Nokia unveils their Lumia 610 NFC

The first NFC capable handset from Nokia was made official, just hours after an accidental leak on Nokia's Finnish website. In the past Nokia had stated that they would be launching this Near Field Communication capability on their upcoming smartphones, but one would have guessed that it would feature on some of their higher end devices. However, good things can also come within smaller budgets, and this seems to have been Nokia's plan, too, as they have officially unveiled their first Windows Phone handset with NFC capabilities and the lucky smartphone that receives this feature is their Lumia 610.

Nokia officially unveils the first Windows Phone handset with NFC

What makes this device interesting is not only is it the first Nokia Windows Phone with NFC; but also it is the first Windows Phone in the world to feature this capability. Specifications-wise, apart from NFC, everything else is the same with the Nokia Lumia 610, which was first announced at the Mobile World Congress event held in Barcelona, earlier this year. As per the announcement by Nokia, “The Lumia 610 is the most affordable smartphone in the Lumia range, making it the perfect introduction to both Windows Phone and NFC for a younger, broader audience.”

The author details how this handset can be used by stating, “It also has all the necessary hardware and software for NFC payment and ticketing solutions. In fact, the Lumia 610 NFC has been certified for contactless payments both with MasterCard for their PayPass solution, and with Visa’s mobile application for payments at the point of sale, Visa payWave.” Apart from this, it can be paired with a number of compatible NFC accessories. Speaking about how it was implemented in the handset, the author notes, “On the technical side, Nokia did this by adding an NFC software stack on top of the Windows Phone platform. The necessary NFC hardware was added into this version of the Lumia 610.”

As of now, the smartphone is only available in Europe through mobile network carrier, Orange. There is no word yet on the pricing or when the handset will be dished out to the rest of the world. For more information on this handset, click here.