Insider sources on Thursday narrowed the launch of all Windows Phone 7 Mango devices, not just Toshiba-Fujitsu’s IS12T, to September. Acer, HTC, Huawei, LG, Samsung, and ZTE are all expected by Digitimes contacts to unveil their phones at the same time. Only Nokia’s first phone, likely the Sea Ray, would show later, at Nokia World in October.
Details of the phones themselves were kept vague, though HTC’s phones were due to carry 1.5GHz, single-core Snapdragon processors. Screen sizes mentioned by sources matched the 4.7-inch Eternity as well as the more modest, 3.8-inch Ignite.
The timing might be unfortunate for Microsoft. Corroborating earlier sources, the sources expected the Mango-based phones to arrive at roughly the same as the iPhone 5. It may have gone unplanned given Apple’s own delay to load the next iPhone with iOS 5. Regardless, it could guarantee that Mango is overshadowed as higher-profile launches overwhelm Microsoft’s own efforts.
Last year, Microsoft didn’t end up releasing Windows Phone 7 hardware until late October and had a relatively clear path. The late arrival may have still hurt it as many customers had already made their choices.
