The Lumia line of phones by Microsoft (formerly Nokia) originally started as high-end devices with relatively high price tags. After Microsoft took over, however, things have been changing – it seems that the company wants to cover all parts of the market equally now, as they have been making entries into the mid- and even budget-level markets. The latest offer from them, the Lumia 530, has already been getting some attention.
The phone is relatively modest in terms of hardware, although it also costs very little – it’s one of the cheapest devices to come out under the Lumia brand so far. Still, it offers a relatively good processor, 5-megapixel camera, and an SD slot to expand the 15 GB built-in storage. The screen might be a bit too small for today’s standards, but it does the job more than adequately, and the picture quality is actually nice for a cheap device.
On the outside, the phone comes in several different colors, much like other Lumia devices. The color choices typically match options found in the operating system’s themes. For some carriers, Microsoft have been releasing special editions of their phones, with custom color options not available for regular Lumia devices. Verizon, for example, have a different shade of red for some of the Lumia phones under their contracts.
Microsoft seem to have a lot planned for the coming months, and the company has been slowly but steadily taking ground in all parts of the mobile market. A common criticism towards Lumias and Windows Phones in general has been the high entry barrier, as the company only made expensive devices with the operating system. Now, this is changing, and it’s expected that we’ll see even more inexpensive Lumia phones coming in the next months. On the other hand, Microsoft have expressed a desire to keep their overall product line relatively compact, so each new device should be released with a specific purpose. In other words, another budget Lumia should have some special features to set it apart from the 530.
The Lumia 530 comes with the latest version of Windows Phone 8.1, and is expected to be eligible for future updates as well. The operating system has been seeing some significant improvements in its latest versions, becoming one of the most attractive offers on the mobile market at the moment. Performance has been a particularly strong focus in Microsoft’s development approach, as the company has been putting a lot of effort into making sure that Windows Phone can comfortably run on older devices with less powerful hardware. Meanwhile, the app store has been getting more and more populated, with many popular apps getting their own Windows versions, though not official in all cases.