Microsoft's announcement that it is laying off thousands of workers in its smartphone business has prompted industry experts and armchair analysts to declare that Lumia has breathed its last. However, a Twitter leaker thinks Lumia is far from being dead.
Evan Blass, otherwise known for his Twitter handle @evleaks, has posted on Twitter that Microsoft is actually planning on unveiling six new smartphones possibly to bear the flag for Windows 10 for mobile. Although Blass has "retired" from his career as a serial leaker known for the accurate leaks he gathers from insider sources, every now and then he resurfaces to drop new bits of news for people following the mobile industry.
This time, Blass says Microsoft is working on six new smartphones to be unveiled in the future. One of these is supposed to be a smartphone with a front-facing camera equipped with flash, which is believed to be one or both of the upcoming flagships, the Lumia 940 and the Lumia 940 XL.
.@hemanv Well I know of at least six upcoming handsets which would dispute that ;)
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) July 10, 2015
Meanwhile, earlier reports by Nokia Power User say Microsoft is also getting a couple of mid-to-upper range smartphones ready for the unveiling. The first of this may be a modified version of the Lumia 830 that comes with a 5-inch display, a 13 to 14 MP PureView camera, a more powerful processor and dual-sim support.
The other mid-range rumored to be in the works could be a 5.5-inch to 5.7-inch handset with similar specs as the first device but without a PureView camera. Two low-end handsets have also appeared on Zauba, an India-based database for import and export data. According to the entries, the first handset with codename RM-1127 is a 4.7-inch device with single-SIM support, while the second device is distinguished by a QWERTY keyboard and could already be in testing in some Indian markets. The second device is listed with a price of 6,520 INR, which translates to around $102, hinting at its position on the lower end of the Lumia lineup. In June, Blass also teased four other Lumia codenames aside from Cityman, codename for the Lumia 940, and Talkman, codename for the Lumia 940 XL. These codenames were Guilin, Honjo, Saana and Saimaa, which appear to be the codenames for the four more handsets mentioned above.
Everyone's heard of Cityman and Talkman...but how about Guilin, Honjo, Saana, or Saimaa? — Evan Blass (@evleaks) June 20, 2015
Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns | Flickr
