AT&T will start selling the
Nokia Lumia 900 in its stores on April 8. This smartphone will be slightly
less expensive than the two-year-old Apple iPhone 4, which the carrier already
sells.

However, while the price is
nearly the same, the differences are significant. Perhaps most important, this
version of the
Lumia supports Long-Term (LTE) 4G data communications, along with
AT&T’s HSPA+ and 3G. The iPhone 4 cannot work with 4G.

The differences grow as you
dig deeper. The Nokia Lumia 900 has twice the memory as the iPhone 4, a vastly
better camera with a much better lens system, a larger 4.3-inch AMOLED screen
and a faster processor. And while it’s true that the interface on Windows Phone
is different from what you’ll see on Apple iOS or Google Android, that’s not
necessarily a bad thing.

In fact, during my initial
testing of T-Mobile’s Lumia 710, and in my use of the device since that time, I’ve
found the Windows Phone interface to be highly responsive, very intuitive,
and very well thought out. It’s clear in developing the Windows Phone interface
that Microsoft started with a clean slate instead of offering a slightly warmed
over version of iOS like what you find with Android.

What’s also important is that
the current version of Windows Phone is very much like the experience you’ll
have on Windows 8 based tablets.

I used the
first of these at CeBIT in the beginning of March. In much the same
way that you have probably found the transition between iPhone and iPad to be
nearly seamless, the same is true between Windows Phone on a smartphone and
Windows 8 on a tablet. Yes, these interfaces are very different, but that’s not
to suggest that the Windows interfaces are somehow worse. In some ways, I think
it’s a little easier to use, and more responsive.

Nokia also brings some apps
along with some apps that already come with Windows Phone. For example, there’s
Nokia Drive, a turn by turn navigation system that actually works quite well –
something I found out when trying to navigate Baltimore in a rental car after finding
out that the navigation on my other phone would make me pay for a subscription.

Windows Phone gives you
SkyDrive, which is a cloud storage app that lets you use it for backup, much
like you can do with Apple iCloud, but you can also make items in the SkyDrive
sharable, so you can do things like share photos .

AT&T, meanwhile, is
making sure that the Nokia Lumia doesn’t enter the world quietly. The company
plans a launch that will supposedly exceed the hype surrounding the launch of
the iPhone. That’s a lot of hype.

The next question is will it
matter?

After all, the conventional
wisdom is that the iPhone is the King of the Phones, and nothing else will ever
challenge it. But the fact is that there are many more people out there who
don’t use iPhones than those who do. As popular as the iPhone is, it’s still in
the minority.

What AT&T is doing is
giving people a real choice in high-end phones, offering it at a significant
price break, and it’s aiming at the audience that wants a very good smartphone
at a reasonable price. The choices now are the iPhone 4, a more expensive
Android device or the Lumia which costs nearly the same as the iPhone 4, but is
by all accounts a better, faster, device.

Does this mean that the
iPhone will be knocked off its perch? Probably not.

The iPhone 4S and eventually
the iPhone 5 will still be the cool phones to have, and if the coolness factor
is what matters most to you, then there’s no substitute. In reality, the Lumia 900
is competing with the dozens of Android devices out there, all relegated to
slightly different niches due to the irreconcilable fragmentation that has
overtaken Android.

Of course Android phones are
still selling by the gazillions every day, but unless something is done – such
as Google getting a handle on fragmentation – the future is a sort of
smartphone Tower of Babel. This helps Microsoft a great deal since Android is
the real competition. But it’s not enough to make Nokia and Windows Phone the
500-pound gorilla in the smartphone business.

The real answer to dominance
by Nokia is the unassuming Nokia 400 series phones, which will probably never
see the light of day in the United States. The 400 series are decidedly low-end
smartphones that are aimed at markets Apple will never see. As popular as Apple
is in the United States, Western Europe and some parts of Asia, it’s simply too
expensive for the rest of the world. But the rest of the world is Nokia’s
strength.

There’s no question that the
Nokia Lumia 900 will sell well. T-Mobile appears to be selling a lot of the
less expensive Lumia 710, and with time Windows Phone 7
will become an accepted alternative in the smartphone market in the United
States.

It will probably never
dominate, but it will be an important player.