Just recently, Microsoft launched two new cheap smartphones. The two Lumia devices, the Lumia 435 and Lumia 532 are very affordable and have pretty impressive specs for their price.

After the gold editions of their high end mobile phones, Lumia 930 and Lumia 830, Microsoft has announced two other Windows Phones which, the company wishes to target at a whole new branch in the market consisting of phones under $100.

Image source: msecnd.net

LUMIA 435

The Lumia 435 is the cheapest Lumia available so far with a retail price of just $81 before subsidies and taxes. The new device will be shipped out in February in India, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe. However, a release date for the United States has not been set yet. The new smartphone looks just like the Nokia X and is Microsoft’s best effort so far to compete with the Android One program initiated by Google. The project was released last September with phone manufacturers in India such as Spice, Karbonn and Micromax which develop devices that use the Android One operating system that cost less than $100.

However, Microsoft did cut some corners in order of achieving this price. Even though the device features two cameras, the front camera can only be used for video and has a 0.3MP sensor for Skype calls and the back camera has a sensor of just 2MP. The Lumia 435 will use Windows Phone 8.1 along with the firmware Lumia Denim, which means that it will also include Cortana in available markets as well as Apps Corner and Live Folders. However, the device won’t feature the notification center by Microsoft called Action Centre. The device will also come with Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and OneNote preinstalled.

The smartphone has a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 CPU and a 4 inch WVGA display with a resolution of 800 x 480 and a pixel density of 233ppi. It has 1GB memory and comes with 8GB of storage that can be expanded with a microSD of up to 128GB. The battery is replaceable and has a capacity of 1560 mAh which lasts for up to 11.7 hours talk time on 3G and 20.9 hours 2G.

While these features aren’t intended for consumers that are looking for a high end smartphone they certainly are an improvement over old low-end mobile phones launched by Microsoft. However, it’s uncertain if these improvements make the devices as good as the ones offered by Xiaomi and Motorola, which are also competitive with Google’s Android One and its partners.

The smartphone will be available in both single SIM and dual-SIM forms and will come in black, white, green and orange. Microsoft also unveiled the Lumia 532 which will come at a price of $94 before subsidies and taxes and is Lumia 435’s smaller brother.

Image source: cloudfront.net

LUMIA 532

Inside the very colorful shell of the Lumia 532 is a quad-core processor that will most likely surpass every other inexpensive Windows Phone launched by Microsoft in the past and 1GB RAM. The amount of memory will at least let users of the Lumia 532 play some of the more demanding games that made their way to Windows Phone in the last couple of years.

The Lumia 532 has 4 inch display with a resolution of 800 x 480 that isn’t high definition but looks quite good. The Lumia 532 will be available in February for about 79EUR or $94. This price doesn’t include any service agreements or discounts, however. As well as the 435, the Lumia 532 only has 8GB of internal storage but it can be expanded with a microSD memory card. Neither the 435 nor the 532 feature a flash on their cameras, which means that users won’t be able of shooting photos in low light environments.

Both smartphones will come with Windows Phone 8.1 and Lumia Denim. Windows Phone 8.1 is the latest version of Windows available on mobile phones. This version adds the Cortana personal assistant that is also coming to tablets, desktops and notebooks using Windows 10. This version of Windows also offers some options for personalization for the users. For instance, people can finally put a photo to be shown in the background of their phone. It also adds support for syncing browsing history, passwords and a lot more between several devices that us Windows 8.1.

Microsoft wishes to attract smartphone buyers away from Android One and iPhone with the help of its low prices for the Lumia 435 and Lumia 532. This kind of makes sense seeing how in the Middle East, Asia and Europe, Windows Phones are a lot more popular. Microsoft hopes to attract buyers looking to purchase their first smartphone or that want to get rid of their older iPhones that don’t receive updates from Apple anymore.

Microsoft’s problem lies in the United States, however. It’s been a long, long time since the company released a competitor for the iPhone. This means that users are far less excited about Windows Phones in the United States. Apple produced new high-end versions of its popular iPhone and their decision to make the older versions cheaper seems to have worked in the U.S. In the meantime, it looks like Microsoft is basically ignoring the United States completely.

Both the Lumia 435 and the Lumia 532 will come in dual-SIM versions as well. This feature allows users to install two SIM cards in their smartphones and switch between carriers for the best available calling rates.