Some nice news on availability of the Nokia in North America. First up Microsoft announce that the Nokia Lumia 800 will be available in their own retail stores. The handset will be unlocked, and as such will be at full retail price. It's a similar approach that Nokia took with their own stores, but of course it's now in conjunction with a major PR push on the US networks.

According to Nokia it will be a quad-band device, supporting 850/1900/2100 WCDMA / UTMS (3G) 850/900/1800/1900 GSM, which leaves T-Mobile users with EDGE support, but no 3G as that network uses the 1700 frequency band (via WP Central). It's perfectly suited to AT&T though.

Heading over the border, Canadians will also be able to get a hold of the Lumia devices. The Lumia 710 will be heading to Rogers ($49 on contract), while the Lumia 800 will show up on Telus, although there's no pricing details yet (Nokia Conversations).