It has been quite a long time since there was a proper Lumia flagship to get excited about. There have been plenty of mid and low-end Windows Phones that have looked good for what they are, but there haven't really been any high-end Lumia's with widespread release. One that has long been rumored is the Nokia "McLaren", which is said to be the Lumia 1020 successor; and, a McLaren prototype may have just appeared on a Chinese auction site.
The device up for auction is listed as the Nokia RM-1052, and is clearly branded on the back as a prototype that is "Property of Microsoft Mobile" and "Not for Sale". The images clearly show the raised camera housing, just like the Lumia 1020; and, the info screen for the device shows a quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 1080p display. The display appears to be 5-inches, but it's hard to say. The device itself looks to be made mostly of aluminum with a strip of plastic at the bottom.
As nice as it looks, though, Microsoft was rumored to have cancelled the plans to release the McLaren as of this past July. The device was supposedly being used to test out "3D Touch" technology, which basically means motion gestures and Kinect-style interactions with the phone. It would be pretty cool to see an update to the Lumia 1020 come out, but it is still relatively unclear what Microsoft is doing with its newly acquired Nokia hardware division.
