back to article Nokia uncloaks Lumia 620: A 'budget' $249 Windows 8 mobe

Nokia has announced its third Windows Phone 8 mobile, the sixth from any manufacturer to use Microsoft’s new operating system. Priced at $249 (£154) SIM-free, the Lumia 620 is a diminutive "budget" model with a 3.8in screen, parking it at the rather pricey end of where the budget market it is today. The 620 includes a microSD …

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  1. Gerhard den Hollander

    Meh ...

    Unless it has some impressive camera tricks up it's sleeve, I dont see any differentiator on this that would make people go out and buy it .. esp. since it's at the high end of the budget phone range .

    But I've been wrong before :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Meh ...

      ... I dont see any differentiator on this ...

      but the article states

      The 620 includes an SD memory slot for cards up to 64GB

      and given the number of people who respond to reviews of most recent phones/tablets along the lines of "no sd card no sale" then the 620 looks to hit a large currently unserviced section of the marketplace!

      1. Andus McCoatover
        Windows

        Re: Meh ...

        SD slot....

        I must be behind a bit, but I thought Microsft made several stipulations re. Window Mobe, one was no external storage. Forgive me, but did I misread something?

        1. Al Jones

          Re: Meh ...

          No, you read lots of claims that Microsoft had made such stipulations.

          Like much of the commentary on Microsoft, those claims were wrong.

          1. JDX Gold badge

            Re: Meh ...

            ACtually, for Windows Phone 7 I think they did preclude additional storage, as well as specifying the exact screen resolution, but WP8 changes this.

            1. dogged
              Stop

              Re: Meh ...

              @JDX - if this was the case the Dell Venue Pro (a WP7 launch handset) would not have a functional microSD card slot.

              Which, er, it does.

          2. Andus McCoatover
            Windows

            "Like much of the commentary on Microsoft, those claims were wrong."

            Corrections always humbly received, thanks for that.

    2. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Meh ...

      People interested in WP8 who don't want to spend much? I got the 610 for that reason for 7.5.

      SD, NFC and removable battery seem like good features for the cost to me.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Meh ...

      Nokia has the low, mid and high bases covered. The differentiator is WP8, some people are bored of Android and iOS.

      You either buy the device that runs the software you want to use or the phone that had the hardware features you require. Sometimes a bit of both.

      Not everyone really gives a toss about phones, so long as they make calls, send messages and have a camera then that's enough.

      Nokia's build quality is higher than the flimsy junk made by LG and rebadged as Google.

      1. Afflicted.John
        Thumb Down

        Re: Meh ...

        The Nexus 4 is far from flimsy...unlike your assertions.

      2. fishman

        Re: Meh ...

        <<Nokia's build quality is higher than the flimsy junk made by LG and rebadged as Google.>>

        I wouldn't be surprised if they were both made in the same Chinese factory.

    4. Spearchucker Jones

      Re: Meh ...

      Let's not forget that many people buy Nokia just for maps. This fulfills that requirement at a lower price.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Ahhh

      Are the bright colours used to blind the buyer to the obvious short comings of the device?

      1. Chris Parsons
        Headmaster

        Re: Ahhh

        'shortcomings'

    6. Eddy Ito

      Re: Meh ...

      It does have some rather nice features that set it apart from other budget phones such as 802.11a and of Nokia's current offerings this would be the one I would choose because it is smaller and more discreet in the pocket. Mind you I know that I'm in a small minority who finds most "smart"phones akin to a hammer with tits? They might be fun to watch and play with but they don't make it a more useful hammer. Pity any version coming to the US will undoubtedly be heavily customized by a network giant and therefore of questionable utility when traveling abroad.

  2. jai

    Compared to the Lumia 920

    Which is a bit daft, really, as the 920 and the 620 are obviously aimed at completely different demographics

    1. Darryl

      I also thought the random comparison to an iPhone 5 was a little weird.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Megaphone

      Really?

      As you would have to be a retard to buy ANY Windows Phone. Surely it's the same demographic.

      1. durbans
        Trollface

        Re: Really?

        With a joke like that, this guy must be a world famous comiedian hiding behind a rubbish pseudonym. I mean really, no normal person could think of such a witty and intelligent joke.

    3. Andy Hards
      Pint

      620 vs 920

      Obviously. The piece also states that power users would be worried about the smaller battery! Power users would not be buying a phone for £150.

  3. dogged

    Cool. One for my mum, then.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Trollface

      One for your mom? Do you hate her that much?

      1. dogged
        Mushroom

        My mum's in her late sixties. It's easy to use with big text and has Nokia Drive and doesn't require iTunes.

        I'll bite on the troll because that's my mother, dickweed. Your mother might want to root a Samsung Galaxy 3 and put Cyanogenmod on it, my mother doesn't.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          The version of win phone 7 I played with didn't allow adjusting of the text size in text messages. Much to the dismay of the elderly lady that owned it.

