To drive success in the short term, we plan to focus our high end go-to-market strategy on the Lumia 930, Lumia 1520, and other high-end products that we will be announcing very soon."
Microsoft is also said to be gearing up for the release of a Windows Phone 8.1 update, which technology blogger Paul Thurott has said will include improvements to accommodate high-end devices, such as support and API for smart cases and 7-inch phones.
