Walmart is offering the Lumia 710, Nokia's first Windows Phone for the U.S., for free with a two-year T-Mobile contract.
The device, which comes in black and white, is available for free now on Walmart's Web site, down from $49.99.
With no service plan, the Lumia 710 is $379.99; with a two-year service renewal, the device is $49.99. No word on how long the discount will last.
The low-cost Lumia 710 was announced in December and made its debut on Jan. 11. It's a medium-sized, slab-style cell phone with cropped corners and a curved back. Below the 3.7-inch, 800-by-480 LCD screen there's a large physical button, while a 5-megapixel camera records 720p video on the soft-touch back.
PCMag mobile analyst Sascha Segan got some hands-on time with the Nokia Lumia 710 last month and was ultimately a bit perplexed as to why Nokia chose the budget Lumia 710 as its first Windows Phone in the U.S.; for more, see How Nokia Stumbles With The T-Mobile Lumia 710.
Segan was a bit more impressed with the Nokia Lumia 900, the company's first high-end Windows Phone device in the states. The smartphone, which will be available on AT&T, made its debut at last week's Consumer Electronics Show. It features a 4.3-inch, AMOLED Clear Black display, the largest screen on a Lumia device so far, a 1.4-GHz processor, and a 1830 mAh battery.
No release date for the Lumia 900 has been announced, but a recently leaked Nokia newsletter suggested a March timeframe.
Nokia first announced that it would focus its efforts on Windows Phone-based devices in Feb. 2011, and the first Nokia-Windows smartphones were introduced at October's Nokia World in London. Though the Windows operating system has been well-reviewed, particularly the "Mango" update, the mobile OS has struggled to compete against Google's Android and Apple's iOS.
There was a lot of talk about the future of Windows Phone at CES this year. For more, see PCMag's interview with Greg Sullivan, senior product manager for Windows Phone 7, as well as our sit-down with Nokia chief Stephen Elop. Also check out PCMag's year in review for Microsoft.