Lumia 610 NFC: Nokia’s first NFC enabled Windows Phone Announced

Nokia announced Lumia 610 NFC, Nokiaâ€™s first NFC enabled Windows Phone at Monaco today. Nokia added support for NFC (Near Field Communication) on recently launched Lumia 610 smartphone, the smartphone will launch first on Orange networks early in the third quarter. Orange offers NFC services in UK and France.

Nokia on itâ€™s conversations blog says the Lumia 610 is the most affordable smartphone and with the NFC it is targeting younger and broader audience. This is the Nokiaâ€™s first Windows smartphone with NFC and one of the first NFC enabled Windows Phone, the other Windows Phone that has NFC is ZTE Orbit, announced back in MWC 2012.

Nokia added NFC software stack on top of Windows Phone platform which is not yet ready for NFC support. The necessary NFC hardware is also added into this version of the Lumia 610. This device has been certified for contactless payments both with MasteCard for their PayPass, and with Visaâ€™s mobile application for payments at the point of sale, Visa payWave.

The smartphone can be used to pair with NFC accessories and read NFC tags with a single tap. Users will be able to create their own tag with Nokia Tag writer app. Tags will allow users to open a web page, or start a download, or tap to a speaker to start streaming music. The video embedded below explains how users can use NFC on the Lumia 610 NFC

The device will launch in the third quarter of this year on Orange network, pricing for the phone is not yet announced.