After word began circulating last night about a new high-end HTC Android handset that may be headed for Sprint, a new report has surfaced claiming that the Now Network may eventually see a nice new Windows Phone device as well. The folks over at The Verge have heard that Microsoft is hard at work testing Qualcomm's 1.5GHz dual-core MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 chipset for use with a Windows Phone 8 handset that's expected to hit later this year.
Sprint is said to be interested in a new Windows Phone device with that very MSM8960 chip, and the carrier has reportedly sharing information on its upcoming LTE network with Nokia. One of The Verge's sources has claimed that Sprint may not launch another Windows Phone device until Windows Phone 8 arrives, which is rumored to be coming in late 2012.
We haven't seen Sprint launch a Windows Phone handset since it pushed the HTC Arrive onto store shelves last March, which also happened to be its first Windows Phone device. One Sprint exec recently said that the Arrive hasn't done well enough to convince the carrier to "jump back into the fire," though he did mention that Sprint may be interested in giving the platform another shot later this year. That seemingly jibes with today's claim that Sprint will wait until Windows Phone 8 before releasing a new device with Microsoft's mobile OS. It's definitely kind of a bummer that Windows Phone fans on Sprint haven't gotten much love since the Arrive arrived, but if today's rumor holds true, those same fans have something worth getting excited about later this year.
Via The Verge
