Nokia Lumia 610 Review

Until recently, consumers who wanted to get a cheapo smartphone had little other options than a selection of low-end Androids, with a few Symbian and bada offerings also lying around. Yet here came MWC 2012 and the Nokia Lumia 610 was unveiled – an inexpensive representative of the Windows Phone breed. This is a platform known for buttery smooth performance and high user satisfaction ratings, so such a budget offering was more than welcome to the smartphone market.


The modest internals are the cause for the device's price advantage. The processor inside it is a 800MHz single-core accompanied by the measly 256MB or RAM. Nevertheless, the lightweight Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh should run just fine despite the modest hardware, or so does the maker claim. Curious to see how it stands in reality? Then let's give the Nokia Lumia 610 a full-on review treatment.

Display:

To no amazement, the display on the Nokia Lumia 610 has aresolution of 480 by 800 pixels, which is the norm for Windows Phone handsets. Spread those dots across 3.7-inches of screen real estate and you get a really decent pixel density of 252 ppi. That is why even small text is clearly legible and graphics look nice and smooth. The display's color reproduction is really good on most occasions, but since it can render a palette of only 65,526 colors, color look dithered when gradients are being drawn. Another issue was that when using the smartphone on a sunny day, at times we had to cover the screen in order to see anything.


Processor and Memory:

“Smooth as silk!” – This is how we would usually describe the experience of using Windows Phone, but not with the Nokia Lumia 610. The Qualcomm MSM7227 processor and 256MB of RAM combination is pretty weak no matter how you look at it, which is why every day things like switching between apps take time, and navigating through the interface gets choppy every once in a while. But above all, it is sad to see that a number of pretty popular applications and games, such as Tango, Skype, and Angry Birds, are currently unable to run on the device due to its hardware limitations. Thankfully, this issue should be resolved through software updates. We installed a number of less demanding games: Fruit Ninja, Chickens can't fly, and Myth Defense, and all of them were playable. 

There are 8 gigabytes of on-board storage, but only 6.21 of them are user-available. Still, for a device of this class, this is an acceptable amount of storage. Keep in mind, however, that a microSD card slot is absent, so there is no way of expanding the phone's storage capacity.


Call quality and Battery:

We have definitely heard better earpieces than the one on the Lumia 610, but this one gets the job done as well. Voices come through it undistorted, but we wish they were a bit louder. That secondary microphone comes in handy by reducing background noises noticeably, but as a result, our voice sounds quite artificial on the other side of the line. 

The phone's 1,300mAh battery should deliver satisfactory results. It is rated for over 7 hours of talk time and should last for over three weeks in stand-by mode.

Conclusion:

The Nokia Lumia 610 has both its strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, you should be able to get one for about $250, as long as you do some digging around, which makes it a decent entry-level offering. On the other, you will have to accept the incompatibility of select applications and the occasional software lags caused by the smartphone's modest hardware. Nevertheless, the experience of using an identically priced Android model would likely be similar, which makes the Lumia 610 worthy of checking out if your budget is tight.

However, we would strongly recommend considering the Nokia Lumia 710, which is not affected by any performance issues. The Samsung Omnia W and the HTC Radar could also be great alternatives, as long as you can find them at a good price. Alternatively, we are sure that some of last year's mid-range Android smartphones can be found retailing at a similar price; smartphones such as the Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V or Xperia ray.