• Is Microsoft testing Windows Phone 8. Sure, why not?
• Is Microsoft testing dual core chips? Sure, why not?
• Is Microsoft testing a phone for Sprint? Sure, why not?

Aside from the Sprint part, wouldn’t these all be parts of moving forward with progressing their OS? Why wouldn’t they be testing these things? Why is this ground breaking? It’s not like we’ll see a Windows Phone 8 (or Apollo) phone before the Fall 2012 CTIA anyhow, right?

All sarcasm aside, Tom Warren reports that, according to someone familiar with the company’s plans, Microsoft is testing the Qualcomm MSM8960, 1.5 GHz system-on-chip dual core processor with Windows Phone 8.  Adding the fact that Sprint has showed interest in a LTE Windows Phone with beefier specs, we can turn this into Microsoft testing this out for Sprint. At this point, it’s all speculation. Until it’s announced or otherwise leaked, I am just going to assume that Microsoft is working behind the scenes to make geeks like me happy.

Source: The Verge

Jay T Bennett, a developer himself, offers the following advice for developers who get this email:

If you’re a developer who just received the very same e-mail I highly recommend you jump straight to Justin Angel’s guide from Nokia’s developer portal to start profiling your app. You’ll also find tips to make your app Tango compatible here. It’s exactly what I did and you might just have the same issue that I do: a lot of pictures at a higher quality then they need to be.

Lucky for us, our app isn’t done yet. Our own super dev, Don Sorcinelli, is working on it as he finds time. No hurry!

The sky’s the limit! Now anyone can enjoy the fun, freedom and adventure of flight. Feel the power at your fingertips as you take to the skies and launch into thrilling missions and exciting challenges over the free-to-play Big Island of Hawaii. Take off today and fly into the ever-expanding world of Microsoft Flight.

Yes. Microsoft Flight. The best part, it’s FREE! FREE IS GOOD ANYTIME! There is premium content that will be paid content, but the basic game is free.

Here’s a trailer from Microsoft.

Head over here to download for free!

The Nokia Lumia 610 was made possible thanks to a new software release from Microsoft delivering enhanced capabilities to the Windows Phone 7.5 platform.  The software release, available from April optimizes Windows Phone to support lower memory and processor requirements, while still delivering the same great experience for more affordable products.  In addition, Windows Phone will now include the network and language requirements for China. As a result, Nokia announced plans to make a range of Lumia smartphones available in China, covering both CDMA and WCDMA technologies, in the coming months.

The 610 is expected to ship in Q2 and will have a price of 189 Euro ($253 USD). I assume that’s the full retail cost and not a subsidized cost.

Nokia Lumia 610 Awards

• Tom’s Hardware Best in show
• Laptop Magazine’s Best Budget Smartphone.

That’s fairly impressive considering the HTC One series and the 41 megapixel camera announcements at MWC.

Source: Nokia Conversations

The ZTE Orbit joins the Lumia 610 in the “budget Windows Phone” releases that will benefit from Windows Phone Tango, the refresh of Windows Phone Mango that lowers the specs required to run Windows Phone. The ZTE Orbit has 4-inch touchscreen with an 800 x 480 pixel resolution, a 1Ghz processor and a 5-megapixel camera, 4GB of internal memory, and 256MB of RAM. It’s not a powerhouse by any means. It seems that Microsoft is going after feature phone users more and more.

Where is Aximsite?

Unfortunately, we’re not in Barcelona covering Mobile World Congress. Aximsite’s trillion dollar budget would allow for this coverage normally, all our staff members are busy at the Oscars or spending time with our family. Since we couldn’t be there, we’ll let some other awesome people share the hands-on coverage.

WP Central Hands-On

Phone Arena Hands-On

The Nokia Lumia 900 is a top of the range smartphone with a dazzling 4.3″ touchscreen, 8MP Carl Zeiss lens camera, huge battery and an iconic look. The vivid AMOLED display & Windows® Phone combine to make this a silky smooth phone to use.

• 4.3″ AMOLED touchscreen is vivid and ultra smooth
• 8MP camera, massive battery for extra long standby times
• Powered by Windows® Phone 7.5

Now, this doesn’t mean it will actually be available of course, it’s just an expected date.

*Expected date is subject to change without notice

Their website has a form that allows you to pre-register for the Lumia 900. It cost nothing to sign up and only serves as a notification for when the phone is available.

I am not sure if T-Mobile, Nokia, or Microsoft flipped the bill, but I am leaning Microsoft based on info I learned about their marketing strategy back in 2010 and the fact that Microsoft’s Windows Phone blog is promoting the coverage. It’s possible that Nokia is behind it considering their aggressive marketing lately and the fact that they’ve warned us that US Marketing would be as aggressive as overseas campaigns lately.

Whoever is behind it, Kudos. Any brand awareness outside of the geek crowd is great. If you can get her audience to put down their iPhones to try out Windows Phone, you’ve done well.

Host Kelly Ripa talked about Windows Phone and shared photos on the Lumia 710 from behind-the-scenes of the Oscars and her special. In a particularly exciting moment for the 180 members of the live studio audience, Kelly announced that everyone would be going home with a free Windows Phone and six months of service from T-Mobile! The giveaway was followed by a short Windows Phone video that highlighted the ease with which photos can be quickly shared on Facebook.

This is further proof that Microsoft is trying to get Windows Phone into the hands of another totally different demographic than what we had with Windows Mobile. Check out her website, it looks like a giant Windows Phone ad!

Regarding info that was shared with me in 2010… I am not under NDA anymore since I left the MVP Program last year, I still plan to respect information that was shared with me under this NDA.

What do you think about this lower end Windows Phone offering from Nokia?

As expected, Nokia announced the low end Nokia Lumia 610. The 610 will run Windows Phone Tango, which allows manufacturers to dial down the specs a tad. Previously, Microsoft had required certain specs to run the Windows Phone OS but with Tango, those specs were lowered.

The Nokia Lumia 610 is the 4th in the Windows Phone powered Lumia series from Nokia.

According to Nokia, the Lumia 610 is designed as a low priced Windows Phone targeted at the younger audience. The social experience has been enhanced to make it easy to keep in touch with friends. The Nokia Lumia 610 comes with Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive, Nokia Transport and Nokia Music. It will come in white, cyan, magenta, and black.

The Nokia Lumia 610 was made possible thanks to a new software release from Microsoft delivering enhanced capabilities to the Windows Phone 7.5 platform.  The software release, available from April optimizes Windows Phone to support lower memory and processor requirements, while still delivering the same great experience for more affordable products.  In addition, Windows Phone will now include the network and language requirements for China. As a result, Nokia announced plans to make a range of Lumia smartphones available in China, covering both CDMA and WCDMA technologies, in the coming months.

The 610 is expected to ship in Q2 and will have a price of 189 Euro ($253 USD). I assume that’s the full retail cost and not a subsidized cost.

More info can be found here Aximsite Database and Nokia UK.

Source: Nokia

Today, a user on Twitter named MS Nerd shared some details about Windows Phone Apollo that claims that Apollo will come to all Windows Phones. He then goes on to say that some Apollo features won’t work with legacy devices running earlier versions of Windows Phone.

Source: Windows Phone Daily - MS nerd (Twitter) 1, 2