Microsoft may have axed Nokia’s Android and feature phone products since taking over the Nokia phone team. But that doesn’t Microsoft doesn’t still have big plans for the cheap smartphone space. It’s just that those plans involve handsets running Windows Phone software.
Meet the Nokia Lumia 530. It’s a 4 inch Windows Phone device that sells for just €85, or a little under $115.
At that price you shouldn’t expect bleeding edge features… and you won’t get them. The Nokia Lumia 530 has a 4 inch, 8540 x 480 pixel display, a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 quad-core CPU, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage.
There’s a microSD card reader for up to 128GB of removable storage and the phone has a 5MP rear camera, but no front-facing camera.
Perhaps the phone’s most impressive feature is that it runs the same operating system as higher-priced Windows Phone devices, complete with Microsoft’s Cortona voice assistant software. It also features portable Microsoft Office apps including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
The phone will begin rolling out in select markets in August and it’ll come in single SIM and dual-SIM varieties.
I would say that the fact it runs Windows Phone is not impressive, it is the deal breaker. Even the cheapest Android phone runs the same Google Android as the top models. You’ll get the same features. Not the speed, display and build quality but the functions are equal and much better compared to Microsoft’s OS.