Nokia Lumia 610 Review

Nokia Lumia 610 Review

Nokia used its press conference to expand its Lumia range of Windows Phone 7 handsets, with the brand new budget Lumia 610 and release of the big Lumia 900 outside of the US. It’s the first handset that is of more interest though, as it takes advantage of an upcoming Windows Phone 7 update that will make the OS run smoothly on more modest devices.

Using a fairly modest Qualcomm 7-series chipset, and with just 256MB of RAM, the Nokia Lumia 610 will be the cheapest Windows Phone 7 handset yet, allowing the OS to compete with budget Android offerings. A recommended price of 189EUR isn’t quite in the 100GBP territory of some Android handsets, but it should bring the OS to many who previously were priced out.

Just how well Windows Phone 7 runs on a handset with half the RAM remains to be seen. It also has a Qualcomm S1 800MHz chipset, which though far from cutting edge, isn't exactly sluggish on Android. A 3.7in with the usual 800x480 Windows Phone resolution certainly doesn't look budget.

We tried the handset out on the stand and it felt OK, maybe a little sluggish to load some apps, how it stands up in proper use when it’s packed full of apps all running in the background remains to be seen.

In terms of look and feel, the Nokia Lumia 610 stands up well comared to the more expensive Lumia 710. However, we were sad not to see the 710’s replaceable fascias on this model. Instead it comes in pink, cyan, black and white – with a metallic strip around the screen that complements the main colour.

Nokia is placing this model as an introductory handset to Windows Phone 7 for a younger audience. As such, we should see it widely sold as a pay-as-you-go model, something the current line up is sorely missing. We look forward to testing it fully, and seeing just what apps do and don’t work the handset.

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