Nokia Lumia 610

The two most important phones in Nokia's line-up now are the Lumia 900 and the Lumia 610. The Lumia 900 is targeted at betting back its share in the European market and establishing a beach head in the US market. 

The Lumia 610 is designed to stopped the loss of market share in the developing market. Android smartphones have been cutting into Nokia's smartphone sales in developing countries in a big way. The Lumia 610 has a suggested retail price of Php10,998 and you can probably get it for a few hundred less for cash sales.

Nokia Lumia 610 quick specs:

• Windows 7.5 
• 3.7-inch display, 480 x 800 pixels, 65K colors
• Corning Gorilla Glass
• 8 GB of storage (about 4.5 GB user available out of the box)
• 256 MB of RAM
• 800 MHz processor
• 5 MP auto focus camera with LED flash
• No secondary camera
• 720p video recording
• HSDPA 7.6 Mbps
• 1300 mAh battery

The new offering is well priced. Looking at the Android phones which are available at the same price range, we have the Sony Live with Walkman, which has a smaller, 3.2-inch screen with a 320 x 480 pixel resolution display. Because of this, we do not consider the Sony Live as a true competitor to the Nokia Lumia 610. Another, Sony offering, the Xperia Neo V, which will cost you a about 1K more is a better competitor. 

Sony Ericsson Neo V quick specs:

• Android 2.3 with a promised upgrade to Android 4.0 
• 3.7-inch display, 480 x 854 pixels, 16M colors
• Scratch resistant glass
• 320 MB of user available storage, expandable to up to 32 GB via Micro SD card
• 512 MB of RAM
• 1 GHz processor
• 5 MP auto focus camera with LED flash
• VGA
• 720p video recording
• HSDPA 7.6 Mbps
• 1500 mAh battery

If you look at the specifications, the Sony Neo V has a better display with its 16 million color disply versus the 65,536 color display on the Nokia Lumia 610. The Neo V also has a secondary camera and the Micro SD card slot allows for much more storage. The Lumia 610 also has a slower processor and less RAM than the Xperia Neo V, but Windows Phone 7.5 runs fine on these specifications. Some Windows Market place apps may need more power, but the same can be said of the Xperia Neo V.

The Nokia Lumia 610 has some a few software tricks up its sleeve which make up for the less than stellar hardware. Its messaging app and contact apps are integrated into Facebook, which should be important to a lot of Filipino users. Also the Lumia 610 has Nokia NDrive which is the free best voice turn-by-turn navigation system for the Philippines. Google Maps offers turn-by-turn Navigation for the Xperia Neo V, but voice guidance is not available in the Philippines yet.

The Windows Marketplace has over 70,000 apps now so you can find a official or third party app for most everything. Where you will feel deficient as against the Android app market, Google Play, is in terms with games. 

Basically, the Nokia Lumia 610 is not a Android killer. But if you have been wanting to try Windows Phone 7 or want a good low cost Nokia phone, the Lumia 610 is a excellent choice.