CES 2013: Samsung Gives Windows Phone 8 ATIV Odyssey Official Reveal at CES

At long last, there has been an official mention of the Samsung ATIV Odyssey, a Windows Phone 8 device, with Samsung unveiling it at CES today and announcing that it will be hitting stores in the near future.

The ATIV Odyssey dropped off the radar for a little bit after Microsoft mentioned the Verizon Wireless-exclusive handset at its Windows Phone 8 launch back in October, saying that it was scheduled for a December release. It has obviously since missed that launch date, but Samsung has now said that it will be available "in the coming weeks."

For the first time, official specs for the ATIV Odyssey were given, such as a 4-inch Super AMOLED (800 x 480) display), 4G LTE connectivity, and a dual-core, 1.5 GHz processor. Some of the other hardware specs include a 2100 mAh battery, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera, 8 GB of onboard storage, and 1 GB of RAM. The onboard memory can be expanded up to 64 GB via a microSD card slot.

Aside from the apps that will be included as part of the phone's Windows Phone 8 OS, Samsung will be preloaded a handful of exclusive apps onto the ATIV Odyssey. A photo editing app will be included on the device, as will the Mini Diary app (for jotting down daily activities, photos, and drawings that can be backed up on SkyDrive or shared via social networks) and the Now app. Now is essentially a hub app that aggregates basic info like weather, news, and stocks and updates them regularly.

The ATIV Odyssey also has appealing business features, as it is Global Ready -- allowing users to make calls and send emails from over 220 different countries -- and has Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync features, policy control, and on-device AES 256-bit encryption.

Unfortunately, Samsung did not provide any information about pricing for the ATIV Odyssey, but the information is likely to come in the following weeks when the official release date is revealed.