T-Mobile makes its Lumia 710 official, coming January 11 for $50

Confirming not-so-secret rumors, T-Mobile announced today that it will offer Nokia’s Lumia 710 Windows Phone, making it the first U.S. carrier to offer Nokia’s new line of smartphones.

The Lumia 710 will be available on T-Mobile on January 11 for a mere $49.99 with contract. In its press release today, T-Mobile said that the phone is aimed at the 150 million Americans who haven’t yet jumped on the smartphone bandwagon.

And at just $50, I think the phone will be tempting to quite a few consumers. It’s basically a cheaper alternative to the Lumia 800, Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone. It features the same 3.7-inch display and 1.4 gigahertz CPU as the 800, but it packs in less storage (8 gigabytes), a lower-quality 5 megapixel camera, and slightly less battery life (6.9 hours of 3G talk time). The 710′s rear covers will also be swappable, allowing you to mix and match your color scheme.

Nokia announced last week that it has begun shipping the Lumia 710 to international markets, so it’s nice to see the phone available on T-Mobile in short order.

We’re still waiting to see when the Lumia 800 will reach these shores though, especially since it’s a particularly important device for both Nokia and Microsoft. A few days ago we reported that both AT&T and Verizon Wireless were testing LTE 4G versions of the Lumia 800, which is a sign that we won’t see those phones in the US until Microsoft updates Windows Phone to support LTE.