AT&T, Nokia and HTC Announce First LTE Windows Phones

After a significant expansion of its 4G network last week, AT&T and partners Microsoft, Nokia and HTC rolled out the first phones that will surf its long-term evolution data network using Windows Phone 7.

The carrier took advantage of the hype at his week's International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which runs through Friday, to introduce the Lumia 900, running the updated Mango operating system and sporting a 4.3-inch, 480x800 ClearBlack AMOLED display. Inside, the 900 packs a 1.4 gigahertz Snapdragon APQ8055 processor with 512 megabytes of RAM and its 8-megapixel camera is capable of 720p HD video recording.

The HTC Titan II is slightly more powerful, with a 1.5 gigahertz MSM8255 processor, and has double the megapixels in its rear camera.

Both have a non-expandable 16 gigs of storage. Shipping dates and prices are to be announced later.

They Need a Winner

The stakes are high for Nokia and Microsoft, who signed a billion-dollar deal early last year to replace the Symbian platform on the Finnish handset maker's devices with Windows Phone 7. Nokia has been losing market share while Microsoft never really had it, eclipsed by the growth of Google's Android and Apple's iPhone.

"Nokia needs a smartphone device winner in 2012 in order for other carriers to offer [their] future devices and build momentum," said wireless analyst Kirk Parsons of J.D. Power and Associates. "Whether it's the 900 model or another one is too soon to predict, but given Android's and iPhone's large lead in the [smartphone] segment, it will be an uphill climb."

What kind of volume does Nokia need to qualify as a success? "If you use Apple as a guide, they sold approximately 3 million iPhone 4s in the first week," Parsons said. "The [Windows] platform has gotten good reviews and it is different from other SP devices, so it...