Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft proves to be a good deal since the Lumia series Windows Phone 7 headsets have received a worm welcome by the press. Consumers are still hesitant on buying Windows Phone 7 devices, but that’s hardly Nokia’s fault.

    So the Finnish company has to look elsewhere to sell more devices, and that something else is the tablet niche, as rumored quite a few times before and almost confirmed by company’s CEO when he talked about the opportunity provided by the tablet niche.

    As of today, it’s almost sure Nokia is working on a 10 inch Windows 8 tablet, scheduled to be released in Q4 this year, immediately after Win 8 ships. The info comes from DigiTimes who cites Taiwanese suppliers that say Nokia outsourced 200.000 units to Compal, a quantity that tells me Nokia is just trying the waters, so it doesn’t have the same confidence Amazon had when it sacrificed Q3 earnings to build a few million Kindle Fires.

    As for the tablet itself Nokia opted for the ARM architecture, which also uses for its smartphones. The tablet apparently will be powered by a Qualcomm SnapDragon S4 dual core processor. Why now quad-core? I think we’ll never find the answer to this question. Until we know more solid info here’s a mockup with the Nokia tablet, based on the Lumia series.

    Nokia Windows 8 Tablet mockup

    Nokia Windows 8 Tablet mockup