Samsung's first Windows Phone 8 in the form of the Ativ S may be the subject of a further delay.

According to tomshardware.com, SamMobile suggests that, in Europe at least, the Ativ S may launch sometime during 2013. Samsung's first Windows Phone 8 device was due to launch during mid-November, but a current release date is unknown.

For the Ativ S, Samsung swapped the Exynos 4412 quad-core system-on-chip for a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 model clocked at 1.5Ghz, accompanied by an Adreno 225 GPU.

General technical specifications are similar to the Galaxy S3, with the Ativ S featuring 1GB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB onboard storage, support for NFC, a microSD card slot and a 2,300mAh battery.

The smartphone also sports a 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash and a front facing 1.9-megapixel camera. Its screen, meanwhile, is a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display with a 1,280 x 720 resolution covered with Gorilla Glass 2.