Microsoft has sent out the invites, the new handsets are ready and just a week before Apple is supposed to unveil the iPhone 5, Windows Phone 8 devices will be unveiled to the public for the first time.
The event is being hosted with Nokia and will take place on September 5 at 9:30am in New York City where Microsoft will show off the next piece of the jigsaw for their Windows 8 ecosystem; the all important handsets.
Next week offers a chance for Microsoft to really show off Windows Phone 8 in the best possible light. It's an opportunity for Microsoft to right some wrongs and essentially start again. It's not throwing out all of its hard work, but merely drawing a line on the sand from Windows Phone 7 to Window Phone 8.
We've already had a massive preview of the software and with an app store boasting 100,000 apps it's the perfect time to re-launch the OS with a slew of new handsets from Nokia, Samsung, HTC and Huawei.
Nokia
Despite Nokia's financial woes, the Finnish companies stoicism is commendable, on September the 5th the handset maker will show off what they've been working on over the last year - and if they want to save the company it needs to be big.
Nokia raised a few eyebrows when the announced that the Lumia 900 would only be available on Windows 7.8, which is the peace offering from Microsoft to early adopters who won't be able to upgrade to WP8.
Coinciding with Microsoft's event, Nokia will be hosting their annual Nokia World event in Helsinki. It's thought that Nokia will release their mega camera phone the Pureview on Windows Phone for the first time, there are also rumours of a LTE handset - which in English means 4G - so we might see a 4G WP8 phone on Everything Everywhere's soon to be launch 4G network.
The second all-new handset is thought to be a device sporting a 4.3-inch display, LTE, a dual-core processor and NFC.
Samsung
Samsung's support for Windows Phone has been a bit patchy, but with the relaunch we expect them to have a solid showing for WP8 with two new devices.
Known under their codenames of Odyssey and Marco, the Odyssey is the one to lookout for; it will come with a whopping 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD screen, 8 megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera. You'll have the choice of 16 or 32GB of storage and it will be powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Krait processor.
The Marco is a middle-of-the-road handset and comes with slightly less impressive specs; you'll find a 4-inch Super AMOLED WVGA display, a dual-core processor and a choice in internal storage flavours. Its camera is only a 5 megapixels and, again, there's a 1.9-megapixel front-facing snapper.
The names and specs are far from set in stone, but the details were leaked via documents released for the court case between Samsung and Apple, which as sources go isn't a bad one.
HTC
Much like Sammy, HTC has been supporting Windows Phone since its inception and will continue to do so with the second-generation version of the Microsoft mobile operating system.
There will be three new handsets for WP8 knows as the Zenith, Accord and Rio which should be released before the year is out, with Zenith and Rio scheduled for an October release date.
The Zenith is the flagship handset and is expected come with a 4.7-inch, 720p, Super LCD 2 screen, an 8 megapixel camera and HSPA+ connectivity - it's even thought the handset might be packing a quad-core Snapdragon CPU.
The HTC Accord is in the middle of the specs race, with a 720p, 4.3-inch screen, dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. The Rio is down the budget end of things and is expected to have a 4-inch WVGA display, HSPA connectivity and a middle-of-the-road 5-megapixel snapper.
Huawei
Details of Huawei's plans for Windows Phone 8 are very thin on the ground at present. We know that the Ascend model line is going to be pursued on the Microsoft mobile platform but that’s about it.
The key to Huawei really, given its partnership with Microsoft over this, is that it can help make a big impact on Android's rulership of the budget phone market. That said, it might be the Ascend Windows Phone 8 phone that is the much more high-end device.
