The Nokia Lumia 610 can't run Angry Birds but Rovio is going to fix that

A few days ago some sites made some hay over the fact that the Nokia Lumia 610 (and any other 256MB devices) can't run certain apps or games. Some of the big titles thrown out include Tango Video Calls, Skype and and Angry Birds which at first blush appears to be bad news. Insert fragmentation commentary, yadda yadda.

While certainly true, the situation is far from permanent or dire. In short, neither app has been updated for 256MB devices as requested by Microsoft. There's no real reason why Angry Birds can't be optimized for 256MB devices, nor presumably Tango Video Calls. Heck, Angry Birds has barely been updated at all on Windows Phone.

That's about to change though as Rovio is working on a 256MB optimized version for the Luma 610 and any other low-end Windows Phones. Heidi Lemmetyinen, Editor-in-Chief, Nokia Conversations, responded in comments on Nokia's Blog with the following (translated):

"The Rovio team is currently being Angry Birds Lumia 610 for the optimized version. Yet it is not therefore available to the public but we've known about this.  We will notify you, of course as soon as possible."

So bump in the road? Yes. Permanent fiasco? Hardly. We expect Angry Birds and the remaining 5% of apps and games to be updated over the coming weeks as the Lumia 610 and other 256MB start to come online. Let's not forget: Nokia and Rovio have forged a partnership to fast-track Angry Birds Space and their other titles to Windows Phone, so making their previous title compatible with the 610 shouldn't be a surprise.

Sorry folks, nothing to see here. Time to move along.

Be sure to check our demo of Skype on the Lumia 610 and our unboxing video for more info.

Source: Nokia; via Nokia HD Blog; Thanks, simone, for the tip

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.