Nokia offers its cheapest Windows phone with Lumia 510, but version 8 of the OS is missing

The Lumia 510 is Nokia's new entry-level Windows Phone, priced at about US$199 excluding taxes and subsidies and due to be released in November

By Mikael Ricknäs, London | Wednesday, 24 October 2012
The Lumia 510 is Nokia's new entry-level Windows Phone, priced at about US$199 excluding taxes and subsidies and due to be released in November, the company said on Tuesday.

The smartphone has a 4-inch screen with a 800-by-480 pixel resolution and a 5-megapixel camera.

That compares its previous entry-level model, the Lumia 610, priced at about $250 and announced in February. The 610 has the same screen resolution as the Lumia 510 as well as a 5-megapixel camera but a smaller, 3.7 inch screen. The Lumia 510 is also slightly thinner and lighter, but the internal memory is still 256MB.

The low-end model will, unlike the recently announced Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, not use Windows Phone 8. Instead users will have to make do with the existing version 7.5 of Microsoft's OS when the phone goes on sale.

Nokia has all along made it clear that it plans to bring down the cost of Windows Phone-based smartphones, which will complement the Asha family of phones in developing countries.

The Asha phones, which are powered by the Series 40 platform, are still much cheaper. For example, Nokia recently announced the Asha 309 and the Asha 308, which are the company's cheapest capacitive touchscreen phones to date, with a $99 price tag.

Sales of the Lumia 510 are planned to begin in November, starting with India and China and followed closely by other Asia-Pacific countries and South America, according to Nokia.

The Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 are also scheduled to go sale next month.