Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the first Nokia WP7 device. Introduced by no other than the company CEO, Stephen Elop in what he thought was a camera-free environment. Despite his confidentiality plea someone couldn't resist the temptation and shared a few photos and a quick video with us.

We don't know if Stephen Elop is really so naive as to believe that no one will take a shot of one of the most hotly anticipated devices of the year or this is just a clever way to gain some publicity, but it doesn't matter really. What matter is that we got to see first Nokia WP7 handset a few months ahead of its official announcement.

As you can see the device is very similar to the recently announced Nokia N9, but has a dedicated hardware camera key, different LED placement and, of course, it is running on Windows Phone 7 with the Mango update.

So, there you have it - Nokia has at least one sweet-looking Windows Phone 7 smartphone in the pipeline. We'll have to wait more for the official announcement and see if there will be another device to join it.

Video Below!

When Stephen Elop, Nokia new CEO as of September 2010, announced back in February of this year that the Finnish handset maker would transition away from Symbian, throw away MeeGo, and bet the farm on Windows Phone, he sent the company stock into a death spiral. Pressure has mounted for Nokia to release Windows Phones as soon as possible because operators are refusing to support Symbian handsets due to the OS being phased out and customers have all but given up on Nokia and are switching to devices running Google Android operating system in droves. Ask a Nokia spokesperson when they will have a Windows Phone on the market, and they will tell you the same thing they have been saying for months now, that they are trying to get devices out by the end of this year, but it is not a guarantee. According to All About Phones however, Victor Saeijs, Senior Vice President at Nokia Europe recently said in an interview that there will be Windows Phones out in the Netherlands, France, Germany, England, Spain and Italy in Q4 2011.

Only 125K WP7 Devices will be shipped to Asia and Especially Russia. the rest go to Europe, probably 6 or 7 countries in Europe only will get the Nokia Wp7.

Nokia has confirmed that it will be using the just announced 7.1 Mango release of the Windows Phone OS for its first smartphones to carry the platform. Whats more Microsoft confirmed that there are already Nokia Windows Phone smartphones in their labs so its starting to look more and more probable that those will hit the shelves before 2011 has ended.

Previously Nokia announced that it aims to bring its first Windows Phone devices this year, but made no promises about it. Well, judging by those statements things are obviously going pretty well at Espoo and development is progressing according to plan.

You see, with Microsoft so keen about their Windows Phone mobile OS, we will almost certainly witness another update for it coming in late 2011 or early 2012 at the latest. After all the copy-paste bringing NoDo update was only released in March and two months later we are already on the next major release, Mango. Plus if working prototypes are already sent to Microsoft, Nokia has obviously scored some significant progress.

The important bit to take home from those announcements is the fact that Nokia will be releasing more than one device to start its Windows Phone journey. The company will probably stick to its usual strategy, trying to give a little something for every taste.

Nokia is getting set to build Windows Phone devices after its partnership with Microsoft was announced some time ago, and it looks like Qualcomm will be powering the devices. Of course, options do seem limited when Qualcomm has been working closely with Microsoft for processors in WP7 devices. However, Nokia did state that it was also looking to work with other chipset suppliers, too.

Reuters reports:

Microsoft Windows Phone operating system (OS) is available only on Qualcomm chips, but the U.S. software giant has said it was expanding the supplier base.

"The first Nokias based on Windows Phone will have the Qualcomm chipset" said a Nokia spokesman.

However, we did learn recently that Nokia is planning on building 12 Windows Phone 8 devicesin 2012, and that they may be sporting the ST-Ericsson U8500 dual-core chipsets. But for now, Nokia is sticking with Qualcomm. The report continues:

"Our aim is to build a vibrant ecosystem around Nokia and the Windows Phone OS and with that intent we are naturally continuing discussions with a number of chipset suppliers for our future product portfolio" he said.

 

Nokia pushed out some details regarding the first fruits from the 'Microkia' (Microsoft/Nokia) team up, and I got those NEWS in a form of two new devices bearing the names Nokia W7 and Nokia W8.

Not only are they not exactly the most original names but the devices in question will apparently resemble the Nokia X7 and the N8 respectively.

Nokia apparently already has one working Windows Phone prototype in their possession, the W7. This X7 lookalike differs from its Symbian sibling by its WVGA display, 8MP camera with autofocus and a Qualcomm QSD8250 Chipset. This is most likely going to be the company first WP7 device. Nokia targets availability by Q4 of this year, but there is a good chance that it might take until Q1 of 2012 to see it in action. In its current state the W7 is quite reminiscent of the HTC Mozart in terms of functionality, at least.

The followup to the W7 is naturally, the W8 and there is far greater speculation as this device will not be making an appearance until Q2 2012. However plans to make this a flagship imaging handset mean it has to have a strong skill set to stand out from the crowd. Using the N8 as the basis this one is said to pack a 12MP camera, a Qualcomm dual-core CPU and an Adreno 320 GPU. Specs are most likely going to change before the official release, but this one certainly looks promising.

In total Nokia plan to push 12 new devices out across 2012 (whether this includes the W7 is unclear) with mentions of the third and fourth WP7 handsets in the lineup consisting of a QWERTY candybar with a touchscreen, akin to the E71 or E6, and a cheap touchscreen device probably mimicking the abilities of the W7 but featuring lesser built quality, and weaker imaging capabilities.

It seems they could try to make a bigger impression with some completely fresh designs to really shout about the birth of the WP7 Nokia but what we actually receive could still impress. Perhaps the concept they mocked up for MWC 2011,  will make a reappearance as something more tangible soon.

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