Images of an alleged Lumia 1020 successor dubbed Microsoft Lumia 1030 have been spotted on a Chinese auction site have been spotted [now removed], with Reddit users claiming that the phone could very well be the scrapped Nokia McLaren.
The auction site listed the device as Nokia RM-1052 running Windows Phone 8.1. Some of the features of the alleged Lumia 1030 include 2GB RAM, 5-inch 1080p display, probable 41-megapixel Pureview or better camera, aluminum body and a quad-core CPU.
As the leak suggests that it could be a Windows Phone prototype, but an elaborate fake scenario couldn’t be ruled out either.
The rear of the handset is marked with Nokia prototype text. The device is definitely unfinished at a few places and appears to use polycarbonate combined with aluminum body as in Lumia 925.
The Verge speculates that this particular device would very well be the scrapped “Nokia McLaren” smartphone that was supposed to pack Microsoft’s Kinect-like Windows Phone gestures.
One thing that supports this speculation is the presence of on-screen Windows Phone buttons in place of dedicated physical buttons as McLaren was supposedly going to incorporate support for floating off-screen gestures thereby doing away with requirement of physical buttons.
Redditors are ruling out the possibility of this prototype being a Lumia 1030 because of a number of reasons. As one redditor right points out, the handset if fitted with a LED Flash and not a Xenon Flash as is the case with Lumia 1020. Also, the lens hole in this handset is a lot smaller than the one on the Lumia 1020. Microsoft wouldn’t release a device with lower photography capabilities than the Lumia 1020 and call it an upgrade. Will it?
