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Orange Lumo, San Remo and Nivo offer 4G, Jelly Bean in…
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Orange has announced three new affordable Android phones for Europe. The carrier offers a choice of wallet-friendly 4G with the Orange Lumo, cheap and cheerful smart phone smarts with the Orange Nivo, and a big screen without the big price tag with the Orange San Remo.
The Lumo, Nuvo and San Remo are three new phones from European network Orange, and will be available in various countries this year. All three run Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, making them an affordable way to have (very nearly) the latest version of Android in your pocket.
The 4.5-inch Orange Lumo has an 8-megapixel camera and dual-core processor for speedy video, gaming and web browsing. It’s the first LTE phone to bear the citrus-hued network’s badge, connecting to the Web on 800, 1800 and 2600mhz bands. Although release details haven’t been confirmed, it’s likely to appear in one of the seven countries where the carrier has a 4G service. Those countries include France, Portugal, Romania and the Dominican Republic.
Richard Trenholm // CNET
The Lumo won’t come to the UK, where Orange’s 4G network is labelled with the EE banner.
The Orange San Remo is the biggest phone Orange offers, with a sizable 4.7-inch screen. It boasts another 8-megapixel camera and is the best-looking of the bunch, with a slender profile and sleek silver back.
And the Nivo is the budget option, offering a dinky 4-inch screen and 5-megapixel camera.
All three phones have 4GB of storage, with a microSD slot for extra storage. They’re loaded with a custom skin on top of Android, giving you extras like a custom lockscreen, an app to manage your account, and local apps for free cinema tickets — but those add-ons mean you won’t necessarily get future Android updates in a very timely fashion.
Orange Lumo, Nivo, San Remo hands-on photos: affordable 4G and Jelly Bean
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My favourite extra is that you can draw on the screen to open an app, a bookmark or a contact. Draw a V to open video, a square to open the camera — or draw a heart for your sweetheart’s contact. Awwww.
Orange offers a number of own-brand phones that give customers an affordable option for some decent Android phones, like the Orange San Diego and San Francisco 2. The network has even branched into tablets with the Orange Tahiti. All the own-brand phones have been named after places, but that ends with the San Remo (it’s in Italy, geography fans). Future phones will copy the Nivo and Lumo with four-letter, vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant names.
The three phones will launch in the first half of the year in different markets in Europe, including Romania, Slovakia and Spain.
