Stephen Elop, the CEO of Nokia, got under a lot of people’s skin when he said that the Lumia 800 was the “first real Windows Phone”. Samsung, HTC, LG, they were making and selling Windows Phones for a full year before Nokia brought their device to the table. Shit talking aside, Nokia prides themselves on being an international player, that there are more people in more countries using Nokia devices than anyone else currently making mobile phones. True as that might be, HTC just snagged themselves the title of being the first company to sell Windows Phones in China. They’re taking the massive 4.7 inch Titan to the People’s Republic and are rebraning it as the “Triumph”. The folks at Engadget spoke to HTC and have confirmed that the Triumph will run Tango, the version of Windows Phone that adds a few new features to the platform, but also brings the total number of languages supported to well over 100.
The bigger question is obviously when will Nokia bring the Lumia to China? They said it would happen during the first haf of this year, and we know Nokia well enough to translate that PR laden window to “late June”. By then the Triumph would have been out on the market for close to four months, which is just about as long the Lumia 800 has been out and about in Europe and Asia.
And let’s not forget about the elephant in the room: Windows Phone 8. That OS is going to come out in roughly half a year, and anyone following the mobile industry knows that. Said people are telling friends and family to wait, especially since there’s strong evidence to suggest that today’s Windows Phones aren’t going to get updated to the next version of the platform. If it’s true, you can expect a lot of angry people to mumble some expletives on the internets in protest.