Nokia hosts Twitter competition for Lumia 620, no release date yet

Nokia’s plans for the Lumia 620 have been rather puzzling as of late. The company had earlier announced that it would be available in February, but more than half the month has passed by without any sign of the handset.

Even our grey market sources don’t seem to know when the phone will be hitting Indian shores. We contacted the company and a representative said that information on the release of the phone in India will only be revealed later this week at the earliest.

We are still pretty sure though that Nokia is actively working towards getting the phones on Indian shelves, as the company has kicked off a competition on its Twitter page related to the handset. The competition entails using the #YourWishIsMyApp hashtag and giving opinions on Nokia’s ideas for apps, with the winner getting their hands on a Lumia 620 of their own.

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There could be any number of reasons for the delay of the phones, the major of which is possibly issues with importing the handsets. Nokia has faced some trouble with the import, and thus the pricing of the handset.

#WhenIsItGettingHere?

The phone was originally expected to hit grey market shelves back in January, but obviously, that seems to have been delayed. Going by our estimates, the phone will be priced at approximately Rs 15,000, which will definitely give Nokia a leg up in the race against HTC and its entry level Windows Phone 8 device—the 8S.

Lately, we had seen Nokia’s premium phones, the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, enter the Indian market for Rs. 38,199 and Rs. 27,559 respectively. Among these high-end phones, the Nokia 920 is competing with the high-end likes of Samsung and Apple. The competition is quite stiff in the high-end phone market with iOS and Android who have put leagues between themselves and any other viable third place contender. While the Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 might have garnered a lot of press before and after their India launch, the general gadget buyer don’t seem to be too enthusiastic about picking up a Rs 38,000 or Rs 28,000 Nokia Windows 8 handset.

Call it a perception problem or a legacy issue, but Nokia has been clearly slotted in the minds of the consumer as the best brand to buy in the sub-20,000 category, provided it has an offering that is compelling enough. And this is exactly where the Nokia Lumia 620 slots itself. An exceptional value-for-money buy in the sub-20,000 range.

Though a budget-phone, the Lumia 620 is powered by a dual-core 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, Adreno 305 GPU and 512MB of RAM. It features a 3.8-inch ClearBlack display with 480 x 800 pixel resolution at 246ppi, 5MP camera, NFC, 8GB of internal memory with 7GB of free cloud storage via SkyDrive and microSD card slot supporting up to 64GB. Specs wise, it is almost similar to the HTC Windows Phone 8S, which is priced at around Rs. 20,000. In our “ grudge match” comparison, the Nokia Lumia 620 was clearly better than its Taiwanese competitor. This combination of low price and competent specs is exactly what will work in favour of the Lumia 620 in a price sensitive market like India.