While images hit the internet yesterday,today brings"leaks"of a wireless charging station for Nokia's Lumia 920,before the company's official announcement of its new phone tomorrow.
The Lumia 920 is expected to be positioned as Nokia's flagship Windows Phone 8 smartphone as the company looks to finally capitalise on its relationship with the software company.
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However,as Microsoft has been continually rumoured to be planning its own range of smartphones,possibly to tie in with the company's already-announced Surface tablet device,the strength of the Nokia-Microsoft alliance has been consistently called into question.
If Microsoft markets its own Windows Phone 8 devices,industry watchers have asked,what can Nokia look forward to as an OEM,except a large licence fee to pay Microsoft and dwindling sales next to Microsoft's in-house products?
Nokia's answer–if the"leak"is anything to go by–seems to be to focus of on innovative,high-end features.
Further details apparently supplied to The Verge suggest that the wireless charging station will support the Qi wireless power standard,which will make it compatible with other wireless charging products.
This could be construed as Nokia attempting to trailblaze an entirely new industry standard,and jump on a cross-industry bandwagon.
Another feature–one that has been more heavily rumoured than the charge base–is that the Lumia 920 will include the company's much-lauded PureView camera technology.
The 920's camera is unlikely to reach the heights of the PureView 808's synthesised 41 megapixel capability,with 8 megapixels more likely.But it's the PureView technology itself,which grabs average data samples from surrounding pixels to create crunched hi-res images,that could set this Windows 8 flagship phone's capabilities apart from the current range of iOS and Android devices.
In a week that has already seen reports suggesting that Apple is experiencing production problems with the screens for its new iPhone–publicly dubbed iPhone 5–and with a third-party accessories industry already reeling from the company's announcement it will drop the 30-pin connector,Nokia's unveiling tomorrow could come at a fortuitous moment.
The full specs for the Nokia Lumia 920 currently doing the rounds consist of a 1.5GHz dual-core processor,32GB of internal storage and a 4.5-inch HD display,as well as the aforementioned 8 megapixel camera.
However,the pricing may hold the key to how well the product is received in the market.
