Words from WPDang. Apparently the next Lumia to be launched in China after that grand party for Lumia 800c a few days ago is not the generic WCDMA Lumia 800. Instead, the cheaper Lumia 710 and 610 will meet Chinese consumers next.
Acorrding to WPDang’s, both devices will be well priced, with Lumia 710 and 610 at CNY 2,499 (USD 397) and CNY 1,499 (USD 238) repectively, pretty persuasive if you consider the heavy tariff China usually places on gadgets. For Lumia 710, you will get a free external battery pack for that money. Pretty great deal.
Lumia 610 will probably be the real star. With the low specs brought by Windows Phone “Tango”, Nokia has driven down the price level significantly. In recent years all Chinese carriers have been talking about and trying to make “smartphone on the CNY 1,000 level”. So far the achievement is… nothing particular to talk about. Chinese OEMs and carriers have been trying pretty hard to create cheap smartphones, with Android (no other alternative anyway), and the only way to do that is to rip the specs off. You know Android is one heck of a raw-power eater and all sorts of funny things could happen when it’s running on low specs hardware, right?
Despite the lack of live agents and limited number of background tasks, Lumia 610 might just be the first ever low cost smartphone that works snappy and stable like a phone should be.
[April 1st update] Nokia China just made a decision today to bring the retail price for Nokia 710 even lower. WPDang is estimating the final price will be a lot closer to CNY 2,000, making the deal from good to great. and this is NOT an April Fool’s joke.
