Nokia Lumia 610 – Likes And ‘Not So Much’

I would say that I’m a fan of Nokia – despite its recent turmoils, there’s something about it that keeps me going back to it.

I remember my Nokia 8250 – a.k.a. the butterfly – small and elegant, the menus were simple and user-friendly, and it had a nice blue screen with glowing keypads. At that time, if you had one of those, you were in the pack with the trend-setters.

Despite getting a few other phones after 8250, the fling with Nokia never ended. And soon enough, I returned to Nokia with the E72 – for its price, it was the best investment I’ve ever made for a phone. It could stand up to Blackberry’s, had tonnes of features and a solid built.

But somewhere along the line, the mobile world was changing – a phone wasn’t merely a phone – it became part of an ecosystem – without the ecosystem, the chances of survival was slim. Nokia realised this a bit too late but made amends when Stephan Elop took helm and brought in the Window Phone 7 OS. I waited for the new WP 7 phone and was ecstatic when I finally got my hands on a Lumia 610.

Lumia 610 Likes

1. For an entry level phone with an ecosystem, it was a true bargain. I got the apps that like (I’m not much of a gamer – so didn’t miss much).

2. The OS was surprisingly smooth but some apps were laggy. I believe this is due the RAM limitation of the phone – being an entry level, Lumia 610 only came with 256MB.

3. The animation on the phone is addictive – the way the live tiles disappear and reappear makes you want to keep on tapping.

4. The email fonts are pleasant to the eyes – easy to read.

5. Contacts, Skydrive and Office Notes sync seemingly to the cloud.

A few things on my E72 are missing in the Lumia – it wouldn’t’ be an unfair to expect that the new and improved OS would be better than the old, wouldn’t it?

Here’s some features I missed:-

Lumia 610’s ‘Not So Much’

1. On my Symbian S40, the Nokia PC Suite allowed me to send sms, updated my calendar and contacts from my PC; Zune does not have that features.

2. The quick ‘heartbeat’ (blinking lights around the sensor) on my E72, tells me that I have a message or missed call. Sometimes the phone is not with me all the time and by just looking at the phone, I knew if I had something to attend too. But with Lumia, I have to click the side button to find out.

3. The Bluetooth icon on my E72 was visible when it’s on. On the Lumia, it’s only visible when its connected and therefore many times I forget to switch it off, reducing battery life.

4. The Lumia is not upgradable to WP 8 – the reason given was that the hardware is not compatible with the new OS. However, to appease the 1st generation users, there will be an update from 7.5 to 7.8 to give the feel of WP 8.

Some may argue that Android has so many version and the change to some versions may not be considered as a major. But to a general user, WP 7 is not upgradeable to WP 8 – full stop. Even the iOS 6 will be available to iPhone 3GS with some limitations – that’s 3 generations back from the current iPhone 5.

Lumia is the 1st generation WP phone and its only upgradeable to WP 7.8 – which seems more of a minor upgrade. Despite the reasoning behind the lack of upgrade-ability to people like me, I don’t really care – the fact is my Lumia will be considered ‘old’ when WP 8 is out. Maybe the problem here is merely the perception.  The perception that I won’t be getting at least one major upgrade makes me feel unsatisfied, when other OS’ gets at least 3 version upgrade.

So here we are today with Nokia announcing the new WP 8 phones – the Lumia 820 and 920. I’m left with the Lumia 610 which won’t get a major release. I guess at this point there’s nothing much Nokia can do with the 1st generation Lumia’s – maybe just to make sure that some concerns (as listed above) are considered in the WP 7.8 release.

But for the future, I hope Nokia and Microsoft think ahead on their product line and its upgrade-ability because next time, despite hoping that my next phone would still be a Nokia, fans like me might not be as forgiving.