Microsoft strengthened its competitiveness against Android smartphones in the emerging markets or sub-$100 category with its new Lumia 435 and Lumia 532.
Microsoft aims to increase its market share and profitability in smartphones by selling more affordable Lumia mobile devices in emerging markets. Consumers in emerging markets are ready to upgrade their mobile devices to smartphones, but they have limited budget.
Lumia 435 costs $80
The Lumia 435 is the cheapest smartphone from Microsoft. The device costs around €69 or $80 without contract. The smartphone will be available the Middle East, India, Africa Asia Pacific and Europe next month.
Last year, Microsoft’s most affordable smartphone was the Lumia 530. The device was offered for around €80 or $94.
The Lumia 532 costs about €79 or $92 without contract. The hardware specification of the smartphone is similar to Lumia 435. The difference is it comes with a quad core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor and a 5.0 MP main camera.
Lumia 435 specification
The Lumia 435 is a dual sim smartphone and sports a 4-incch LCD Transmissive display with a 2.0 MP main camera and 0.3 MP secondary came. The display features brightness control, tactile feedback, orientation sensor, color boosting and capacitive multipoint touch screen technology, etc.
It is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor and Windows Phone 8.1 operating system. The device has 8GB memory and a maximum memory card size of 128 GB.
The battery of the Lumia 435 offers 20.9 hours talk-time (2G) and 11.7 hours talk-time (3G). Its maximum standby time is 21 days. Its maximum video playback time is 6.6 hours, music playback time is 9.4 hours and Wi-Fi network browsing time is 9.4 hours.
The Lumia 435 is integrated with ambient light sensor, accelerometer and proximity sensors. The device offers users with a fully-integrated Skype experience and up to 30GB of OneDrive storage for their documents, pictures, music and other files.
Microsoft also integrated the Lumia 435 with Cortana, a personal assistant for users.
Microsoft’s Lumia 435 and Lumia 532 are expected to compete with the smartphones developed under Google’s Android One Program. In India, phone manufacturers launched devices powered by Android One OS that costs less than $100 or 6,000 rupees. The Lumia 435 is cheaper at 5,042 rupees before taxes and subsidy rates.
