With Lumia 610, Nokia Aims to Take Windows Phone to a New Low (Price)
As hard as Nokia has been working to improve upon Windows Phone, it has been working perhaps even harder to find ways to bring the phone further downmarket.
That’s because it badly needs models that can fill the spots occupied by its waning Symbian platform to sell in strongholds like China and Indonesia.
With the Lumia 610, introduced on Monday, Nokia is not only hitting the lowest price for a Windows Phone but also going into new languages.
“The expansion of the portfolio downwards in price points is obviously quite important,” Nokia VP Ilari Nurmi said in an interview last week at Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo, Finland.
The 610 is made possible in part by a new version of Windows Phone that has lower memory requirements, but also through lower-cost display and processor technology.
As a result, Nokia says it can sell the Lumia 610 for 189 euros unsubsidized ($252), roughly $100 less than it charges for the Lumia 710, and less than half the price of the Lumia 800.
Despite the cost-cutting moves, Nurmi insists that the core of the Windows Phone experience is preserved, something he said is not always the case with low-end Android phones.
It is true that its lower amount of memory means that not all Windows Phone apps will run, but Nurmi insisted that “a supermajority” of programs will run.
Nokia is also announcing global availability for the Lumia 900, announced for the U.S. with AT&T at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The global version of the device, however, will feature an HSPA+ modem, as opposed to the LTE one being used for the U.S.
RELATED POSTS:
- Tablets That Have a Certain Feel to Them
- A Lytro in Hand Helps Bring Mobile World Congress Into Focus
- Coming Soon: Phones That Learn to Rest When You Do
- Microsoft Won’t Support Some Business Features on ARM, but Will Offer “Windows to Go”
- Windows 8 Hits the Really Big Screen (Video)
- Microsoft Says Hola to Windows 8 Beta in Barcelona
- Microsoft Won’t Support Some Business Features on ARM, but Will Offer “Windows to Go”
- Google’s Schmidt Insists Android “A Real Operating System”
- Samsung’s Not Doing Well in the Tablet Market? You Don’t Say …
- Interview: Clearwire CEO Sees 4G Opportunities Where Rival LightSquared Stumbled
- RIM Exec: Developers Like Us Just Fine, Thanks
- Intel Announces More Phone Customers, Plans for Speedier Chips
- Mum on Own Phone Plans, Facebook Aims to Make Mobile Web App-Friendly
- Sony Insists It’s Not Just Playing Around When It Comes to Phones
- The Inside Story of Nokia’s 41-Megapixel Camera Phone: Five Years in the Making
- With Lumia 610, Nokia Aims To Take Windows Phone To a New Low (Price)
- Nokia’s Strategy Comes Into Focus in Barcelona
- HTC Introduces the One Phone It Hopes Will Help It Regain Footing (Well, the Several Phones)
- Sony Aims to Remake Name for Itself in Phones
- LG Shows Its Hand in Barcelona (After Already Tipping It)
- With Latest Galaxy, Samsung Looks to Project Its Android Lead
- Barcelona Subway Strike Averted on Eve of Mobile World Congress
- Complete Coverage of Mobile World Congress
