Nokia Lumia 610 may be cheapest Windows Phone yet
updated 04:45 pm EST, Tue February 14, 2012
Lumia 610 to be offered on pay-as-you-go only?
The Nokia Lumia 610, expected to be unveiled at the upcoming Mobile World Congress show, should be the least expensive Windows Phone handset to be offered on pay-as-you-go plans. TechRadar's sources say this will be the case when the phone goes on sale in UK shops, where it will be priced aggressively, suggesting it will be Nokia's entry-level Windows Phone smartphone. The handset will also likely use the Tango version of the Windows Phone OS to keep prices down.
Tango is said to be making its debut at the show as well, and is optimized for slower processors and lower-resolution screens than high-end smartphones. How much the phone will cost remains to be seen, but the Windows Phone-running Lumia 710 costs £200 (about $314) on pay-as-you-go plans in the UK (and just $50 on a two-year T-Mobile contract), so the 610 will likely undercut the 710 by a significant margin.
A low-priced smartphone running on a competitive operating system is something Nokia hasn't offered in a long time, and it's something competitors running Android software can do so fairly easily.
