Nokia Lumia 610
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Updated: We've taken another look at the Lumia 610, with a new price drop making it much cheaper - but does it make it better than the still-cheaper Nokia Lumia 710?
The Nokia Lumia 610 has placed itself squarely at the low end of the smartphone market, with just 256MB of RAM and a single-core 800MHz processor
Alongside the new stripped down Windows Phone Tango operating system and a new, more wallet-friendly UK price tag of only around £125 on Pay as you go, or free on contracts starting from just £13 per month.
This oddly puts it at a higher price than the better-specified Nokia Lumia 710 - we're not sure what's going on here, especially in the UK market.
Although the Nokia Lumia 610 is broadly competing with every other low spec and low price handset, its real competition will come from other Windows Phone Tango handsets, such as the ZTE Tania. It remains to be seen how they'll fare, since the Nokia Lumia 610 has beaten them to market, so as a pioneer of the new budget-conscious operating system, how does the Nokia Lumia 610 stack up?

Nokia LUmia 610 review

Based on physical impressions, it isn't likely to stand out in a crowd, with a plastic body and a dinky 3.7-inch 800 x 480 TFT screen. The sides have a metallic gleam to them but it's never likely to be mistaken for real metal, and the illusion is lost altogether once you actually hold the phone, which feels plastic through and through.
Nokia LUmia 610 review
It's not flimsy, though, with a reassuringly sturdy back cover and a generally solid feel. At 131.5g, it weighs about what you'd expect for a phone of its size, which is to say that it's light, but given its relatively small dimensions of 119 x 62 x 12mm, the weight feels about right.
Nokia LUmia 610 review
This all serves to give the Nokia Lumia 610 a feeling of surprisingly high quality for such a cheap phone. Especially when compared, for example, to the substantially more expensive Samsung Galaxy S2, which has none of the density or solidity to it that the Nokia Lumia 610 has.
Nokia Lumia 610 review
Sticking to the trademark bright and bold colours of the Lumia range, the Nokia Lumia 610 comes in magenta or cyan, or if you're feeling more conventional, black or white.
Nokia LUmia 610 review
The phone features several hardware buttons, all of which are positioned on the right-hand side. There's a volume rocker near the top, the power button in the middle and a dedicated camera button at the bottom.
Nokia Lumia 610 review
The layout isn't totally ideal, since - depending on how you're holding the phone - the camera button can be awkward to reach without using two hands. And having the power button so close to the volume rocker means it's easy to press the wrong button.
We can't help but feel that having the power button opposite the volume rocker and moving the camera button slightly further up the body of the phone would have worked better, as it requires some thumb movement to turn the phone on when held naturally in the hand.

Nokia LUmia 610 review

In addition, the Nokia Lumia 610 has soft key buttons just below the screen for home, back and search. These are intuitive and feature pictures of each function, making their use obvious even to someone who's never used the phone before.

Nokia Lumia 610 review

The ports, meanwhile, all sit along the top of the phone, with a 3.5mm headphone socket in the centre, and a micro USB connector on the right. There's also a wrist strap hole on the top-left, while the microphone sits alone at the bottom of the phone.

Nokia LUmia 610 review

There's no microSD card slot, which is especially disappointing given the paltry 8GB of internal storage. The battery cover requires a slide down from the main chassis to remove - something that can be hard for those used to popping a backplate off.
Nokia Lumia 610 review
Thankfully, for most users it's a problem they'll only have to face once, since as soon as the SIM card is in there's little reason to remove the cover again. Although it's good to know that if you ever want to replace the battery, the option is there, even if it is a little fiddly to get at.
Nokia LUmia 610 review
The Nokia Lumia 610 sports a respectable 5MP camera, the lens of which lies flush with the back cover of the phone. This is always cause for concern, because scratches and smudges can play havoc with photos, although in our time with the phone, while it's certainly seen its share of smudges, the lens has thankfully remained scratch-free.
Nokia LUmia 610 review
Ultimately, while it's not going to win any design awards, the Nokia Lumia 610 is a reasonably attractive and well built handset.

Full Spesifications's For Nokia Lumia 610


General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
SIM Micro-SIM
Announced 2012, February
Status Available. Released 2012, April
Body Dimensions 119 x 62 x 12 mm, 77.6 cc (4.69 x 2.44 x 0.47 in)
Weight 131.5 g (4.62 oz)
Display Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 65K colors
Size 480 x 800 pixels, 3.7 inches (~252 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch Yes
Sound Alert types Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
Loudspeaker Yes
3.5mm jack Yes
Memory Card slot No
Internal 8 GB storage, 256 MB RAM
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps
Speed HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth Yes, v2.1 with A2DP, EDR
USB Yes, microUSB v2.0
   
   
Camera Primary 5 MP, 2592х1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash, check quality
Features Geo-tagging, face detection
Video Yes, VGA@30fps
Secondary No
Features OS Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 Mango
Chipset Qualcomm MSM7227A Snapdragon
CPU 800 MHz ARM Cortex-A5
GPU Adreno 200
Sensors Accelerometer, proximity, compass
Messaging SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
Browser HTML5
Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support
Java No
Colors White, Cyan, Magenta, Black
  - SNS integration
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- MP3/WAV/eAAC+/WMA player
- MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player
- Document viewer
- Video/photo editor
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input
   
   
Battery   Li-Ion 1300 mAh battery (BP-3L)
Stand-by Up to 670 h (2G) / Up to 720 h (3G)
Talk time Up to 10 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 9 h 30 min (3G)
Music play Up to 35 h
Misc SAR US 1.32 W/kg (head)     0.97 W/kg (body)    
SAR EU 0.83 W/kg (head)