Verizon, Sprint to offer new Windows Phone 8 models

There were two big Windows Phone-related announcements today at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

First, Samsung said that the ATIV Odyssey will go on sale at Verizon Wireless in the “coming weeks.” Samsung makes some amazing hardware and this is its first Windows Phone 8 device in the US, so we’re all pretty excited about the ATIV Odyssey’s debut.

The phone—that’s it below—is a great new addition to Verizon’s Windows Phone 8 lineup, which also includes the Windows Phone 8X by HTC and Nokia Lumia 822. It features a 4-inch 800x480 Super AMOLED display, 5-megapixel rear camera with full 1080p recording and playback capability, 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, and 2100mAh battery.

The ATIV Odyssey, designed to work on Verizon’s 4G LTE network, comes with 8GB of storage and supports up to 64GB microSD cards. It also includes handy Samsung apps such as Photo Editor, Mini Diary, and Now (real-time weather, news, stock, and currency info). The Verizon Wireless News Center has more details.

The other exciting news today comes from Sprint, which hinted last fall that it would be debuting a Windows Phone 8 device sometime in 2013. Today the company filled in a bit more detail, saying it actually planned to launch two Windows Phones on its network by summer—one each from Samsung and HTC.

Sprint, which is the nation’s third-largest carrier, didn’t provide any other details on the phones (read their press release). But it’s exciting news for Sprint customers and for everyone here at Windows Phone HQ. So stay tuned.