Nokia has announced the South African launch details of the latest two additions to the Windows Phone powered Lumia smartphone range, namely the Lumia 925 and Lumia 625, at a recent function in Bryanston.

Both of these will be available in local retail stores next week, along with the newest member of the company’s Asha feature phone range - the Nokia Asha 210. The Nokia Lumia 925 is expected to be locally available for an estimated retail price of R9 000 which includes a wireless charging shell and plate in the retail package, whilst the Lumia 625 is expected to be priced at R3 500.

Joining the new devices locally in October is the Nokia 208, which sports a familiar candybar design and offers 3.5G internet connectivity as well as Microsoft Exchange mail support for an estimated retail price of R900. Then, by the end of October/start of November Nokia is expected to introduce its current Lumia flagship smartphone - the Lumia 1020 and its 41 MP rear-facing camera.  

Lumia 925 and Lumia 625

Nokia calls its Lumia 925 a “new interpretation” of the Lumia 920 (review), since it is both thinner (8.5 mm vs 10.7 mm) and lighter (139 g vs 185 g) than the all-polycarbonate body shell of its predecessor. Like the iPhone 5 (review) and HTC One (review), the 925 integrated aluminium into the smartphone’s design, evoking a more premium feel in hand thanks the metallic rim surrounding the device.   

The Lumia 925 boasts a 4.5" PureMotion AMOLED WXGA (768 x 1280; 332 ppi) display, and as expected it delivers more saturated and vibrant colours compared to the 4.5" (768 x 1280 resolution; 332 ppi pixel density) PureMotion HD+ IPS LCD screen used on the Lumia 920.

In terms of optics, users have access to a 8.7 megapixel PureView autofocus rear-facing camera with optical image stabilisation and dual-LED flash, backed up by a 1.2 MP wide-angle front-facing snapper for Skype videocalls and capturing selfies.

Espoo’s Lumia 625 packs plenty of feature bang for its estimated retail price of just R3 500, including the largest screen on any Lumia device. It sports a 4.7" (480 x 800; 201 ppi) touchscreen, dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU running at 1.2 GHz per core, 512 MB of RAM, and 8 GB worth of internal storage.

Luckily, users can expand upon this by up to 64 GB via the microSD memory card slot, whilst a 5 MP autofocus rear-facing camera as well as a VGA front-facing snapper, and more impressively LTE (4G) connectivity are also onboard.

Nokia Asha 210

The Series 40-running Asha 210 features a QWERTY keyboard that enables easier and faster message and email composition. This keyboard is partnered with a 2.4" QVGA (320 × 240) non-touch-enabled display and the feature phone also packs a 2 MP camera.

Although there is no front-facing snapper, the task of capturing selfies is made much simpler via built-in voice guides that ensure a user is inside the frame when the photo is taken. We tried this at the showcase event and can report that it works well, guiding the users to fit nicely inside the frame of the shot each time.

Users are able to share photos and other multimedia content quickly via Nokia’s new Slam feature, which made its debut on the Nokia 206 earlier this year and enables users to transfer content to another Bluetooth-enabled device sans the need to first pair the devices.

The Nokia Asha 210 is expected to be available for an estimated retail price of R1 000 in a range of colours that include white, black, yellow, cyan and magenta.

In related news, Nokia recently revealed that it is selling its mobile division to Microsoft for €3.79 billion (around R51.35 billion), and licensing its patents to Redmond for another €1.65 billion (about R22.35 billion). Like the rest of us, Nokia SA also heard this news on the morning of the joined announcement by Microsoft and Nokia.