Nokia Lumia 930 coming to Europe from this week
The latest Nokia device, the Lumia 930, will be hitting shelves across Europe, the Middle East and Africa this week – but don't expect to see it in the US any time soon.
The 930, the successor to last year's workhorse 925, comes with a five-inch display, 20 megapixel rear-facing camera, and is powered by Qualcomm's quad-core 2.2Ghz Snapdragon 800 chip. There's also 2GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage and, while there's no MicroSD support, there's 7GB of OneDrive storage thrown in for free.
The Windows Phone 8.1-powered device is going on sale across EMEA this week, according to Nokia, with countries including Germany, France, Italy, Russia, and Finland among the first to get the device.
The 930 will hit the UK on 17 July, expected to be available with contracts of £33 and up per month. The 930 will ship with a wireless charger in the box in the UK and, for a short period after launch, a wireless speaker and a £20 voucher for Windows Phone apps.
The UK is one of the larger Windows Phone markets in Europe, with the Microsoft OS running on about 10 percent of smartphones in the country. In Europe's five largest markets — Germany, France, the UK, Spain, and Italy — eight percent of smartphones sold run Windows Phone, according to figures from Kantar Worldpanel. By percentage, Windows Phone's market share is highest in Finland, where Nokia is based.
Microsoft confirmed the 930 won't be coming to the US at all, because the company will be focusing on the Nokia Lumia Icon instead.
The Icon, released at the start of the year, bears a significant resemblance to the 930 — the only noticeable disparities are in the radios and colour choices. The Icon and the 930 support differing LTE bands, different maximum W-CDMA data rates (the top speed for the 930 is double that of the Icon, according to the spec sheets) and there's no CDMA support in the 930. There's also a bit of divergence in colour, too. While the Icon comes in black and white, the 930 is also available in neon green and orange.
Nokia completed the sale of its devices and services business to Microsoft earlier this year for €5.4bn. As part of the deal, Microsoft has rights to use the Nokia name on handsets its produces for a set period, thought to be 18 months. The branding on the 930 remains very much Nokia themed — Microsoft's name doesn't figure on the outer packaging or the device itself.
However, Microsoft's devices head Stephen Elop said in April that the Nokia brand will eventually be faded out, writing on the Nokia Conversations blog: "Nokia as a brand will not be used for long going forward for smartphones."
However, a branding document from the company, leaked last month, says Microsoft is "carefully planning how and when to introduce the Microsoft brand, over a significant period of time".