Nokia announces the Lumia 928 with little fanfare — hits Verizon May 16

Nokia continued its befuddling marketing roll-out for the Lumia 928 today — even though we’ve seen ads for it already, as well as a Nokia-produced camera comparison — by announcing that it will hit Verizon Wireless next week on May 16.

Nokia is also holding a large press event in London next week, which the entire tech world assumed would be centered on the Lumia 928. The company could still use the event to further show off the Lumia 928 (or surprise everyone by showing off something completely new, like a Windows 8 tablet).

In a blog post today, Nokia confirmed that the Lumia 928 sports most of the features of its predecessor, the Lumia 920, while packing in a slightly redesigned case and xenon camera flash. The 928 features a 4.5-inch screen, as well as support for wireless charging accessories. I’m just hoping its lighter than the Lumia 920 — as intriguing as that phone was, it felt like a brick compared to other modern smartphones.

While it’s a slightly minor upgrade, the Lumia 928 is significant because it’s Verizon’s first high-end Lumia smartphone. Up until now, Nokia has focused on AT&T for debuting its top-end Lumias, while Verizon has had slim pickings with mid-range devices like last year’s Lumia 820.

Now Nokia can target an even bigger audience for its most desirable devices (although this marketing campaign probably won’t do much to woo people away from the iPhone 5 or Galaxy S4).

The Lumia 928 will cost $100 on Verizon (after a $50 mail-in rebate) and comes with a $25 credit for the Windows Phone app store.