We have no way of verifying the authenticity of these two images, but it appears to be of the upcoming Nokia Lumia ‘Catwalk’, a follow up to the Lumia 920 that reportedly sports a new aluminum chassis to help reduce the size and weight. The images showed up on the popular Chinese social network Sina Weibo.
No other details were given, but earlier information about Catwalk stated the device as having 4.5” display with an OCTA display, S4 1.5GHz dual-core CPU, 16GB of storage (down from 32GB), 2000mAh battery and an 8.7MP OIS camera with LED flash.
As a result of the new body, the device is 50 grams lighter (just 132g) than the current Lumia 920 and is supposedly about 2.3mm less in thickness (8.4 versus 10.7mm on the 920).
From the image, we can see that the microSIM door on top matches the Lumia 720's and indeed, it has the same "three dots" on the back for a wireless charging backplate. While moving the microUSB (or is it an HDMI out port?) to the top may seem unusual, we must remember that it is not a requirement that it be on the bottom of the device and OEMs can move things around.
The timing of the device was reported to be for a May 15th announcement with a late June availability. T-Mobile US is expected to pick up the device as well as other international carriers.
Verizon will launch a similar, but non-aluminum device called the Lumia 928 aka ‘Laser’ in the coming weeks.
Update (5:25PM ET): We have spoken to someone familiar with this alleged device who can confirm that it is indeed, accurate. Because of that we've bumped the rum'o'meter from an initial '5' to an '8' (from an early corroboration) to a '10', meaning we have very high confidence in these images. Whether or not they are early or late prototype, we don't know.
Source: Sina Weibo, Baidu; Thanks, AIKON, for the tip!
