Windows Phone 8: World first phone and launch date revealed

The Gadget Show  Thursday 30 August 2012

Windows Phone 8, Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, is coming up fast. Last night at IFA, Samsung revealed the first ever Windows Phone 8 handset, beating Nokia to the punch – and then a report revealing Windows Phone 8’s launch date hit the web too.

The IFA gadget expo is going down in Germany this week, and yesterday, Samsung chose it as the venue to reveal the Samsung Ativ S (Ah-teev), the world’s first ever Windows Phone 8 smartphone. Its specs are similar to those of the popular Samsung Galaxy S3 Android phone: it’s packing a 4.8-inch HD screen, a speedy 1.5GHz dual-core processor, sharp eight megapixel camera and 16 or 32GB of storage for all your music and videos.

See Microsoft Surface on video here

The design of the Samsung Ativ S however is a bit more like last year’s Samsung Galaxy S2: black, with straight lines and rounded edges, and 8.7mm thick. Of course Windows Phone 8 is the real star of the show here, with its new customisable grid homescreen, fast Internet Explorer 10 web browser and even Nokia’s smart maps built in.

Samsung kept mum on a release date for the Samsung Ativ S, but at the same time, long time Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley published a report citing 29 October as the big promotional launch date for Windows Phone 8, with the first handsets going on sale in early November.

No, you’re not wrong: late October’s also the time when Microsoft will be unleashing Windows 8 on the world, as well as its Microsoft Surface tablet. Busy times! Will it be enough to shift the world’s attention away from Apple, with an iPhone 5 and an iPad Mini in the pipeline? Let’s hear your view in the comments below.

See Windows Phone 7 on video now