Update: Vodafone now has the Nokia Lumia 710 for the even cheaper price of £150.
Eying up Nokia’s influx of Windows Phone-running Lumia handsets? If your needs aren’t demanding enough to warrant the Lumia 800 or upcoming Lumia 900, why not dip your toes in one of the more budget offerings? But which one? There’s some serious price confusion going on at the minute…
We’ve just had the first official pricing in from a UK phone store for the Lumia 610. The early birds at Clove say you’re looking at £190 before VAT, and £228 with tax. That’s a tad more than Nokia’s original estimate for €189 (or £160) before tax.
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Now, Clove is a competitive site, so it’s worth noting that this isn’t one shop charging more: it’s simply the first to announce UK pricing. But it raises a dilemma nonetheless: that SIM-free price puts it over and above the cost of the higher-specced Lumia 710. And Nokia’s running Windows Phone Mango in the 710 and Tango (which sports fewer features and only needs 256MB of RAM) on the 610.
While Amazon’s doing the Nokia Lumia 710 for £229.39 SIM-free, you can pick one up for £169.99 on PAYG from O2, and now just £150 on Vodafone. Now, that’s not apples with apples, as networks usually subsidise Pay As You Go phones in the hopes that you’ll spend more on credit over time, but regardless: that’s a £58 saving on Lumia 610 price.
So here’s the obvious question: why would you pick the 610 over the cheaper 710 right now? Fingers crossed we’ll see prices for Nokia’s latest bad boy as quickly as the 710 has: we’re still waiting on that £99 Windows Phone.
