Nokia's Lumia 625: With its 4.7-inch display this is a budget big-screen aimed at first time smartphone buyers
Latest addition to the Lumia range aims to provide a winning multimedia experience though may be hamstrung by a slow processor
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Your support makes all the difference.Nokia has unveiled its latest addition to its burgeoning Lumia range of handsets: the Lumia 625, a big-screened, mid-tier handset with 4G connectivity and offered in a range of colours.
With its 4.7-inch screen the 625 is slightly smaller than most phablets - 5-inches is usually given as the ‘minimum’ screen size for such devices - but considering its budget specs, Nokia aren’t aiming to challenge the Galaxy S4 or HTC One with this model.
The 625 comes with a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processors and 512MB of RAM. There’s 8GB onboard storage – though this is expandable with MicroSD going up to 64GB as well as SkyDrive cloud storage, with 7GB offered free.
Weighing in at 158g the handset is one of the weightier on the market (the Galaxy s4 is 130g by comparison) and the colours include white, black, orange, yellow, and green. A 5-megapixel camera rear-facing camera and a battery which Nokia claims will offer 15 hours of use (or 23 days of standby) round out the specs.
Now, looking over these numbers there doesn’t seem much to be impressed with, but with the rumoured price for the 625 without contract hovering between £200 and £240, this budget device might find a home in plenty of pockets.
The big screen, 4G connectivity and expandable memory means it will be great for multimedia and light app use, and hands-on reports for the 625 have spoken favourably of the handset’s speed.
Stuart Miles from Pocket-lint said: “Windows Phone 8 runs a lot better on low-specs compared to Android on similar hardware so you shouldn’t worry about a direct comparison.”
Nokia’s previous budget-phones in the 600 range have included the 610 and the 620 – both with screens a whole inch smaller than the 625 and lacking the new handset’s 4G connectivity. The latter spec suggests the 625 isn’t aimed at developing markets – but at first time smartphone buyers in Europe and the US.
TechCrunch flagged up some stats from Asymco that showed that current rates of smartphone adoption in the US is as high as it’s ever been meaning that the 625 could be the perfect addition to Nokia’s ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’: an assault on the US market by launching a portfolio of devices across a range of price points.
Although Nokia's latest quarterly performance reports posted and operating loss of €115 million, sales of Lumia handsets increased from 5.6m units to 7.4m over the past two quarters: the 625 could help push this number even higher.
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