It’s about time we start hearing about actual Windows Phone 8 hardware—or at least the bit of bread crumbs hinting at their existence.
Such is the case with the Samsung SGH-i687 which showed up on Sammy’s site under the User Agent Profile. Not too much is revealed and the only hint at Windows Phone 8 is the mention of Internet Explorer 10 as the browser. It’s been speculated and somewhat confirmed that current Windows Phone 7 devices won’t be getting that browser update and even if they were, we can’t see Samsung prepping a Windows Phone 7 device so late in the game.
The other interesting if not somewhat disappointing figure is the 480x800 (WVGA) screen. Windows Phone 8 of course brings two higher resolutions—720x1280 and 768x1280—to the fold and many of us are hoping to get our hands on a device with such a high pixel density.
From Samsung's site on the i687 IE10 listed as a supported browser
So why the WVGA display resolution? We can think of two options—either this is an entry level phone, meant to keep costs down or Samsung will upgrade the screen as soon as the hardware is available. That last point refers to the shortage of getting displays at such high resolutions, even if Samsung makes its own.
Back in April, it was widely rumored that Samsung would reuse their new Galaxy SIII design for Windows Phone 8. We're not expecting this to be that device but one never knows when we're so far out.
Either way, it’s still early in the game and we should take this info with a grain of salt as much can change between now and November. As far as carriers, if we're talking about the U.S. we're looking at AT&T of course.
Related - HTC Windows Phone 8 specs leaked for three new phones
Source: Samsung; via Blog of Mobile, Pocketnow
