Nokia Unveils Their Newest Windows Phone: The Budget-Conscious Lumia 610

And there we have it! Nokia’s Executive Vice President of Mobile Devices has just taken the stage again here at Nokia’s MWC press conference to officially unveil their new entry-level Lumia 610 smartphone.

As expected, Nokia didn’t delve into too much detail about the 610’s spec sheet, but they did reveal that it only sports 256MB of RAM. It seems startlingly low for a modern smartphone, though Nokia brass was quick to note that users would still be able to take advantage of all of Windows Phones features as well as Nokia’s full slate of services and apps.

While its spec sheet won’t set anyone’s world ablaze, I got to play with it for a brief moment and came away impressed. It’s a surprisingly snappy device all things considered, although it wasn’t without its hiccups. While skimming through the Metro UI was generally smooth, it did look a little less polished when bounding from one end of the app list to other. Firing up Angry Birds also took more than the usual few moments, though it remains to be seen whether or not that’s because of the relatively slow 800 MHz processor or the fact that I was playing with a beta product.

The Lumia 610 is also rather handsome considering its low price tag (189 Euros before taxes and applicable subsidies). I’d actually peg the 610 as more of a looker than the higher-spec 710.

Nokia reps assured me that the device I was playing with wasn’t final hardware yet, I was pleasantly surprised with how well the 610 was put together. Nokia plans to release the device in Q2 of this year, which gives them just a bit more time to tweak the 610’s fit and finish. Prepare for quite a chromatic onslaught too: the 610 will ship in white, cyan, black, and magenta.

Developing…