Long before the Nokia Lumia 900 actually hit stores, all three of the phone's interested parties (Microsoft, Nokia, and AT&T) were adamant that AT&T salespeople would drive sales of the handset by putting it front and center in the stores. As an experiment, I dropped by a few stores in the Albany, New York area to see if AT&T reps are really talking up the phone like the company promised, or letting it fall by the wayside.

I varied my approach to salespeople in each of the three stores. In the first, I started off by speaking with a salesperson, saying I was looking for a phone for my Android-using mom. In the second, I went straight to the Lumia 900 display and began playing with a phone and waited for a salesperson to approach (this was more of a data-gathering mission to see if the rep would correctly convey the technical details of the phone). In the third, I also started with a salesperson, saying I was looking for my iPhone-using self. In all three cases I said that I (or my mom) was due for an upgrade soon, and expressed dissatisfaction with the current platform of choice but didn't place any pricing restrictions, allowing the salesperson to direct me as they chose.

In all cases, I pretended the phone was for an average, non-tech-enthusiast user. While I was curious whether salespeople might try to steer an open-minded tech enthusiast towards the Lumia 900, tech enthusiasts tend to walk into stores having some idea of what they want, and only the pushiest of salespeople will try to guide them outside the parameters they set. While a highly knowledgeable but very open-minded customer might have been a worthwhile test personality to secret-shop with, I decided it would be unrealistic for those characteristics to go hand-in-hand. They might have made the salesperson feel like I was toying with them, and wouldn't have produced a very genuine interaction.

Store one: shopping for Android-using mom

When looking at phones "for my mom," the salesperson first asked what kind of phone she was using now.

"She has a… Droid?…" I said.

"Does she enjoy it, does she like it?"

"I think so, but she does complain that it crashes."

"We have a wide variety of Androids to choose from if she wants to stick with that operating system," the rep said. "But we have a wide variety of other devices. We have some brand new Windows Phones that just came out."

Bingo.

"OK, I didn't know Windows Phone was… out," I said. "I didn't know it was real."

"It kind of came out over a year ago. It kind of fizzled. It didn't really do much. So they're bringing out an updated version yet again, with some new devices."

The rep led me over to the new Windows Phones display, consisting of two Nokia Lumia 900s, one in each color, and the HTC Titan II. I reached out to the Lumia 900 and, without missing a beat, pressed the oddly placed sleep button to wake it—a pro mistake, but the rep didn't notice. He noted that Nokia was staunchly behind the latest Windows Phone handsets, and that the company hadn't been around much in the US in recent years. "I went from an iPhone to using this, and I'm not really having any issues," said the rep. He asserted that all of the employees in the store now use Lumia 900s as their business phones provided by the company (prior to launch, AT&T announced that the Lumia 900 would be free to AT&T sales representatives).

"But the best part about the Windows Phone," said the rep, "is that it tries to give you less steps to do what you want to do." He pointed out the social network integration and the 4G LTE connectivity, and said the phone had a "really good camera."

I asked what the equivalent Android phone would be (not really an answerable question, but the type that customers ask). The rep led me to a section with some higher-end Android phones, pointing out in particular the $299 Galaxy Note, the $199 Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, and the $99 Galaxy S II—a partial nod to the fact that Microsoft and Nokia consider the Lumia 900 to be their brands' high-end phone. He pointed out the clock speeds of the dual-core processors ("not to get too technical on you!") on the Galaxies.

I asked if Android was faster than Windows Phone; the rep said that it came down to the processing power of the phone (it doesn't really, as Windows Phone is designed specifically to operate on single core processors and is at least as smooth and snappy as most Android phones). I asked if the Lumia 900 had a dual-core processor. "I… would have to check on that for you." No Windows Phone handset has more than one processing core—he probably knew that, and in fairness it doesn't really matter, but it was misleading.

Store two: shopping for my iPhone-using self

In the second store, I approached a sales rep who turned out to be the store manager. I pulled out my iPhone to show him and said it was an iPhone 4, but said I was up for contract renewal soon and wanted to see what's out there.

"So you want to figure out if you want to stay iPhone, or spread your wings and go elsewhere?"

