Samsung, HTC Windows 8 devices in the works, Sprint without

Samsung and HTC are both reportedly tinkering away on Windows 8 phones, joining the growing rumored ranks of carriers building devices installed with the forth-coming OS.

An anonymous source broke the news Wednesday and apparently has his or her hands on the duo of devices.

The Samsung handset reportedly resembles the Samsung Galaxy Ace without the frontal hardware button.

The Ace comes equipped with a 5-megapixel camera, 3.5-inch TFT screen, 800MHz Snapdragon processor and 640 x 480p video recording capabilities, among other features.

There’s no number and little else to go on for the potential Samsung Windows 8 phone yet, though one indicator an Ace-like Windows 8 phone is in the works - or already built - is that the Ace comes equipped with Samsung Apps, meaning a Windows 8 furnish wouldn’t be too far fetched.

HTC’s back in

HTC’s supposed phone is a mystery device as well, though the source said it resembles a less-rotund Rezound.

With 4G LTE, 32GB, a 1.5GHz Dual-core Qualcomm MSM8660 Snapdragon processor, 16GB of storage and 4.3-inch 720HD screen, the Rezound wouldn’t be a bad phone for the Windows 8 by HTC to emulate.

A Windows 8 phone for HTC would be a huge rebound for the company that looked like Microsoft was barring the Taiwanese company from getting ahold of the operating system.

Microsoft reportedly wasn’t comfortable with the company’s handling of tablets and didn’t want to let it in on the tight-knit production circle it had formed around Windows 8 and Windows RTdevices, but TechRadar reported earlier this month that HTC was actually planning to release three different Windows 8 handsets September 3 – the Rio, Accord and Zenith.

So far there’s no word if this new mystery phone is one of the three or a different device all together.

Sprint sans Windows 8

Sprint appeared set to enter the Windows 8 game too, thanks to the rumored HTC Arrive.

However, that device was pulled from Sprint’s site earlier Wednesday, taking with it the carrier’s hopes of offering a Windows Phone.

The QWERTY device is just over a year old and was Sprint’s only Windows-powered handset. Now with the Windows 8 release barreling down upon us, Sprint is on the outside looking in.