Speaking at the Finnish firm's press conference at CES 2012 host to little else but the pre-announced unveiling of the US bound Lumia 900 Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said the company is still 'establishing its beachheads' on Windows Phone.
It's the kind of statement that suggests Nokia doesn't expect the roll out of the lower-end Lumia 710 in the US on January 11 to break any sales records, yet its larger cousin is openly being billed as the firm's grand return to the North American smartphone market.
American arsenal
"There's much more we can do in this battle, especially here in North America," Elop said in his opening.
"So today I am very pleased to introduce the third device in the Lumia portfolio. The Lumia 900 is Nokia's first LTE smartphone, coming exclusively to AT&T."
Like the Lumia 800 not currently available in the US the Lumia 900 sports the same sleek polycarbonate shell, launching in both black and cyan.
However, as well as its larger size the device sporting a 4.3-inch screen the new phone will benefit from two cameras, with a front facing lens designed to aid 'superior conference calls' adding to the 8MP Carl Zeiss lens camera on the back.
Other than that, Lumia 900 appears like a redesigned Lumia 800 pitched firmly at the US market, with the same 1.4GHz CPU and ClearBack AMOLED touchscreen.
Three's family
An exact release in the US is not yet known Nokia simply referring to a launch in the "coming months" - but Lumia 900 will initially launch exclusively on AT&T, serving as Nokia's first LTE equipped smartphone for the North American market.
Indeed, the idea of Nokia, Microsoft and AT&T working together caused Ballmer to appear rather bullish when he appeared on stage alongside Elop.
"It was about a year ago we announced the plan to partner with Nokia," opened Ballmer.
"Nokia got off to a fast start. The Lumia 900 is another step on this path...and AT&T has sold more Windows Phones than anybody. We think this can really be the strong, third ecosystem in the market."
Other carriers look likely to take the device in the US Elop replying to a question about working with Verizon by saying Nokia would look to reach out to as many consumers as possible in the future but any corresponding launch in Europe for a retooled Lumia 900 was not mentioned.
[source: The Verge]
