The phone that wasn't: Even more pics of cancelled Lumia 960 leak online

Following the heels of last month's leak of the alleged Lumia 960 prototype, more pictures of the shunned smartphone have surfaced on the Chinese microblogging site, Weibo. The handset is shown in full aluminium unibody glory and the design seems to resonate with that of current Android flagships and iPhones, unlike the traditional polycarbonate Lumias launched to date. The leaked pics show the smartphone design bereft of a display. Earlier leaks have revealed that the smartphone allegedly sports a 5.5-inch 4K display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC paired with 4GB RAM. Much like the Lumia 950 series, the prototype also sports an Iris Scanner and a 3.5mm headphone jack along with USB-C charging.

Microsoft has retrenched on its mobile efforts and has in all likelihood shunned the development of the Lumia 960. Windows 10 Mobile is on life support with new builds only rolling off the 'feature2' branch with no new major features unlike its desktop counterpart. With full Windows 10 now running even on ARM chipsets, it is learnt that Microsoft is developing a new shell for Windows 10, called the CShell, which easily adapts to the device the OS runs on. It is not yet known whether new builds with CShell would be supported for current Window Mobile smartphones. 

With no new phones from Redmond or OEM partners, fans of Microsoft's ill-fated mobile OS opine that the Lumia 960 could have been a perfect stop-gap phone until Microsoft comes clean on its future plans for mobile. Microsoft has neither denied nor acknowledged the rumors about an alleged Surface Phone in the works but has been certain that future smartphones would in fact be ultra-mobile PCs with cellular capabilities. It remains to be seen what the software giant has planned for the future but right now, the best of Microsoft services are on Android and iOS. 

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