Microsoft Lumia 830 draped in gold outer-frame set to make debut on 8 January

Technology giant Microsoft has started implementing a slew of reforms on the erstwhile Nokia smartphone brand, and very recently launched the first non-Nokia Lumia smartphone, the Lumia 535 that is now available for purchase in retail stores across multiple countries of the world.

Now, the Redmond-based company is seemingly looking at continuing its chain of technical reforms on other erstwhile Nokia Lumia smartphones.

According to a Nokia Power User report, the high-end Lumia 830 will be draped in gold on the outside frame and officially launched on 8 January.

This gold-variant smartphone will be a limited-edition device as per the Nokia User report which has also outed various images that are said to be graphical representations of the gold Lumia 830 smartphone.

The device is said to get a gold-leather back panel, and will reportedly be launched initially in China before expanding to other countries of the world.

This limited-edition Gold Lumia 830, once official could potentially be the cynosure of all eyes considering the fact that the smartphone offers above-average technical aspects, and these combined with the handset's gold outer frame could add that touch of prestige for people preferring to own premium high-end smartphones.

The key hardware-aspects of the gold Lumia 830 will be identical to that of the current non-gold global variant:

• 5in IPS display having resolutions of 720 x 1280, and pixel density of 294 pixels per inch (ppi)
• Microsoft's Windows Phone 8.1 operating platform; straight out of the box
• 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor
• 10 MP rear camera with Carl Zeiss optics
• 0.9 MP front camera, for video calling
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB internal storage
• MicroSD card slot for expansion of internal storage up to 128 GB
• 4G-LTE, HSPA, GSM, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi and microUSB connectivity supported
• 2200 mAh Li-Ion battery, offering a talk-time of up to 14 hours on 3G and standby time of up to 528 hours

When officially released, the gold-edition Lumia 830 could do well to compete with various Apple iPhones that have a higher street price in comparison to the former's £258 price tag in the United Kingdom.