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The Nokia Lumia 610 NFC will be launching in Europe later this year, with Orange set to be the first to flog the budget Windows Phone blower.
Unveiled earlier today, the Lumia 610 NFC is a version of Nokia’s wallet-friendly Lumia 610 smart phone, but comes with near-field communication tech that lets your phone talk to other technology when you hold it in close proximity.
One way you could use NFC is to pay for things using your phone, swiping your phone in front of a till to pay for your morning coffee, and blowing the minds of less tech-savvy onlookers.
Google is working on this with Google Wallet for NFC-enabled Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Nokia meanwhile has promised that the 610 NFC will be compatible with MasterCard and Visa mobile payment systems.
Another potential use for NFC is connecting to accessories. Nokia makes a wireless speaker that NFC-enabled phones can connect to called the Play 360, for example.
Handy. As for the phone itself, it’s pretty much the same as the non-NFC Lumia 610, so expect the swoopy Windows Phone operating system, a 3.7-inch, 480×800-pixel display and a 5-megapixel camera.
A pretty simple phone then, but it’s likely to be on the cheaper side of the smart phone spectrum, so it should be popular with anyone who’s eyeing up a smart phone, but doesn’t possess a Scrooge McDuck-style moneybin.
If you’re keen, you’ve still got a little while to save your pennies — the Lumia 610 NFC won’t be on sale until the third quarter of this year, which means sometime between July and September. There’s no confirmed UK launch yet, but I’d be surprised if we didn’t see this phone coming out here.
Are you intrigued? Or would you rather pay more for the fancier Lumia 710, Lumia 800 or Lumia 900? Let me know in the comments or over on our Facebook wall. Below I’ve embedded our hands-on footage of the Lumia 610, due in the shops in spring, and a promo clip for the Lumia 610 NFC.
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Nokia Lumia 610 hands-on
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