Nokia has announced that its 4.7-inch budget Windows Phone 8 phone, the Nokia Lumia 625, will be available in the UK from 28 August.

It will be carried by three of the major networks, EE, O2, Vodafone, and the two big high street retailers, Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4u. Price plans will start at £21 a month for the handset, while it will also be available on pay-as-you-go for £179 for the phone itself.

Five different coloured swappable shells will be available, in black, white, orange, yellow and bright green, and Nokia is launching the phone with a promotion whereby customers opting for the black or white handset will also get a choice of extra shell from the other three colour schemes.

Read: Nokia Lumia 625 hands-on: 4G and big screen on a budget

The phone has an 800 x 480 resolution screen, with 201ppi, and runs on a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. There's 512MB of RAM on board, while storage capacity from the box is 8GB. It can be upgraded by a further 64GB through a microSD card slot.

The main camera is 5-megapixel and is mounted on the rear, while the front-facing videocam is 1.3-megapixel.

It is also a 4G handset and will work across all carriers, including the new Vodafone and O2 4G services, as well as the established EE 4G network.