What is it about ever-expanding smartphones these days? I reckon it was kicked off by Samsung, first with the Galaxy S2’s preposterous 4.3″ display and the Galaxy Note’s mammoth 5.3″ display – measurements that seem quite reasonable nowadays, but seemed crazy-large back in 2011.
The latest victim of the large phone craze is an unusual one – Nokia! After releasing a steady stream of flagship phones with 4.3″ and 4.5″ screens, it now appears that the Finnish company is set to unveil its biggest Windows Phone yet, the Nokia Lumia 625.
According to The Verge, the Lumia 625, codenamed Max, will be launching in China soon. Images of the phone leaked on a Chinese government website, showing a phone with a similar plasticky case as the Lumia 620, but reproduced on a larger scale.
The phone’s screen measures 4.7″, making it .1″ smaller than the record-holding Samsung Ativ S. Despite the large size, the resolution is quite low – just 800 x 480, the lowest supported by Windows Phone 8.
The rest of the phone’s specifications are similarly low-end, with a dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, half a gigabyte of RAM and a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera.
Still, low specifications don’t seem to be a big impediment to Nokia’s sales. The Nokia Lumia 520 is the most successful Lumia worldwide because of its low cost, with a 13.3% share. Other low-end phones – the Lumia 620 and the Lumia 710 – have 9.6% each too, making a clear case for phones just like the Lumia 625.
The phone’s not been announced anywhere, but was reportedly spotted at the American FCC so a release in the United States (and elsewhere in the western world) seems likely. I guess we’ll just have to wait a bit until the announcement has been made!
So that’s the Lumia 625 – big on screen size and value, low on specs and price. I reckon that’s a pretty good place to sit, but what do you think of it? Let us know in the comments below.
This guest post was written by William Judd.