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Nokia takes the wraps off its first Windows Phone 8 devices

Nokia showed off its first two Windows Phone 8 devices, which are likely to be available later this fall.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

On September 5 in New York, Nokia took the wraps off its first two Windows Phone 8 devices, due out later this fall.

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The Lumia 920, codenamed "Phi," is a 4.5-inch HD PureMotion display phone with a dual-core 1.5 Ghz CPU. It supports NFC, Blutooth 3.0 and wireless charging (using a FatBoy wireless charging pillow as one option). It includes a rear-facing PureView camera, plus a 2 MP front-facing camera and comes in yellow, red and gray, in addition to the existing Nokia Lumia colors. (I think the existing colors continue on... Anyone know for sure?)

The Lumia 920 phones will support new Nokia-developed apps, including the City Lens augmented-reality app, which recently exited beta, and its streaming-music app, Nokia Music (which just became available in the U.S.

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Nokia also announced the Lumia 820, codenamed "Arrow," is a 4.3-inch OLED phone with a dual-core 1.5 GHz CPU inside. It supports NFC, Bluetooth 3.0 and features Carl Zeiss optics in its rear-facing camera. The 820 has removable shells (red, yellow, gray purple, black, silver). It also supports the same wireless charging (via the FatBoy pillow, among other options) as the Lumia 920

Last week, Samsung showed off the ATIV S, the first of a number of new Windows Phone 8 devices expected to debut over the next several months. HTC is expected to show off its Windows Phone 8 devices on September 19 in New York. Microsoft is on tap to launch the Windows Phone 8 platform on October 29 on the west coast. The first Windows Phone 8 devices are expected to ship starting in early November.

Neither Microsoft nor Nokia officials shared any update on pricing, availability or carrier support at today's event. 

Update: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer did make a prediction of interest today. He said a year from now, Microsoft believes there will be 400 million new phones, tablets and PCs (in total) running Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 in the market.

Microsoft execs showed off a couple of new Windows Phone 8 features at the Nokia event today, including new "lenses" (filters) and the ability to capture screen shots on the phones. 

Update No. 2: Here are Nokia's spec sheets for the Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820.

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