According to industry insider Eldar Murtazin, a man whose been known as a Nokia seer of sorts over the years, Nokia will make its Windows Phone debut with two new devices, the W7 and the W8. Reportedly, the W7 is being used inside Nokia as a test device and will hit the market first. Rumor has it the W7 will have a hardware design that’s relatively similar to the Nokia X7 that was announced earlier this week. We’d be pumped about that, given that the X7 sports a 4-inch AMOLED screen and is made of stainless steel and glass. Nokia’s second Windows Phone device could be the W8, which Murtazin says will resemble the Nokia N8 — another device with a top notch industrial design. While we’ve heard that Nokia’s first Windows Phone will land in 2012, the wait should be worth it — Murtazin claims that the Finnish phone maker already has a dozen Windows Phones slated to launch next year.

[Via Engadget]

Read [Eldar Murtazin] Read [Habrahabr]

What, you didn’t see this coming? While the global economy is suffering, Vertu keeps on launching their high-end mobile phones to the world’s richest customers. While they used to be featureless handsets, they’ve now become current, and what used to be expensive, is still… expensive. Let’s look at the brand new Vertu Signature we just got in our office. It’s the stainless steel model, and is made of sapphire crystal, fine leather, and of course, stainless steel. Its got 3G (only the 850MHz and 2100MHz WCDMA band), Wi-Fi, and an OLED display. Definitely some things that keep these devices in play, tech-wise at least. Since Vertu is an off-shoot of Nokia, all up-to-date Vertus run a customized version of the Series 40 OS (we have heard Vertu is working on a PDA, but nothing has materialized yet). Still, at a retail price of $12,500, who’s going to buy this? The old answer used to be someone who can appreciate the finer things in life, just as someone would spend $80,000 on a watch, they’d have no problem dropping $12,000 on a phone. Right? Well, times have changed. This isn’t 2004 when people were rockin’ RAZRs as the new hot thing and had a pretty limited selection of smartphones. If you think about it the world is pretty topsy turvy. There’s BlackBerrys with cameras, Apple makes a cell phone, HTC makes Android devices, and Sony Ericsson makes a Windows Mobile phone. So where is the market for this Signature? We’d say its smaller than ever thanks to the popularity of smartphones that actually work and then obviously the economy. There’s no doubt this is Vertu’s finest model, it sure as heck feels like it. We’re just not so sure people are that interested in this day and age. Unless we’re talking about that Vertu Ascent Ti Ferrari Nero, then well, that’s another story…

Click on over to our Vertu Signature S Design hands on gallery!

Motorola announced on Tuesday its new luxury phone, the Motorola AURA. The AURA features the world’s first circular display with 16 million colors and 300 dpi resolution and is the first phone to really capture that “cyclops” look. You wont need an invisible shield for this phone as the display is covered with Grade 1, 62-carat sapphire crystal lens, one of the most scratch-resistant materials on earth, and the housing is crafted from stainless steel that is electro- and hand polished, chemically etched, and PVD coated. No wonder why it takes two weeks to create the front of the phone. The handset has an assisted-opening blade that is comprised of a Swiss-made, custom-engineered rotating mechanism with 130 precision ball bearings and custom Tungsten Carbide Coated Gears.  To separate the phone from the full, we should tell you that the AURA sports quad-Band GSM 850/900/1800/1900, EDGE, a 2 MP Fixed Focus camera, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR with A2DP, text and email messaging, multimedia playback, and a yet to be named open source browser. Smooth and sexy with an hint of class and an interesting design is the new Motorola AURA. If you fancy one for yourself, you wont have to wait very long as it is expected to launch worldwide at the beginning of Q4 2008. Start cashing in your piggy banks now as this won’t be your father’s cheap flip phone, ringing up the registers at $1,999.

Read