Lumia 900 smartphone 'free' in Canada after bug found

Canadians who buy the $100 Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone between now and April 21 will get a $100 credit on their Rogers Wireless bill to compensate for a software bug, Nokia confirms.

The company announced the deal on Facebook on Wednesday evening, after making a similar offer to U.S. AT & T customers earlier in the day on its "Conversations with Nokia" blog.

The blog post said the company had identified a software issue with the "flagship" device that could "in some cases, lead to a loss of data connectivity" and had decided to take immediate action.

The device, which became available in Canada on April 9, is the first Nokia Windows smartphone to support new high-speed LTE wireless networks.

Nokia promises that a software update to fix the bug will be available on Microsoft's Zune online store "around" April 16. Rogers announced Tuesday that it was the sole Canadian wireless carrier offering the phone, which was $99.99 with certain three-year plans.

The Lumia 900a high-end smartphone designed to compete withdevices likeApple'siPhone but available for a much lower pricereceived positive reviews when it was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegasin January.

Besides high-speed connectivity, the phone features an 8 MP camera with a wide-angle lens that Nokia says is designed to rival stand-alone digital cameras, taking clear photos in low light and 720p video. The device has a 4.3-inch touch screen, a 1.4 GHz CPU and a battery that promises seven hours of talk time.

Nokia announced Wednesday that its operating margins in the first quarter were "approximately negative three per cent" and it expected no improvement in the second quarter.Sharesin the Finnish company dropped18 per cent.