china electronics Nokia Sets Stage for QWERTY Phone Launch

Nokia teased a possible new QWERTY phone, coming later this week. The company said china electronics would reveal "something new" early on Wednesday.The announcement, revealed on Nokia's Conversations blog, will come at 3 a.m. ET followed by an online Q&A with Neil Broadley, from the company's mobile phones team. The early morning time suggests a European or Asian-centric launch.

Plus, the fact that the mobile phones team and not the Lumia or Windows Phone team will be explaining the announcement is another clue about what may be announced.cool gadgets

A bigger clue is the graphic accompanying the blog post (see below), which includes a close-up rendering of the bottom corner of a phone's QWERTY keyboard. Finally, the announcement is happening online, with little warning, suggesting this is not a flagship or high-end device.

Adding it all up, the announcement is probably a QWERTY phone that isn't a Windows Phone. Although Nokia is firmly entrenched in Windows Phone for its high-end smartphones, it still sells plenty of other devices, including its lower-end Asha handsets and Symbian-powered phones.dsdfa3DFx

Might we see a higher-end Asha QWERTY device? That where the smart money is, although there's a small chance of a Windows Phone with a QWERTY keyboard. Anyone hoping for a Symbian QWERTY phone will probably be disappointed, though, since Nokia officially stopped development of that platform last year.

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