Nokia Lumia 610 Review: The affordable Windows Phone

There are only a few Windows phones around in the market and one of those most affordable ones is the Nokia Lumia 610. I’ve been using the Nokia Lumia 610 for a for some time now and I’m quite impressed with the speed and performance of the phone despite having a 800 mHz processor. This is not my first encounter with the Nokia Lumia 610. Remember my helicopter ride with Nokia Lumia 610? (That experience was freaking awesome. Thanks Nokia!). The Nokia Lumia 610 had been released in the market for some time now and it is just one of the few smartphones that are priced below the PHP10,000 mark. Check out my review after the break. 


Hardware and construction 

One of the first things that I notice about the Nokia Lumia 610 when it was announced is the design. I really like the design and construction of the phone. It didn’t feel like it’s an entry-level phone. The design and feel just looks great. The thickness and the weight are good. Thanks to the nicely design body and curves it feels really great in the hand. The chrome and sides accents also gave a plus in looks. The one that I got is white and I really like it. The first Nokia Lumia that I got to played with is the blue one and I didn’t really like the blue Nokia Lumia 610. But all in all, It’s a beauty. I love it. 

The display isn’t as great as its bigger brothers. This one doesn’t have a clearblack display like the other lumias but the display still fares well and it isn’t that wash out compared to other phones. Some people say that the 65k colors display was a dealbreaker. Well for me, it isn’t. I barely notice that the phone lacks in colors. The 3.7-inch display just fits in the entry level and midrange category. (Phones are getting bigger and bigger these days. Geez). Oh and you can type comfortably with one hand on a 3.7” display by the way. Unless you have a baby hands. Below the display is the three Windows phone buttons. It’s a capacitive one so people might accidentally press that. In my case, I never accidentally press these capacitive buttons. I got no problem with these buttons. 

4 Sides of the Nokia Lumia 610

Like what I’ve said earlier, the Nokia Lumia 610 features a chrome sides which is pleasing to the eye. This is also the place on where the other buttons and sockets can be found. At the top, you can find the Micro-USB cable and the 3.5 mm jack. Nothing special and proprietary here. Don’t worry the Micro-USB and the audio jack s far away from each other. So if you plug-in your speaker and charger they won’t bump easily. The left side is left empty while on the opposite side is where the camera, volume and lock/unlock button resides. They’re thin buttons but the size is already enough for our hands. 

The back cover is entirely made up of plastic but it feels really solid. I like the glossiness of the phone and it doesn’t get scratch that easily. You can also see the 5 MP camera with LED flash at the back. There’s the speaker grill at the bottom and the speakers produce a loud, clear and great quality sound. The sound quality of the speakers is just one of the things that I really like about the Nokia Lumia 610. Inside the packs a 1300mAh battery that can last up to 1-1 ½ days of regular use. Not bad for a smartphone. Smartphones these days usually have battery life that long. If you’re looking for a MicroSD slot, unfortunately you can’t find one. Windows phone 7.5 doesn’t support that and you need to have a Windows Phone 8 device in order to have a MicroSD support. 

Camera 

Some of you might have seen the Nokia Lumia 610’s 5 megapixel camera prowess in my helicopter ride before but I’ve tried it again in my review unit. The phone’s camera isn’t that great in some of my tests. Unfortunately, it didn’t fared well on my low-light shots and the photos are kinda washed out. Check out for yourself. Here are the photos that I’ve taken using the Nokia Lumia 610:

I can’t upload the video taken using the Nokia Lumia 610 on YouTube. Unfortunately, HD video recording isn’t available on the Nokia Lumia 610 but the phone can play videos flawlessly. I guess the Windows Phone connector for Mac automatically lowers the resolution of the HD videos that I transferred to the phone. I didn’t like the sound of the video but the quality of it is kinda good.

Software

The Nokia Lumia 610 is powered by Windows phone 7.5. Too bad the phone won’t be upgraded to Windows phone 8 but the phone is expected to be updated to Windows phone 7.8. WP 7.8 Which is like a dumb down version of Windows phone 8. WP 7.8 will have some features that can only be found on Windows 8 but unfortunately some features on Windows 8 won’t be ported to Windows phone 7.8 and apps that were made for Windows 8 won’t work on Windows phone 7.8

Since the Nokia Lumia 610 have a slow 800 MHz Snapdragon processor and a 256 MB of RAM. Some of the apps won’t work on this phones especially 3D games. A lot of apps doesn’t work with the Nokia Lumia 610 because of the lack of RAM including the Nokia City lens. That was quite disappointing since there are only a handful apps at the Windows Phone marketplace. But don’t fret, some useful apps like CNN, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Viber and many more. Don’t worry, there’s still Xbox live in here.

Internet Explorer 9 can only do up to 6 tabs on the Nokia Lumia 610. But it’s pretty damn fast and smooth.

The fluidity and smoothness of the phone is still here. I’m quite surprised to see a very smooth Metro UI on this phone. The speed is comparable to the first generation Windows Phones. But experience on the apps and games are different. Sometimes you can feel the laginess and I really hate it. But happens only on a pinch of apps that I’ve used. By the way, the Facebook app still sucks and I don’t like it so much. I hope that Microsoft should do something about their apps.

Some of the features that I really like about the Windows phone like the integration with the Social networks are still here. I guess that’s one of the greatest features of the Windows Phone. Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive are still here. It’s very usable and you can use it for offline navigation (that’s the number one in my list on why I really love to have this phone). Oh and there are some exclusive apps on the Nokia marketplace that are only available for the Nokia Lumias like the camera extras in where you can use panorama and some other cool stuffs in your camera. Pretty cool apps. Too bad there are some popular apps that are still missing in the Windows phone like Instagram and some popular games.

Verdict