Nokia announces the Lumia 625, their largest smartphone yet

Phablets, once seen as an incredibly niche segment of the smartphone market, are slowly becoming more and more in style – there was a time not too terribly long ago where 3.5″ smartphones were the norm and anything larger than 4.0″ were seen as giants, but the pendulum has certainly shifted in recent years. Incredibly large smartphones popularized by Samsung with their Galaxy Note lineup have become the new normal, and Nokia has decided that it’s time to jump aboard the large smartphone train with their new Lumia 625 smartphone, their largest smartphone ever with its 4.7 inch display.

Seen as a rather low-end device, the new Lumia 625 runs the newest version of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 operating system. Powered by a measly dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor, a paltry 512 MB of RAM, and just 8GB of internal storage to play with, nobody would ever confuse the Lumia 625 for a high end smartphone. But at just £220, it’s certainly one of the better deals available out there for a low-cost smartphone, at least.

Worse yet, the Nokia Lumia 625’s large 4.7 inch display is one of the weakest performers in the history of the Lumia brand. With a pixel density of just 201ppi and a resolution of 480 x 800, the Lumia 625’s display is one of the worst displays of any smartphone available today; even the 2011 Nokia Lumia 800, the original Lumia device, had a higher pixel density display despite being 1.2 inches smaller. While I have yet to play with a Lumia 625, early reports are indicating that viewing angles, color accuracy, and black levels are below average as well.

The Nokia Lumia 625 should be hitting shelves in Europe, Africa, Latin America, parts of Asia, and the United Kingdom in the coming months, while a stateside release remains uncertain. If you find yourself interested in a low-budget, low performing smartphone with such a giant screen, you’ll be happy to know the Lumia 625 also comes in the usual array of Nokia colors, including red, yellow, green, black, and white – the only one missing from the party is that classic Nokia cyan color.