Nokia launches Lumia in SA

2012-01-26 12:00

Nokia has launched its Lumia range in South Africa. (AP)

Duncan Alfreds, News24

Cape Town - The Nokia Lumia range of smartphones was launched in South Africa on Wednesday.

The Windows-based phones impressed some analysts at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and Nokia is hoping that these devices will help the company gain a strong foothold in the smartphone market.

"This is the day that something unique, bold and exciting arrived in the South African smartphone market," said Gerard Brandjes, vice-president for Nokia in South and East Africa.

The Lumia 800 has a 9.3cm high-definition display, social networking applications and includes the Internet Explorer 9 browser.

Nokia has retained the curved glass display from its N9 smartphone, but the Lumia represents a new direction for the company that wants to take on the Apple iPhone.

Despite dominating the cellphone market, particularly in developing countries, the company lags far behind the iPhone and Android-powered smartphones in the US.

The device features a 1.4GHz processor, 8 megapixel camera with dual flash, and high definition video camera. There is 16GB of memory on board.

Nokia says that the devices will provide over nine hours of talk time on one charge and the phone is available in cyan, magenta and  black, and interchangeable covers are provided for the Lumia 710, to be launched later in 2012.

The Nokia Lumia 800 will be available through Vodacom on February 7 2012 on a Vodacom Business Call contract, with 100MB data per month for 24 months, at R279 per month.


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