Only a few days after killing off Nokia’s experimental Android phones, Microsoft is showing off its low-end alternative.
The company today unveiled the Lumia 530, a new budget Windows Phone with a 4-inch screen and a low price tag of around $115 (without taxes). It’s Microsoft’s cheapest Lumia device yet, but it’s mainly aimed at the European market, where Windows Phone has managed to carve out a decent niche.
The Lumia 530 packs in a 1.2 gigahertz Qualcomm processor and a 5 megapixel camera, and it will also run Windows Phone 8.1, the latest version of Microsoft’s mobile OS. You’ll be able to expand its storage capabilities up to 128GB with an additional SD card, and the phone comes with 15GB of OneDrive cloud storage. It will come in dual-SIM and single SIM variations (practically a requirement for new phones in Europe) and will be available next month.
For the most part, it looks like Lumia 530 packs in everything you’d want in an entry-level smartphone. It has a colorful design, competitive specs, and a decent price. But there’s little that truly differentiates it from other cheap smartphones, which seems to be Microsoft’s perennial problem with Windows Phone.
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Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through ... read more »
