Nokia’s adoption of Windows Phone has, as yet, yielded less than outstanding results, but the company is pressing on, planning to announce two Windows Phone 8 handsets at a press event scheduled for September 5th, just as Microsoft finalizes the second full version of their smartphone OS.

The first Windows Phone 8 smartphones on Nokia’s calendar are said to be codenamed Arrow and Phi, both in the Lumia family that now includes the Lumia 900 and Lumia 710.  It’s possible that the Arrow and Phi will be given similar numerical names upon release.

AT&T will be selling the Phi, a high-end model similar to the Lumia 900, with LTE onboard.  The Arrow, a mid-range Windows Phone 8 handset from Nokia, will debut at both AT&T and T-Mobile according to The Verge – LTE details unknown.

Nokia is also rumored to have a CDMA/LTE Windows Phone 8 device, codenamed Atlas, in the works.  It will be headed for Verizon later this year. 

Yes, it’s taken far, far too long -  years, in fact – but we finally have a page on Facebook. We hope to build this into a fantastic tool for for our readers to submit questions and suggestions, share what they like in the world of iOS, Android and Windows Phone, and even comment on what’s going on at Pocket PC Central in general.

Our Facebook page is a little sparse at the moment, but we’ll be working in the coming days and weeks – hopefully with your help – to make it a much more useful destination.

You can find us here: http://facebook.com/PPCCentral

With the upcoming release of Windows 8 and Office 2013, and this week’s announcement of the (seemingly) drool-worthy Surface tablets, the last few months of 2012 were already shaping up to be a busy time for Microsoft. But today the company took the wraps off yet another 2012 addition to its release lineup: Windows Phone 8. And, surprisingly, all of these products seem to have a coherent theme; for the first time I can remember Microsoft appears to be getting its act together, leveraging “Windows” and everything that entails to push other products that extend a user experience that hundreds of millions of people know and use.

Windows Phone 8, which is really version 2.0 of the Windows Phone OS, builds on WP7 and catches up, in many respects, to iOS and Android with new hardware support, new software, lots of new features, and an expanded ecosystem.

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It’s a day worth nothing in your journal when Microsoft surprises us with a new, innovative product, so grab a pen and get comfortable.  The company behind Windows, Office, XBox and Windows Phone unveiled a product that some had speculated about, but none had come close to nailing down: new Surface tablet.

And they even managed to pull it off with a bit of punk, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo cool.

While there’s a lot going on here, and surely much more to come over the next few months, here’s what you need to know about Microsoft’s upcoming Surface tablets:

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There are few things that can render a smartphone more useless than stepping outside on a bright, sunny day; sunlight is not the friend of any modern display type, and is particularly disruptive to AMOLED screens.

Which is why it’s such a surprise that DisplayMate found in its tests that the Lumia 900 Windows Phone is the best sunlight performer; Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone has an AMOLED display. 

But the Lumia 900’s AMOLED screen also uses a special technology Nokia calls ClearBlack, which employs filters that limit the amount of light reflected back to the user’s eyes. 

Samsung’s Galaxy S (which one?) and Apple’s iPhone 4 tied for second in the DisplayMate tests.  It should be noted that not all smartphones were included in the test, which limits its utility, but you can find all of the results here.

via TheVerge.com