Nokia Lumia 610 is a phone for the masses

Last year in May I wrote an in-dept article on how low to mid range devices is a key factor, if Windows Phone is to overtake Android by 2015. Today at the Mobile World Conference 2012, Nokia has announced its fourth Lumia device and the first device based on the Tango version of Window Phone 7, the Nokia Lumia 610.

Microsoft's Tango update will enable the operating system to run on even low end devices having rams as low as 256mb. At the same time Microsoft made sure that the performance on such devices is not poor. Those heavy duty apps which would run well only with 512mb of ram will be flagged in the marketplace and users owning such low end devices will not be able to download them at all. This will ensure that whatever apps a user downloads it would run and function as intended even with just 256 mb of ram. Rest assured there are only a handful of apps which would not be able to run on such low end devices. According to Microsoft 95% of the current apps in the marketplace will not require the phone ram to be more than 256 mb. Microsoft says they are also working on the remaining 5% of the apps, to make them compatible with such low end devices.

"The Nokia Lumia 610 was made possible thanks to a new software release from Microsoft delivering enhanced capabilities to the Windows Phone 7.5 platform.  The software release, available from April optimizes Windows Phone to support lower memory and processor requirements, while still delivering the same great experience for more affordable products." - Nokia Press Release

"Our engineering team did the work to optimize how Windows Phone runs on lower-cost hardware, bringing the high-end smartphone experience to more affordable devices, while still running nearly all of the applications available in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Windows Phone 7.5 now enables our partners to deliver phones using a lower cost processor (the Qualcomm 7x27a “system on a chip”) and reduced memory (256MB on-board memory)—while still delivering the buttery-smooth Windows Phone experience." - WindowsTeamBlog

Hardware Specs

- 800 MHz Single Core / Qualcomm Snapdragon S1

- 3.7 inch WVGA (800x480) TFT capacitive touch LCD display (16 million colors) with pinch zoom

- 256MB Ram

- 8Gb Internal Storage

- 5 MP auto-focus, LED flash, Video capturing 720p @ 30 fps

- Weighs around 132 g

- 1300 mAh battery

Nokia Specific Apps

Like in the previous Lumia series certain apps exclusive to the Lumia devices would be pre loaded on the phone. These include Nokia Reading, Nokia Transport, Nokia Music, Nokia Contacts Transfer and an updated version of Nokia Drive (v2.0). The phone will also have Nokia Maps pre installed.

Colors, Availability and Pricing

The phone like the current Lumia series will come in cyan, white, magenta and black. The device is price at EUR189 and is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2012.

Nokia Lumia 610 Product Page