  4. The FunkeyGibbon

    iPhone4 specs

    Basically they've made a new W8 phone with similar specs to an iPhone4 that costs what a second hand iPhone4 will these days? Seems fine to me for a base model.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good

    I guess there's no point in WinPho8 competing with the likes of iPhone, so the low end is where they should be. I expect that Nokia will come out with a whole barrage of low-cost phones to better do battle with Android. As such, I feel this development is positive.

  6. Paul Shirley

    The last thing you want on an OLED screen is vast swathes of solid *bright* colour, though pure R,G or B at least take the power drain back down to LCD levels. Suddenly that huge empty black bar WP7 had on the home screen looks useful ;)

    Not an impressive price either, you just don't get as much hardware for your cash with this budget phone.

    1. JDX Gold badge
      Mushroom

      You get a decent OS though, not that Android mess.

  7. Steve Foster
    Meh

    Nice (ish) Phone...

    ...shame about the price. £150 isn't budget - it surely needs to be sub-£100.

  8. JDX Gold badge

    Review Please

    I'd love to know how laggy it is - if it's OK I might upgrade my budget WP7.5 to a budget WP8!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why one anyone want a shit expensive phone?

    words fail me.

    You can get a Xperia U for this sorta money, also dual-core, front facing camera for video chat etc and flies along on ICS (Jellybean coming soon)...

    1. The FunkeyGibbon
      Thumb Down

      Re: Why one anyone want a shit expensive phone?

      I love how you can slam this phone in one breath and praise any phone made by Sony in the next... shocking.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why one anyone want a shit expensive phone?

        Because the Xperia U is the best handset you can get at this price by a mile and a half.

        You fire up a Desire C and an Xperia U side by side and you will know exactly what I am on about.

        Desire C, 600Mhz single core, 1 camera, gingerbread.

        Xperia U 1Ghz dial core, 2 cameras, ICS

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why one anyone want a shit expensive phone?

      Xperia U has non-expandable memory though.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: Why one anyone want a shit expensive phone?

      Almost no one (the one its Andrew :-D ). But he is trying hard in astroturfing WP8...

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why one anyone want a shit expensive phone?

      Look, I love my Galaxy S III, and would not change it for a Windows Phone at this point. But this price range is where the Android competition is decidedly underwhelming, no matter how much you pretend that there are significantly better phones for the money.

      Even phones like Galaxy S3 Mini, which cost noticeably more, are far below the flagship models' specifications. The screen resolution in this price range remains stuck around 800x480, at best. Camera quality is never too good, it wouldn't take much for Lumia 620 to be best in class. Processors may be dual core, but they are A9 or worse. Battery sizes and battery lifes are always mediocre. The Android OSes are always a few versions old, and getting updates seems to take even longer than for the flagship phones. Really, the major Android makers' phones in this price range are so limited that it is clear they are only designed to push people towards the higher-end, higher-margin phones, with the high-end phones' true cost disguised by operator subsidies.

      Xperia U? If may "fly along" on its dual-core processor, but that's just good news for Lumia 620 buyers - after all, not only is Windows Phone 8 UI smoother than Android (on the same spec hardware), but the dual-core Krait also runs rings around the A9. So based on that, Lumia 620 won't have any performance problems at all.

      Probably a very nice, relatively inexpensive smartphone, then. Should bring some much needed competition to this segment.

    5. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Why one anyone want a shit expensive phone?

      Since it's not expensive and WP8 isn't shit, your point makes little sense.

    6. Eddy Ito

      Re: Why one anyone want a shit expensive phone?

      Just so I'm clear on the Xperia U comparison. The "shit expensive phone" is the one with equal or better hardware specs overall and the better phone for "this sorta money" is the Sony which is missing a card slot, glonass, and 5GHz wifi? Ok, if the extra 54 pixels of horizontal resolution and 20 mAh of battery capacity blows your hair back, who am I to judge?

  10. Simbu
    Mushroom

    Heavier than iPhone 5

    Yea, because comparing a $249 phone with a phone that starts at over $600 is awesome journalism.

    Honest to god I reckon you reg hacks have a quota on mentioning Apple shite to drive SEO or something...

  11. Doozerboy

    Cheapish dev phone

    I'll probably pick one of these up actually. I have no interest in Wp8 as my personal phone, but I wouldn't mind cranking out some win phone apps, so I'll need a budget model to test on.

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Cheapish dev phone

      Yep, it's always a good idea to use the lowest-spec device as your target. You'll quickly see what needs to be optimised, and you'll fix it.

  12. Ryan Clark

    Why can't they get all features I want in one phone. This one lacks wireless charging as does the Samsung, the other Nokias lack SD expandability. I am actually getting to like my current Nokia 710 after initially missing my HD7 pro. I still want a phone with a keyboard though and no-one appears to be doing them for WP8 (I don't get a choice on OS)

    1. Fuzz

      SD card

      The 820 has both wireless charging and SD card support but I think it's expensive.

      I can see the point in wireless charging but the main place it would be good is the car and there isn't anything out there specifically for the car yet.

      The pick of the Windows 8 phones is probably the HTC 8S

    2. Claus P. Nielsen

      There is SD card in the Lumia 810/820/822

      Keyboard is a bit more difficult I admit.

