Microsoft Announces Gold Versions of the Lumia 830 and Lumia 930

Well, here's another way you can reach the next billion users, I guess: Release gold versions of some of your most desirable phones, since that color option is particularly popular in China, the world's biggest smart phone market. So today, Microsoft announced that it will soon begin selling special edition gold versions of its Lumia 830 and Lumia 930 handsets in China and several other markets.

To be clear, this obviously isn't real gold. Instead, these phones will feature an anodized gold color on their frames—where today's Lumia 830 and 930 are either silver or black, depending on the back cover color—and will be available with white or black back covers. Versions of the devices with this premium gold finish, as Microsoft calls it, will be available in select countries in Europe, Asia Pacific and China, and India, the Middle East and Africa only.

Here's how the gold Lumia 830 looks.

And the Lumia 930 in gold.

The Lumia 830 Gold will ship in February, Microsoft says, while the Lumia 930 Gold will be available in black this week and in white by the end of January. No pricing has been announced, but I can't imagine they would charge extra for these versions. (Which means of course that they will.)