The Lumia 800 may not have a gargantuan screen or a front-facing camera, but according to The Verge, the U.S.-bound version of Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone may play nice with some of our LTE networks.
It’s a welcome surprise for domestic Nokia fans — when the Lumia series was first announced last month, Nokia slyly omitted any release details for the United States. Nokia U.S. boss Chris Weber also mentioned not long after the big event that the company is preparing to bring a “full portfolio” of Windows Phones to the States starting in early 2012, but wouldn’t shed any light on the Lumia situation.
According to The Verge’s sources, that delay is due to Mango’s currently inability to play nice with LTE out of the box. As such, it’s unclear whether Mango will be tweaked to handle the change or if the LTE Lumias will run on the forthcoming Tango software build.
The Verge does seem pretty confident in saying that AT&T will get an LTE-friendly variant of the Lumia 800 (which is great news considering their new LTE network seems rather snappy) Meanwhile, details regarding other LTE carriers like Verizon are still murky, though Nokia going full-bore with LTE support could only help as the networks continue to grow.
I’d advise everyone not to get their hopes up too much — after all, a lot could change in the next few months — but the prospect of a 4G Lumia has me more than a little giddy.