      I don't know whether bluetooth keyboards are supported in WP8?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WP8 does not like living in a half gig of memory.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Nail on head

      NFT

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And Windows RT for tablets seems to take up 12 GB of storage. Pretty clear sign Microsoft are doing something wrong...

    3. dogged
      WTF?

      Until the phone is reviewed, we don't know whether it likes half a gig of memory or not. As far as I know, this is the first announced WP8 phone with less than a full gig. So... wait and see, I guess. WP7.x had no issues with 512MB.

  14. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    I dunno why anyone else hasn't said it....

    ...But internally on a lot of these (phones, tablets, PC's) it seems to this dullard commentard that, with very few exceptions, they're all the same.

    For example, Professional vs. entry-level versions of the exact same software. The manufacturers (e.g., microsoft) just deliberately 'hobble' it (Film:Misery, anyone?) You're not paying for more effort in the "Professional" version as you are in the "Home" edition. Strangely, it seems to me that you're paying LESS for MORE effort to hobble it.

    Sorry, gonna get seriously downvoted here, but I think Apple got it about right. They tend to make (e.g.) ONE phone. Take it or leave it. Obviously, a helluvalot of people have decided to simply take it.

    Credit where credit's due.

  15. Jason Hindle

    Fine

    Having played with the 710 and 610, I think these phones offer what was once considered a very premium (slick) feeling, at a fairly low price point. As for the limitations, you get what you ultimately pay for,

    The only problem I have is El Reg's figure for the SIM free price. At launch, these phones are invariably more expensive than The Register's quoted price.

    This looks a nice way for device/OS agnostic me to get a flavour of something different without breaking the bank.

  16. The_Regulator

    Nokia - sounds familiar

    @Eadon: "Didn't they used to make phones?"

    Dumb trolls like you are becoming a familar site on blogs like these too.....

    For what it offers the Nokia Phone is a Budget device but with some high end features thrown in e.g. NFC, if you want true budget go grab one of those shitty android phones that needs to be soft reset every other day because half the software available causes it to crash.

    @simbu: Heavier than iPhone 5

    LOL I agree, some of the writers here need to go back to journalism school if they ever went there in the first place.....it appears everytime they write something about a windows phone it needs to have some sort of backhanded jab at it e.g. the weight of the phone in this case. A few grams of weight is going to make ALL the difference in which phone you buy ofc, the specs, software and hardware design and overall quality as well as the cost have NOTHING to do with it at all......//sarcasm mode off

  17. Matt Bradley
    Flame

    Platform Rage

    Platform rage is funny. The majority of the comments in this thread are hilarious. And also depressing.

    It is rather poignant to realise that one of the most significant impacts of the the arrival of the iPhone is to spread platform zealots from the desktop OS space into the mobile space. Isn't humanity wonderful? Now we can spend more of our time arguing over which mobile phone software is the anointed and righteous path. Fabulous.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Platform Rage

      Finally, something engaging for sociologists to study.

  18. C 7

    Am I the only one...

    ...who really wants a phone this size with the feature of the high-end behemoths? I don't want a 4.5 or 5 inch screen, I want something I can comfortably hold and use with one hand. I also want the fancy camera and wireless charging of the 920, more like a 920 mini. I'm sure battery capacity is a limiting factor here, but seriously... I don't want to carry a damn near-tablet in my pocket, I just want a phone that happens to be able to do email and web and gps stuff if I want.

  19. GiveHalfA
    Meh

    Could succeed

    I believe Nokia just needs to find the right sweet spot of hardware, software and price and they will see some success. Maybe this is the one - esp. with the SD slot.

    I needed a second phone for travelling so recently bought a 610 on run-out sale, expecting a WP7 to be rubbish but I actually quite like it so I might go for the 620 for my main phone, though I am curious about 720 price & spec when that comes.

    Not perfect, room for improvement, but great software, Office mobile, nokia nav, free music streaming, skydrive etc. and I like a smaller phone. And most importantly for me, if I drop it on the ground or get it nicked it's not a huge investment flushed.

    Besides - with Tom Tom wanting 150 pounds for a decent nav, and when I last looked 78 pounds for a years' map update it starts to look a good deal even if you never put a sim card in it.

  20. Alex King

    Pureview

    I'm assuming this doesn't have it then?

  21. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    Fun tonight....

    The Finnish Preident's Independence Day (other) ball starts in 20 minutes.

    While we light our white-and-blue candles, (2 - traditional) and put my shirt and bow-tie on (again, as traditional as 11/November in England), I'll be very interested if I see Stephen Flop at the party...I'll keep you posted.

    1. Andus McCoatover
      Windows

      Re: Fun tonight....

      Yep, Elop was there. At about the midddle of the queue of 1,800

      What staggered me beyond belief was how stunningly beautiful the President of Finland's wife is! Lucky man - Unbelievably attractive! WOW!!! But then, with few exceptions, our politicians seem to be in their early 30s or 40's.

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