When does everyone expect a new generation of WP devices?

[pantsaregood]

Traditionally, new generations of devices have been pushed out late in the year.

Generation 1 (Windows Phone 7) devices were released on October 21, 2010.
Generation 2 (Windows Phone 7.5) devices were released on September 11, 2011.
Generation 3 (Windows Phone 8) devices were released on November 2, 2012.

Based on this, I expected Generation 4 to be released around October, but this doesn't really seem to be panning out currently. I'm starting to believe we'll actually see them in early 2014 with the release of Windows Phone 8.1.

Also note that phones like the Lumia 625 and Lumia 925 don't really constitute a new generation of devices - they're "refresh" devices, at best, and the Lumia 925/928 are "carrier variants" at worst.

 

[martinmc78]

Well were not going to get anything "new" until GDR3 goes RTM then were going to have to wait a few months after that so yeah your probably correct Q1 2014 - Im really actually looking forward to my upgrade in Q4 2104 should be some tasty devices out by then.

 

[Pete]

I guess that things are more fluid with WP8 now that it's more hardware tolerant than WP7 was. As Martin points out, a GDR is required for WP8 to support new hardware, so the hardware manufacturers are driving things more than Microsoft.

The tough question for customers is when to choose a new handset (contracts notwithstanding). Nokia have been knocking out some great handsets, but there's always the thought that something better will be announced at some point.

 

[Ian Too]

I do think MS have been too conservative with their supported specifications, as OEMs have tended to build devices to the required specs and then been outrun by Android. MS should try to anticipate hardware innovations so Nokia et al aren't doomed to fall behind.

Beyond that I'm actually interested to see what MS's designers have under their hat, because the one thing we don't need is an iOS/Android clone. Features like Kid's Corner show a creativity I like even when I don't use them myself.

 

[paulxxwall]

For me I guess its good because I bought my 920 in December and got it on 2 year contract and love my phone so im sure when my contract is up in December 2014 we'll have wp8.1 maybe even wp9 and the sweetest phone in the world

 

[a5cent]

I do think MS have been too conservative with their supported specifications.

The only thing Microsoft rigorously standardizes is the SoC (CPU+GPU+Co-Processors) and RAM configurations. That is quite modest. Despite mandating rather little, that is extremely helpful to developers (particularly for those developing the more demanding types of apps), and by extension for all users, as they get more apps with fewer bugs. If WP was as hard to develop for as Android, the app store wouldn't have half the apps it does now. This is an extremely important part of WP's strategy, but often overlooked by consumers calling for the latest hardware. Keeping hardware fragmentation very low is important.

On the other hand, the ecosystem does require some hardware fragmentation (to keep up with the times). If such fragmentation is to occur, then Microsoft should be ready to support those new SoCs when they become available. In other words, the problem isn't that WP is limited to a small set of SoCs, but that the hardware it does eventually support is more than half a year old by the time we get the first WP devices incorporating it (as with the Snapdragon 400/600).