Less than three months ago Nokia announced their first two Windows Phones, the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800. The latter got most, if not all, of the attention from the media, but it’s the Lumia 710 that really earned a place in our hearts. For less than 300 Euros it offers an incredible value for your money, and the fact that it has a removable battery, along with a microUSB port that isn’t hidden behind a flimsy door, makes it a more practical device than its more expensive sibling. Apparently the market doesn’t care about practicality however. According to Eldar Murtazin, Editor in Chief of Mobile-Review, Nokia has decided to slash the price of the Lumia 710 by 20% in Europe and Russia. This after the low cost smartphone has been on the market for barely a month.
Nokia 710 get 20% price cut off in 1 month, according to retailers this model isnt popular at all
— Eldar Murtazin (@eldarmurtazin) January 17, 2012
Over in America things are looking equally dire, which is even more concerning since the device has been on the market for less than a week. Walmart is already selling the T-Mobile Lumia 710 for free with a two year contract. To be fair we always thought that $0 was what the price should have been all along. The Lumia 710 is competing with so many Android smartphones, the $99 iPhone 4, and the $0 iPhone 3GS, that it just makes sense to offer it for free.
All that being said, next month is Mobile World Congress where it’s expected that Microsoft will announce Windows Phone Tango. The main feature of the new OS is that it’ll add support for lower end devices, so we may actually see some ridiculously cheap Windows Phones being announced by Nokia at the event. The Lumia 710 may be cheap, but apparently it isn’t cheap enough, and as sad as that might be it’s a reflection of the polarization of our industry. People either want a cheap device or the cream of the crop.
The middle? Forget that.