The Nokia Lumia 610
is not your ordinary smartphone. Actually, it is the most affordable
Windows Phone handset to date bearing a tempting $255 price tag.
However, its hardware specs are less than stellar: a Qualcomm processor
running at 800MHz and paired with 256MB of RAM. Thankfully, the Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh update is
so efficient that it runs pretty smoothly despite the hardware
limitations. In addition, no more than 5% of the Marketplace's catalog
would be incompatible with such hardware, as Microsoft's Joe Belfiore
stated while unveiling details regarding the new software.
Yet sadly, some pretty popular apps fall into that 5% category. Last week, Skype for Windows Phone was made unavailable to Lumia 610 users due to insufficient RAM, and now we have Angry Birds, Tango, and PES2012 joining the list.
As
you see from the photo, Rovio's hit game requires more RAM to run, so
unless a game update takes care of the issue, Lumia 610 owners will have
to play something else. In fact, it looks like not a single future
Windows Phone device with 256MB of RAM will run any of the
aforementioned apps, unless they are adapted to operate on weaker
hardware.
So what is the minimum amount of RAM
that a Windows Phone handset should have in order to experience no such
issues? Well, the upcoming budget-friendly Samsung Omnia M
has 384 megs, and we have yet to find out whether that will suffice.
Until then, those of you who want to get a Windows Phone device might
want to play it safe and get something beefier, as long as their budget
allows it.
source: Windows Phone Apps (translated) via Engadget