Wednesday at a New York City press event, Nokia unveiled two new Windows 8 phones: the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Nokia Lumia 820.

A Microsoft representative was present at the event to show off some of the phone’s Windows 8-specific features. The company has apparently taken a page from the Google playbook and decided that Windows 8 phones need a flagship, similar to Android’s Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone. It would appear that the Nokia Lumia 920 is that flagship.

Nokia is an interesting choice as Microsoft’s primary partner for Windows Phone 8 as the company has been hemorrhaging market share to Samsung and HTC in the last couple years, while posting billion dollar losses.

The Lumia 920 that Nokia showed off at Wednesday’s event looked impressive, however, with a major focus on a powerful camera that uses ?floating lens’ technology to stabilize video and take high-quality photographs in low-light situations. Another camera-based integrated feature is ?City Lens’, an augmented reality app that tags the environment around the user with information about businesses and restaurants. Nokia is marketing the screen on the phone as ?HD+’ and claims that it shows up well even in direct sunlight.

The phone also boasts native support for the Qi wireless charging standard.

Nokia has not neglected its new phones’ styling: the 920 comes in a variety of bright, vibrant colors including ?spectacular yellow, stunning lipstick red and seductive gray.? The 820 features easily swappable snap-on backs in a variety of colors. Both phones boast a rounded form-factor, including curved Gorilla Glass screens. Customers are certainly unlikely to confuse the new Nokia Lumia phones with any other smartphone.

There were a couple small flies in the ointment after the unveiling. Nokia admitted that its impressive side-by-side image stabilization comparisons were not shot with the actual phone. They have now posted a new demo video using the actual phone. While the Lumia 920’s stabilized video certainly compares favorably against the iPhone 4s, it’s not as effortlessly smooth as the original demo video. Some bloggers are also calling some of the demo images of the phone’s low-light photo capabilities into question, but we’ll probably have to wait until the phone is out in the wild to see how its night-shot camera really stacks up.

There’s no word yet on the official release date although it will probably coincide closely with the official release of Windows 8. The final phone is expected to boast a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and 32 mb of on-board memory (no expandable SD slot, though). Pricing and carriers have yet to be announced.

Both Microsoft and Nokia have a lot riding on the new Lumia phones. Microsoft needs to get a ?must-have’ Windows 8 phone into the marketplace in order to seriously compete with iOS and Android. And Nokia desperately needs a big hit to help it regain its old position as a major phone maker, or at least put it back in the black.

Yesterday, both Nokia and Motorola announced their latest flagship phones, the Lumia 920 and the Droid RAZR HD respectively. Both of them seem like they will be quite impressive phones when they come out. The question that wasn’t answered at either of these press conferences is, when are they being released?

Kobo did the same thing today. They beat Amazon to the punch by announcing two new e-readers and a new 7-inch Android tablet hours before Amazon’s event scheduled for later today. They didn’t provide a specific launch date for the Arc, the Android tablet, but at least they gave us prices and told us what month it was coming out.

Why is it that Apple and Amazon seem to be the only companies able to wait until a product is ready to be sold before they announce it? Nothing, and I mean, NOTHING, is more excruciatingly frustrating as a consumer and a tech enthusiast than to listen to an entire announcement about an amazing product, only to be left hanging, waiting for the two most important details: when can I buy it, and how much does it cost? Does announcing a product before the company has even decided how much they are going to charge for it actually help to increase sales? I know that beating Apple out of the gate has to be good idea, but announcing a phone or tablet without a price or a launch date is like jumping the gun and then tripping and falling on your face. You’re not going to win the race, even if you are a better runner. In my humble opinion, announcing a product before it is ready to be launched screams insecurity. Your company is saying that you really don’t think you can compete head-to-head with another company’s product, so you have to announce yours first, or you’ll lose in the long run. That doesn’t make me want to buy your product. That makes me want to kick you in the shins.

I’m done.

End rant.

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