Nokia Lumia 610 Review – Simple Yet Surprising

[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrX3f3yNUnw[/youtube]

It’s been 9 months since my brother, Giancarlo Viterbo, reviewed the first Windows Phone of Nokia, the Nokia Lumia 800. Crafted at its finest, the Lumia 800 has  amazed everyone not only with its beautiful design but also its one-of-a-kind operating system, Windows Phone 7.5. The latter is one of the best, fastest and minimalist types of OSes you will ever find in the market right now. Undeniably, its Metro User Interface (UI) gave us a one-of-a-kind experience, something that we believe that will truly live on as a beautiful yet flexible software ecosystem.

Ladies and gentlemen, this time, I shall attempt to review yet another Windows Phone 7.5 phone. This time though, it’ll be something that your pockets can afford. This is our review of  the Nokia Lumia 610.

DESIGN

The Nokia Lumia 610’s weight and height are perfectly crafted for asian hands like ours. With it’s rounded bezel, it’s easy to navigate, type and browse the internet very easily. Nokia released 4 colors for this phone: black, white, pink and blue. The overall design of the Lumia 610 exudes a design philosophy: being simple is stylish; simplicity is style.

In my opinion, the metal side bezels of the Lumia 610 make it even more stylish. Its curves are designed to give its users a firm and comfortable grip on the device. On the right side of the phone, you will see the three physical buttons: the Volume Rocker, the On/Off switch and the camera shutter button.

You can find infront 3 capacitive buttons (back/multitask, home and search) for easy navigation. At first, you can accidentally press those buttons while typing on the keyboard but you will get past at it.

Lastly, what I like the most for this phone is its 3.7″ display. It is made with the Corning Gorilla Glass with a height of 800 pixels and width of 480 pixels. Images, icons and icons pop up on the display. Characters are clear and bright without hurting your eyes.

CAMERA

Daytime Beach shot of Baler, Aurora using Lumia 610.

You are not seeing a picture taken with a DSLR camera. Believe it or not, this shot is taken with the Nokia Lumia 610’s 5 megapixel camera. Isn’t this shot amazing?

Nokia Lumia 610 has a 5 megapixel camera, with LED flash. When set at maximum features, the resolution is 2592 x 1944 pixels. It also featured with Auto-focus and an aperture of 2.4. It also has scene modes so you can enhance your shots based on your subject’s location and light environment. You can also set white balance so you can shoot well in a low-lighted place.

WINDOWS PHONE 7.5 (MANGO)

The Nokia Lumia 610 is loaded with Windows Phone 7.5 (Mang0). As my brother recently discussed in his Lumia 800 review, this OS clearly defines what simplicity means. Like the recently announced Windows 8, the Windows Phone 7.5 features Live Tiles with the Metro UI (User Interface). Overall experience is good, although I believe that there’s still big room for improvement. I cannot wait for this phone’s offical update to Windows Phone 7.8 next year.

Lags and memory hiccups are quite prevalent on this device as it’s only packed with a Single Core 800 MHz ARM Cortex-A5 and 256 mb RAM. And yes, I find the Internet Explorer a super memory hog. In my observation, the OS and overall UI experience feel a bit wonky whenever I start this application. And yes, it’s noteworthy that there is no way we can find to lock the rotation on this device.

VERDICT

Nokia Lumia 610 is a piece of beauty. As a first timer in using Windows Phone 7.5, I immediately became a fan. It’s truly simple yet very surprising. Priced at PhP6,50.00, this phone is one heck of a phone! With its affordable price but with premium quality and jam-packed features, the Lumia 610 is one phone that’s truly worth buying this Christmas season.

Gianfranco Viterbo

Gianfranco is the co-founder of gadgetpilipinas.net. He graduated from Far Eastern University. A Psychology student turned tech-savvy. He's currently the HR Supervisor of Blip Media and one of the content producers of Gadget Pilipinas. He enjoys playing competitive video games and binge-watch American TV series.