Microsoft Lumia 535 Launched in India with 5-inch Display & Windows Phone 8.1 at Rs 9199

Update : Microsoft India has launched the Lumia 535, the first smartphone with the Microsoft branding, running the latest Windows Phone 8.1 OS, and the device is priced at Rs. 9199. The smartphone was launched on 11th Nov in Europe, and India is one of the early markets targeted, especially after a flow of budget-oriented devices in the Android market.

The Lumia 535 comes with a 5-inch qHD display and it is powered by Snapdragon 200 processor with 1GB RAM. The Denim update is applied to the Windows Phone 8.1 OS. There is Action Center, resembling the Notification panel in Android smartphones, and there are transparent app tiles, and the interface now allows the user to change accent colour and switch between dark and light backgrounds.

The Cortana voice assistant is there as well, and Microsoft includes free MS Office apps and OneDrive for free cloud storage. The front camera in the Lumia 535 is the same Microsoft/Nokia used in the Lumia 730, and it is a 5-megapixel shooter with f/2.4 aperture, 24 mm focal length.

Company also bundled few set of offers calling it an India Offer, which includes five interesting offers from various telecom operators and e-com portals in India. These are:

• Vodafone India subscribers on Lumia 535 will get 500MB of internet pack per month, free of cots for two months. Note that offer is for subscribers that don’t have any active data pack right now.
• You get Rs 6000 off on the purchase via Jabong’s Windows Phone App on Lumia 535 for 3 months.
• Paytm offers Rs 600 worth of extra charge on any recharge; Rs. 150 per month over 4 months.
• Flipkart offers free eBooks worth of Rs. 1500.
• BoxTV offering 2 months of subscription worth Rs.720 absolutely free.

The Microsoft Lumia 535 is going to hit the shelves on November 28th, under four color options including Orange, Green, White and Black.

Earlier: Microsoft has finally ditched the “Nokia” branding from the Lumia smartphones, and the new ones are coming with the Microsoft branding, as the company announces the Lumia 535 smartphone with the Microsoft Lumia branding that gets more attention than the phone itself.

The Lumia 535 comes with a 5-inch display and the budget device will have a qHD resolution (960 x 540 pixels), and it is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor and 1GB RAM. These specs make the phone better than the other Lumia smartphones in the recent times, which were all in the budget range but came in with huge compromises in the specs.

The smartphone is said to come with Windows Phone 8.1 OS with the Denim update, and the bumping of RAM is a very important thing to note, to make the experience better for gamers. With the total control under Microsoft, the phone is coming with the five essential services: Skype, Office, OneDrive, Cortana, and OneNote.

“We believe that there’s a lot of equity in people’s knowledge and understand at the basic level of our numbering scheme,” says Neil Broadley, director of phone product marketing at Microsoft. “Lumia is very much our smartphone brand,”

The camera on the Lumia 535 is another interesting part, because the company has maintained the same camera module from the Lumia 735, and it has a 5-megapixel wide angle lens for selfies and video calls on Skype, which comes pre-installed. The rear side on the Lumia 535 has a 5-megapixel camera as well, with an LED flash.

While there is 8GB internal storage in the Lumia 535, the phone has a MicroSD card slot for the storage expansion to 128GB. The company is also offering 15GB cloud storage for free. The battery packed into the device has a capacity of 1905 mAh. The smartphone is coming in both, Single SIM and Dual SIM variants, just like a few recent Lumia devices, and it is headed for a launch later this month for a price of 110 euros ($130).

Comparing this with other Windows Phone devices in this range, it was Lumia 530, priced at $114 but the specifications have got quite better for the little change in pricing, and Microsoft is betting on this for this year end’s growth in market share, as there is no flagship Lumia smartphone lined up in the coming couple of months.