“Eight months ago, we shared our new strategy and today we are demonstrating clear progress of this strategy in action. We’re driving innovation throughout our entire portfolio, from new smartphone experiences to ever smarter mobile phones,” Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO, said in a statement.
Lumia 800
The Nokia Lumia 800 is the more expensive of the two devices at €420 or roughly US$580.76. That price is before subsidies, and is below the $649 Apple is asking for an unsubsidized iPhone in the U.S.
The device features a 3.7” AMOLED “ClearBlack” display that protrudes slightly from the body of the phone, as you can see in the image to the left. The resolution of the display is 800 x 480. It is powered by a single-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It has 512MB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, but Microsoft is augmenting that with 25GB of cloud-based storage (mind the data plans).
The Lumia 800 uses three dedicated hardware keys, one for power, one for volume, and one for the camera. It has a single 8 megapixel camera in the back that features optics by Carl Zeiss. It is being offered in three colors, cyan, magenta and black.
The dimensions of the Lumia 800 are 116.5mm (height) x 61.2mm (width) x 12.1mm (thick). It weighs 142 grams. That compares to 115.2mm x 58.6mm x 9.3mm, with a weight of 140 grams for the iPhone 4S. The iPhone also features an 800 MHz dual core A5 processor and a resolution of 960 x 640.
It runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango.
Lumia 710
The Lumia 710 is a lower priced entry, at only €270 ($373.41) before subsidies. It also features the 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor and it is available in white with black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow back covers. It’s larger than the Lumia 800 at 119.0mm x 62.4mm x 12.5 mm, but it’s lighter, at 126 grams.
The camera is lower resolution at 5 megapixel, and the optics were not provided by Carl Zeiss. The screen is the same resolution, at 800 x 480, but it’s a TFT display, rather than an AMOLED. It has 512MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage (it does not come with free cloud storage from Microsoft).
The 710 also runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango.
We should also note that neither device looks a thing like the iPhone, something some other manufacturers have seemingly had difficulty doing.
Nokia 710
Lastly, Nokia introduced several other Internet-connected feature phones that don’t compete with the iPhone.