Windows Phone 8 (WP8) powered smartphones from Nokia and HTC have already started to make their way to users but Samsung's WP8 phone smartphone ATIV S is nowhere to be seen. Recent news indicates that Samsung has delayed the release date of ATIV S once again and the handset is speculated to make its appearance in February next year.

In August this year, Samsung launched its first WP8 smartphone, the ATIV S, at the Samsung Unpacked event in Berlin. Users would have expected the ATIV S to be released before the holiday season this year, but it seems that the wait will have to be longer till February 2013.

Previous reports indicated that ATIV S would be available in the UK from the week commencing Dec. 10. Canadian carrier Rogers has also been taking online reservations of the ATIV S which gave a glimmer of hope that the Samsung WP8 phone will be available soon.

"2 Weeks ago we reported about the delay of the first Windows Phone 8 device by Samsung. Today we got an update from that same insider. The insider told us the ATIV S will be delayed again, not to the first half of January but to February 2013!," reported SamMobile.

Samsung ATIV S was the first official WP8 phone announced, but as a result of the constant delays it will be released after rival WP8 handsets have made their way to the shelves.

The ATIV S sports a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. The smartphone has a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing one. The ATIV S will be NFC enabled and have a microSD slot for additional storage.

Samsung also has another WP8 phone, the ATIV Odyssey, for the U.S. market in the pipeline, which is expected to land on Verizon in December. The ATIV Odyssey looks similar to the ATIV S but is smaller in size and is expected to be a low to mid-ranged handset.

The reason for the delay is not known but perhaps Samsung does not want to divert its customers from its highly-popular Galaxy Note 2 and the Galaxy S3 smartphones.

If you want to buy a WP8 smartphone will you wait till February for Samsung to release the ATIV S?