Nokia chief exec Stephen Elop has hinted at Lumia tablets yet again. In a press event on Sunday, Elop told reporters that the company is not announcing anything yet, and that no decision has been made, but his comments suggest that Nokia is indeed working on a tablet of its own.

“It is the case that in the months and years ahead, you will see us broaden out the portfolio, which means pushing to lower and lower price points, in some cases smaller form factors and so forth,” Elop said. “We haven’t announced tablets at this point, but it is something we are clearly looking at very closely. We are studying very closely the market right now as Microsoft has introduced the Surface tablet, so we are trying to learn from that and understand what the right way to participate would be and at what point in time.”

This is about as vague as it gets. Months and years? Probably the former. However, Elop’s reference to the Surface RT is interesting as well. It no secret that Microsoft’s first tablet is not doing well, but Nokia could learn from Redmond’s mistakes.

Elop said both 7-inch and larger devices have their advantages, so you can probably expect to hear talk of 7-inch Lumia tablets from the usual suspects in the rumour mill. What’s more, Elop said the company would consider both Android and Windows as its platform of choice, but no decision has been made yet. It is a rather puzzling statement, as punters have been waiting for a Windows RT tablet from Nokia, not an Android. It could be posturing, Elop’s way of sending a message to the market, or someone at Redmond. In any case, we don’t think Nokia will launch an Android tablet.

Commenting on the launch of BlackBerry 10, Elop said BlackBerry users would not have access to a sufficient ecosystem of apps and services. Of course, he did not mention the fact that Nokia’s Lumia phones suffered from the exact same issue in the early days of WP7. The Lumia range launched with just 6,000 apps, while BB10 hit the ground running with 70,000.

More here.