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Nokia’s bargain-basement Windows Phone just got even more bargainous, with Carphone Warehouse offering the cheery little fellow for a mind-bogglingly cheap £80 on pay as you go.
The Lumia 520 is even less expensive if you upgrade from another pay as you go phone — effectively part-exchanging it — charging just £60 for the new blower.
You’re eligible for the £60 upgrade if you’ve had a pay as you go phone on Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange or Virgin for at least six months and regularly top up. O2 has the same conditions but charges £70.
If you’re signing up fresh, it’ll cost you £80 plus £10 top-up. You can bag the black Lumia 520 SIM-free from Phones4U for just £110. The white and blue versions will set you back £10 more.
We absolutely love the 520. It has most of the great features of its more expensive Lumia stablemates but is spectacularly cheap. It’s a terrific first smart phone, with a lovely colourful screen, really useful bundled apps (such as sat-nav) and easy to use Windows Phone software.
There are downsides, of course. It doesn’t have as good a camera as the Lumia 920, say, and you can’t make video calls (there’s no front-facing camera at all). The battery life isn’t impressive, and Windows Phone lags other systems when it comes to app selection.
But I reckon if you’re going to cut corners to keep the price down, those are really sensible areas to compromise on. There are few Android phones around that are this cheap, and they generally have much poorer screens and build quality. The 520 feels like it’ll last.
Are you tempted to upgrade to the 520? Have you seen better deals around? Do you prefer the customisability of Android in a budget blower? Give your two penn’orth in the comments, or on our impecunious Facebook page.
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