T-Mobile USA details Lumia 521 retail pricing, will also support WiFi calling

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T-Mobile has announced its own retail plans for the Nokia Lumia 521. Nokia's entry level Windows Phone handset will be available on a two year contract with an up front fee of $29.99, with 24 monthly $5 payments to be made to pay off the balance of the handset cost. The Lumia 521 will also be available through Microsoft Stores ($149) and from Walmart retail locations ($129.88). In all cases the handset can be paired with T-Mobile's Simple Choice Plan.

T-Mobile has also announced that the Nokia Lumia 521 will support WiFi calling, a first for a Windows Phone 8 device. WiFi calling allows user to make calls via their home WiFi connection at no additional cost. T-Mobile mainly view this as a way to provide improved indoors coverage. For those who have already purchased a Lumia 521 through HSN, Microsoft, or Walmart a maintenance update will be made available from May 20th to enable WiFi calling.

The Lumia 521 is a T-Mobile specific variant of the Lumia 520, with support for the WCDMA 1700 (Band IV) and 1900 (Band II) frequencies. Other specifications include a 4.0 inch WVGA (800 x 480) TFT screen, 8GB of internal memory, microSD card support, a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor running at 1GHz, and a 5 megapixel camera. 

As we recently noted, the Nokia Lumia 521 is a competitive device in the context of the low end of the smartphone market:

In the low end of the smartphone market the situation is a little different. All devices, by price point necessity, have lower specifications, fewer features, and lower-cost materials. iOS devices are generally not available. Android devices are numerous, and comfortably qualify as the cheapest smartphones available, but can feel under-powered and generally have the biggest cut back on both features, specifications and software experience. Blackberry devices are available, but are running the previous generation of the platform and are generally regarded as out of date. Windows Phone, in the form of the Nokia Lumia 520 / 521, has some of the same hardware cuts as the other devices (e.g. lower quality screen, slower processor), but these seem to have less of an impact than on other platforms, with the Windows Phone 8 software experience being much the same as it is on higher end devices.

You can read our review of the Nokia Lumia 520, the gobal variant of the Nokia Lumia 521, here.

Lumia 521

Here's the relevant portion of the press release:

Beginning May 22, the Nokia Lumia 521 - an exclusive to T-Mobile - will be available online at www.T-Mobile.com, at T-Mobile retail stores, select dealers and national retailers for $29.99 down with 24 equal monthly payments of $5 0% APR O.A.C. for well-qualified customers with the new Simple Choice Plan

Lumia 521 smartphones sold through T-Mobile will also feature Wi-Fi Calling.  Customers who have already purchased or ordered a Lumia 521 through HSN, Microsoft Retail Stores or Walmart will receive an over-the-air maintenance release beginning May 20, which will enable the Wi-Fi Calling feature.

The Nokia Lumia 521 will go on sale at Microsoft Retail Stores for $149 and at Walmart for $129.88 on May 11, as previously announced. 

Source / Credit: T-Mobile