He explained the iPhone 4S would be exactly the same as what I had, but slightly faster and with faster download speeds. "I have a few other devices right now. One of our big pushes is the Windows devices, a Windows platform that is similar to the iPhone's ease of use. It's a pretty powerful phone, 4G LTE phone, so it's fast. Very popular device." Again, he led me over to an identical Windows Phone display with two Lumia 900s and a Titan II.

Like the first rep, the first thing this rep pointed out was the people tile and its messaging capabilities, and again claimed that all of the store's employees were now carrying the Lumia 900 as their business phone. I asked the store manager if he had a Lumia 900. "Uh, no," he said, and explained that another employee had broken their Lumia 900 and he passed his to them. He's using an Android phone until a new Lumia 900 "ships out" for him.

Again I asked what the equivalent Android phone would be, and he lead me to the same set of phones as the first rep. He described Android's "open-source app world" that allows anyone to upload an application. "Very powerful, sometimes complicated, and sometimes the apps aren't the highest-quality, since everyone can make one." Of Windows Phone's apps, he said "most of the big ones are available."

I probed the issue of processors again, and the rep correctly answered that the Lumia 900 was a single-core phone. "It's LTE, but it's single-core," he said. "The operating system is very light… it's not cumbersome. It's very powerful with the single core—I just don't think they needed [dual core processors]." He said that any apps that you start on Android will just run because they have "true multitasking." Windows Phones, he said, "are multitasking… you can open up multiple screens." This is partly true, as some apps will run in the background and you can fast-switch between them.

He described the software glitch that Nokia discovered post-launch and had fixed; nice of him to mention it, if unnecessary. Surprisingly, though, he didn't mention the $100 credit that's available to anyone buying the phone on or before April 21 as a result of the glitch. I asked why the Lumia 900 was so much cheaper than the Galaxy S II Skyrocket, and he said the Lumia 900 had a "release price." Did that mean it will go up? Probably not, he said.

At one point the manager noted that he'd sold two to three Galaxy S II Skyrockets in the last week. "How many Lumias have you sold?" The same, two to three. How many iPhones had they sold? Eight to ten.

Store 3: Lumia 900 representation fact-check

At the third store, I walked straight up to the Windows Phone display and started playing with one of the Lumia 900s, my intent being to see how a sales rep would represent the Lumia 900 to a random customer (I should note this encounter took place a few days before the other two). Again, I said my contract would be up soon and I was currently using an iPhone.

"Between this and the iPhone 4, the Lumia would be a better choice," he offered. He pointed out the Lumia 900's 8-megapixel camera compared to the iPhone 4's 5-megapixel, though he said that "colors are truer" on the iPhone 4 while the Lumia 900 is more saturated (not true, in our findings).

I asked about multitasking and the phone's processor. "The single core allows it to be smoother," the rep said, and continued for some time trying to describe how the the Windows Phone Lumia 900 was faster than Android phones for the same price. While Ars would agree the Lumia 900 suffers little loss of speed from not having a dual-core processor, his reasoning was incorrect. If anything, the OS design choices that might be forced by using a faster single-core processor, for instance not allowing most apps to run in the background, might help the phone be faster. This choice was not forced on Microsoft, though.

He pointed out that the Lumia 900 has access to AT&T's 4G LTE. "Does the iPhone have it too?" "Yes, it does," he said. Wrong. Overall, he ended up price-justifying the phone—"For $99, it's one of the best phones you can get."

The phone behind door number one

Obviously, three stores is not at all a representative sample of the entire country. That said, other publications including CNET and the New York Times have conducted in-person visits of AT&T stores, and found that the salespeople had lukewarm feelings for the Lumia 900. Our earliest experience at the third AT&T store corroborated that.

But it appears the salespeople have since received a re-education on the merits of the Lumia 900. Both open-ended queries led to immediate Lumia 900 introductions, where the salespeople were positive, if not enthusiastic. They called some details wrong and were vague on others. But at the sales level, the company hasn't given up on the Lumia 900 yet; if anything, they've strengthened the ranks, at least when it comes to helping average users decide.