Microsoft may not launch a new Windows Phone flagship before September 2015
The wait goes on
It feels like it's been a long time since the likes of the Lumia 930 and Lumia 1520 launched, but there may still be a long wait for a new Windows Phone flagship if rumours are to be believed.
According to Geek On Gadgets, Microsoft won't be showing any new flagships at MWC 2015 and will instead focus on the low and midrange, with a new Lumia 6xx and a Lumia 3xx or 4xx likely to be unveiled.
Even after that there may not be any high end phones on the horizon for a while, as supposedly if Microsoft sticks to its current time frame there won't be one until late 2015, around September. We contacted Microsoft about it but a spokesperson simply replied that "Microsoft does not comment on rumour or speculation."
Pros and cons
On the one hand there is some logic to the rumour, as low end Windows Phone handsets tend to sell better than high end ones and Microsoft is likely to want a flagship to show off Windows Phone 10, which will probably arrive in late 2015.
But on the other hand there's the Lumia 1030 / McLaren that we've seen leaked recently. Some rumours claim it's been cancelled, but recent images showing it next to an iPhone 6 and with no mention of Nokia suggest it's a recent thing and could still be in development, in which case we'd expect it will launch before too long.
On top of that not releasing a flagship until late 2015 would mean Microsoft has nothing to go up against the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC Hima and of course without knowing how this information was sourced it's impossible to guess at its veracity.
So we'd take it with an enormous side of salt, but even if it does turn out to be true that doesn't count out other manufacturers from launching a flagship in the meantime. Granted there hasn't been much high end activity from anything other than Lumia, but it's rumoured that HTC will make both Android and Windows Phone flavours of its next flagship.
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- At least the midrange is getting some love with the recent Lumia 830.
James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.