For all of quarter 4 2011, and turning into the start of Jan 2012 – Windows Phone Down Under saw very lean picking indeed re: WP7 device availability. If this was measured by Microsoft’s own “Buy” page on the AU Windows Phone site – things looked pretty glum, as we ended up with only 1 online Gen1 device for sale and listed on their product site. This was of course (and still is) the extremely slow-moving HTC HD7 via Telstra. However with the launch (blink and you may have missed it last month) of the Samsung Omnia W…and now the arrival of the Nokia Lumia device…Australia finally gets some online options for WIndows Phone device purchases.

Today, logging into the official Aussie Windows Phone site http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-AU/buy/7/default.aspx and clicking on the “buy” tab leaves us spoilt for choice….if we are after a;

• Nokia Lumia 800 or
• Nokia Lumia 710

It also has the Samsung Omnia W and Gen1 HTC HD7 as options via Telstra. With talk of LTE/4G devices landing here in the future (Titan II confirmed by HTC at MWC) – we may yet, we are now heading into the broadest availability of Windows Phone since just after launch (Q1 2011)…Click the picture for a larger version = or go online at the link above to see for yourself!

WPDownUnder recommends all potential WP7 handset owners check out the page HERE at Microsoft AU – and do some research. Of course, whilst the official site offers links to retail pages for price checking – we have already done the hard work for you and added these for Nokia devices to our WP7 Nokia Lumia Buyers Guide page.

And finally, almost 6 weeks to the day it was launched by Telstra right here on this site, it would appear Samsung Australia has gotten around to adding it on their Australian website. WPDownUnder commends Samsung for adding it via the default view as the 1st device listed (in front of the Nexus even) however points have to come off as the 3G specs listed fail to show the Telstra 850 band WCDMA or 3G (NextG) network the device works on (being only carrier-sold locally by Telstra). LINK

With Virgin Mobile still to be added to Microsoft’s list above…now we just need some local Aussie Marketing, Advertising and promotion to engage the public and get people into stores!

Sheeds.