Nokia Lumia 610 review

The low price has led to some compromises. The phone’s 3.7in display has the standard Windows Phone 7 resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, but according to Nokia lacks the Lumia 710’s ClearBlack technology. It’s still a bright, clear screen with vibrant colours, but blacks aren’t as deep as on the Lumia 710 so colours don’t pack the same punch.

There’s also the question of the processor. Unlike the Lumia 710, 800 and 900, which all have 1.4GHz single-core processors and 512MB RAM, the Lumia 610 makes do with an 800MHz single-core chip and 256MB RAM. This makes it the slowest Windows Phone 7 handset we’ve seen. You don’t notice the slowdown when you’re flicking through Windows 7’s Live Tiles or the menu system, which is still the smooth Windows Phone 7 experience we’ve come to expect, but application performance takes a hit.

On the Lumia 710, rendering the BBC News homepage took just under seven seconds, but this almost doubled to 14 seconds on the slower Lumia 610. Likewise, loading Nokia Drive, from startup to the main map view, took seven seconds on the Lumia 710 but a huge 17 seconds on the Lumia 610. The RAM is also a problem with some games; for example, trying to install Sid Meier’s Pirates! from the Marketplace pops up a message that “This application requires a phone with more RAM than the Nokia Lumia 610”, and Angry Birds is also a no-no.

The phone’s basic functions still work beautifully; pages may take longer to load in the Lumia 610’s browser, but scrolling around them and zooming in and out is smooth. There’s nothing wrong with core apps such as the email client and calendar, even if there is a very slight hesitation when closing them to go back to the home screen. The problem is that Windows Phone 7 devices are meant to give a consistent experience, and it’s a shame to have that experience stymied by your phone’s lack of resources. However, we didn’t find any non-game apps that wouldn’t install.

The 610 is very slightly fatter than the other Lumias

The Lumia 610 has been out for a couple of years, and has been superseded by a new generation of Nokia phones. The closest immediate replacement is the Lumia 620. This is currently available for £168 SIM-free from Handtec, compared to £130 for the Lumia 610 from CPC. The newer model has a number of advantages over the ageing Lumia 610. For a start, it has 512MB rather than 256MB RAM, so you won’t run into any apps you can’t run. It also has a significantly more powerful dual-core 1GHz processor compared to the 610’s single-core 800MHz chip and, most importantly, the latest Windows Phone 8 operating system.

The operating system is particularly important, as only phones with Windows Phone 8 will be upgraded to the latest Windows Phone 8.1 version, which will bring a host of improvements. The Lumia 610, on the other hand, will remain stuck at Windows Phone 7.8, and will miss out on all the benefits of later versions. For this reason the Lumia 620 is certainly worth the extra £40 or so over the Lumia 610.

If your budget doesn’t stretch that far, there’s another Lumia in the range which is a much better buy than the Lumia 610 – the bargain Lumia 520. This was good value when we reviewed it, but since then the price has dropped significantly. This handset also has a dual-core processor and 512MB RAM, so can run Windows Phone 8 (and soon 8.1) smoothly. At just £106 SIM-free from eBuyer and an amazing £70 on prepay from O2, the Lumia 520 is a fabulous Windows Phone handset for the money, and a far better buy than the out-of-date Lumia 610.