Nokia has officially spilled the beans on the new Lumia 525 – a lower range Windows Phone 8 Smartphone that’s been swirling around the rumor mill for months.
As expected, the post confirms that the 525 will be made available in its early days across selected markets only – one of which we’re afraid to say isn’t here in the US. Instead, folks looking for an affordable point of entry for the WP8 experience across Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East will have the chance to take home the 525.
Or in other words, the 525 is following directly in the footsteps of its predecessor – the Lumia 520.
Specs and features under the hood fall largely in line with what you’d expect from a modest mid-range player today. Power is served up courtesy of a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running at 1GHz, along with 8GB of storage space for files and 1GB of RAM. Up-front you’ll find an 800 by 400 resolution touchscreen of 4-inches, while the back boasts a 5-megapixel camera – not the highest pixel count but we all know what Nokia is capable of camera-wise.
The micro-SD card slot allows for up to 64GB of additional storage space to be added, Windows Phone 8 takes the controls and a battery measuring in at 1,430mAh is more than adequate.
Add all of the above together and you have yourself a package that’s a million miles from jaw-dropping, but at the same time it isn’t supposed to be. When it lands, the 525 will take pride of position right at the bottom of Nokia’s Lumia pecking order and has been designed to attract as many floating voters as possible from Android and iOS crowds.
And of course, it will be one of the cheapest Windows Phone 8 handsets you’re ever likely to come across – Nokia hasn’t confirmed its price yet, but if the 520 is anything to go by we’ll be looking at a price not much more than $200 off-contract.
It’s hard not to think that the 525 would be a pretty successful piece of kit for Nokia should a US launch be planned for the future, but with no word on if or when this will happen, this is one budget-busting Smartphone you probably shouldn’t hold your breath for…sorry about that!