Nokia’s Lumia 625: big screen, small specs in an affordable 4G-ready smartphone

23 Jul 2013

The Nokia Lumia 625 with BOOM headphones

Nokia has just revealed its new Lumia 625, an affordable addition to its smartphone range with its largest screen size to date.

The Lumia 625 features a 4.7-inch WVGA LCD with a resolution of 201ppi. Rather than compete with the definition boasted by other near-5-inch models, Nokia appears to be taking the approach of offering an alternative large-screen device with lower specs – and a lower cost.

‘Affordable’ is a key word in the Lumia 625 announcement (though the price is yet to be revealed), as Nokia heralds a low-cost smartphone enabled for the forthcoming 4G network.

“The Nokia Lumia 625 will make a great and highly affordable 4G-ready addition to Vodafone’s range of Windows Phones ahead of our 4G launch later this summer,” said Dee Kaul, director of terminals for Vodafone UK and Ireland. “We’ll be letting customers know very soon when exactly they’ll be able to get their hands on it.”

For now, we do know that the Lumia 625 will be coming to participating operators in Q3 and will be available from free on bill-pay plans.

Other specs include a 5MP rear camera that shoots 1080p video at 30fps, a VGA front-facing camera, 512MB RAM, 8GB storage (with SD expansion up to 64GB), a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 2,000mAh battery.

Like all the latest Lumia models, the 625 will run Windows Phone 8 and also comes with the Nokia Lumia Amber update. It also includes some innovations introduced with the recently revealed Lumia 1020, such as the Nokia Smart Camera and Nokia Cinemagraph creative camera apps.

Its changeable shells come in five colours – orange, yellow, green, white and black – and Nokia has also teamed up with Coloud to create the BOOM headphones, to complement the handset and provide users with great audio at a good price. The headphones also come with an integrated microphone and controls for taking calls, as well as listening to music.

While the specs on the Lumia 625 might not be anything to write home about, Nokia’s strategy remains sound, considering the success of its more affordable Lumia 520 in comparison to others Windows Phone devices on the market.

UPDATE: Nokia’s Finland-based PR estimates the European retail price as €220 before taxes and subsidies.

Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com