Local Nokia fans have been hotly anticipating the arrival of the company’s first Windows Phone Mango operating smartphones, since the Finnish phone giant unveiled its partnership with Microsoft way back in February. The two phones were announced at Nokia World 2011 last October.

“Less than a year has passed since Nokia and Microsoft entered into an agreement targeted at building a new – global – mobile ecosystem, and it is great that we can bring these devices to South Africa so soon after they have started shipping in markets like the US and Europe,” says Nokia South Africa’s Leo McKay.

 

Nokia's Lumia 800

Nokia Lumia 800

Nokia’s Lumia 800 features a similar appearance to that of the N9, measuring in at 116.5 x 61.2 x 12.1 mm and weighing 142 g. This Windows Phone 7.5 Mango-running smartphone boasts a 3.7" (480 x 800 pixels, 252 ppi pixel density) curved glass ClearBlack AMOLED touchscreen, as opposed to the 3.9" (480 x 854) AMOLED of the swipe-loving N9. It is powered by a Qualcomm MSM8255 chipset, which has a dedicated 3D graphics HW Accelerator and single-core1.4 GHz processor.

 

The new Lumia 710 from Nokia

Nokia Lumia 710

The Nokia Lumia 710’s design corresponds more to that of the C7 and 701, with this mobile measuring 119.0 x 62.4 x 12.5 mm and weighing 126 g. It is powered by the same Qualcomm chipset that does duty in the Lumia 800 and also operates on the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango mobile operating system. To access the 710’s features, you utilise the 3.7" (480 x 800 pixel resolution) ClearBlack TFT display that should ensure that the info on the screen remains readable even in bright sunlight, as we saw on the E7.

Both the phones feature Nokia Drive, a personal navigation device experience with free turn-by-turn navigation and dedicated in-car-user-interface, while Nokia Music is also present. Nokia Music includes MixRadio, a free, global, mobile music-streaming application that delivers 100s of channels of music.

Nokia South Africa will provide more details on packages, exact availability and pricing at the end of January.