Nokia has had a difficult couple of years, but with the launch of the Lumia 820 and particularly the Lumia 920, it has bounced back; at least partially. It also says something about a company’s confidence when it uses the codename Catwalk for a forthcoming smartphone, as it’s unlikely to be producing an aesthetically challenged device.

This is exactly the name Nokia is rumoured to have given the successor to the Lumia 920, a phone expected to be released later this year. The big change will be in the materials used in its construction, as gone will be the polycarbonate shell and in comes cool and fashionable aluminium.

With the introduction of an aluminium chassis comes a reduction in weight and thickness, which won’t be a bad thing given the Lumia 920′s pocket-stretching dimensions and 185 gram weight. All this comes from a source speaking to The Verge, but the report says we shouldn’t get our hopes up for a dramatic spec bump, as the internals are likely to stay fairly close to the existing Lumia 920.

Nokia’s Lumia 920, along with the HTC 8X, has proven to be one of the most popular Windows Phone 8 handsets, but as it only went on sale in November last year, we probably won’t be seeing its sequel until the latter half of 2013. We can’t wait to see what Nokia has done with the design of its new Lumia phones though, and exactly how it’ll measure up against the many thin and light phones currently being produced.