Nokia's design chief Marko Ahtisaari has told The Guardian that the mobile giant is working on a Windows Phone handset that uses NFC technology to connect with external accessories, and also hinted at smartphones with wireless charging.

It sounds as if the man in charge of designing Nokia's handsets is convinced that there is a future for completely connector free devices combined with the use of Near Field Communications.

"Take it to the extreme, and why are there any connectors?" asked Ahtisaari, hinting that, the use of NFC could lie in reducing the complexity of UI operations such as pairing accessories, but also perhaps by Wireless charging. Of course, we've seen wireless charging on smartphones before, such as with the Palm Pre - but it's yet to be adopted by the masses.

NFC is not something that Microsoft's mobile OS currently offers but Andy Lees - former Windows Phone head - stated back in October that 2012 would see the introduction of NFC and a way that hardware manufactures can "add value", extend and vary hardware on Windows Phone 7.

Nokia, of course, already embraces NFC into some of its handsets for tasks such as speaker and headset pairing and, more recently, gaming; so it makes sense that we'll see NFC packing Lumia handsets soon.

Ahtisaari also told The Guardian that future Lumia handsets will do away with the the flip-up plastic tab that  covers the micro-USB port. "If you can take away a moving part and make it more beautiful in the placement of the components, we'll do it, so that's something where we can certainly keep improving," he said.

Check out our Nokia Lumia 800 review