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Samsung has been showing off the Focus 2 at CTIA in New Orleans this week. It’s the most exciting feature? It’s going to be running Windows Phone.
Most of Samsung’s range — like the new Galaxy S3 — run Google’s Android operating system, with only a small handful making use of Windows Phone, so it’s nice to see that the phone giant hasn’t lost interest in the platform. The new blower comes sporting a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen with a 480×800-pixel resolution, a 5-megapixel camera capable of shooting 720p video and, like all Windows Phone handsets, no physical front buttons.
Those are some fairly underwhelming specs, especially as a leak late last month hinted at a 4.7-inch screen with a 12-megapixel camera — suggesting that it would effectively be the Galaxy S3 with Windows Phone on it.
That same leak also suggested that it would be the first phone to offer the latest Windows Phone 8, rather than version 7.5 that it is offering. The Focus 2 is definitely a budget mobile option, but given the impressive specs mentioned in the leak, it’s difficult not to be a bit disappointed.
There’s no official word on what’s powering the Focus, but our favourite Windows Phone, er, phone is the Nokia Lumia 800, which manages to offer a very swift performance on a single-core chip, so the rumoured 1.4GHz processor should be enough for some pleasing swiping action.
One of the big features of the Focus is that it operates on LTE networks — that’s 4G to me and you. Sadly, that means that we here in good old Blighty are unlikely to see it anytime soon as we don’t have 4G networks here yet — although that hasn’t stopped Apple selling the 4G iPad over here.
Samsung’s Windows Phone Range in Britain come under the moniker ‘Omnia’. We didn’t have the previous Focus S here — so it’s likely that if we did see the rounded back and colourful live tiles of the Focus 2 here, it would arrive bearing the Omnia name.
It’s not clear if we will ever see this phone, but fingers crossed that if we do, Samsung will have given it a camera boost and updated it to the exciting new version of Windows Phone. In the meantime, go check out the hands-on that our buddies over the pond have had with it and let me know in the comments below whether you’d like to see a more premium Windows Phone arrive from Samsung.
