In the past, people might give Lumia phones the benefit of the doubt due to the Nokia branding.
Now, with the Nokia branding purged, this phone will fail spectacularly.
You can get much better specced budget Android phones in the market now.
With the bugbear of Windows and the bundled Microsoft crap ecosystem e.g. Internet Explorer, Onedrive, Bing, Microsoft should be paying users to use its phones.
You're silly. It's a solidly built full-featured device for a good price. The latest IE11 mobile (as found in 8.1) is quite good, Onedrive is great but they're integrating DropBox too, Bing is actually decent too. You clearly haven't used a WP 8.1 device for any length of time.
They've even got pretty much all the key apps. The last one I would want is VLC and they've got it ported to Windows 8.1 Modern UI already with preliminary work done on a WP 8.1 port. Even so, better developer support would be good going forward. Hopefully more developers will get on board with Universal Apps.
Well that makes the first of the 3 new devices announced. I am not particularly thrilled to see yet another low end WP device come to market, but if this is priced in that low $100 price range that the Lumia 5xx devices normally hit then it should be a decent seller... but if it really does sell for ~$140 as mentioned in the article then I am not sure they can compete against the Android devices.
Glad to see it has a full 1GB of ram, it was insulting when the 530 was released with only 512MB. The OS runs just fine on half a gig, but it locks you out of a lot of programs.
Also glad to see Cyan coming back as a color option. Personally prefer Black or White devices, but if I ever did jump on a color then Cyan would be it.
Next we should expect to see a refresh of the 1320 as a cheap 6" device, and then a midrange 5" device which should hit market soon after (or at the same time) as this 535. Once those are out of the way then there is a chance we will see the next gen flagships with 3D touch and Win10, that's what I am waiting for to replace my 920!
The Lumia line is a mess right now. Almost every phone is oversized, thick as a brick, or both. The insistence on day-glo plastic doesn't help either. Some models are switching to these horrible on-screen buttons, even without taking away the space the dedicated buttons used to take up on the bezel. The last good phone they made was the successor to the 925, which I can't even remember since you can't find it on shelves anywhere. I sure hope someone else steps up to keep the OS alive besides Lumia and walking-dead HTC.
Agreed. I don't care about thick, but I do want a small phone I can put in a front trouser or shirt pocket. I also want a decent camera. Lumia offer lots of slightly too large phones with poor cameras, and a few briefcase only monsters. Why do we need the 535, 625, 630, 635 and 7xx when they are all the same spec and price within a pound or two.
Lumia 530 by Nokia is 11.2 mm thick, this baby 8.8, see spec comparison here. "http://wmpoweruser.com/microsoft-lumia-535-vs-noki... This is the first MSFT branding and their first design release, one can tell, they are showing corrections of what the 530 should have been, I bet there are more corrections, updates and upgrades coming.
Confusing naming scheme as well. Nokia already have a phone in that price segment(the 530). This seems like to be halfway between the 530 and the 630(also a low-end phone at around 100 EUR) with more RAM and a higher resolution than the 630, but a weaker CPU.
110 EUR before taxes comes out to 130+ EUR after taxes throughout Europe. 130 EUR is the off-the-shelf price of Lumia 520 where I live so 535 at same price would be a nice upgrade. I am Android user (N5) but was really looking forward to Moto G like phone at similar price point and Lumia 535 appears to be it (except for lower display resolution). There was just no point in buying device with only 512 MB RAM. I'll purchase one just to try it out if it indeed hits the ~130 EUR price range (without subsidies).
Maybe you should mail order then? The 520 is available for 89,99€ including VAT. You can without a problem go 620 for < 130€ or even higher if you don't mind waiting for special offers...
1) 110 euros is considered cheap in europe, for a just launched low-end phone. 2) All new phone models, no matter from which brand, are priced rather highly in their respective segments. Just wait a month or two and 535's price will fall like a rock. 3) As for 480p recording; something had to give. They basically took a 530, increased the display size and resolution, doubled the RAM and internal storage and even added a camera flash, and a few other minor things. That's already quite good for the price.You can't have it all in such a low-end phone.
What gave was the Snapdragon 200, its imaging processor can't do HD video. The only things that gives me pause is the 635 has their clearblack LCD bonding and the 535 has a small battery for the size.
I love the Windows Phone experience, still don't see a reason to change from the physically perfect NOKIA Lumia 800. The Lumia 735 is tempting though. A quality compact phone please, Microsoft, with Intel inside. Way too many models in their lineup now, it makes differentiating a low end purchase too confusing, for me anyway.
I don't know about anyone else, but 5 inches is just too much for me to handle every single day without getting really sore about finding a good place to stick it. I mean really, I'd be constantly moving it from one place to another because of its tendency to stretch and tear anything you stuff it into. And don't even get started with the idea of clipping it at my waist. I don't want it just hanging out there for everyone to gawk at. Seriously Microsoft, not everyone likes it that big so follow suit with nature and offer us different sizes to suit our individual tastes.
I couldn't agree more that people come in different sizes. For me anything below 5" is just unusable both in terms of screen size and in terms of entering text: My piano teacher was always envious of the fact that my fingers had proper key size and no issues way beyond an octave.
Had a Galaxy S as my first smartphone, but that was painfully small and slow.
Got a Note (1) the minute it came out and loved it, except for being a little slow and eating battery too fast for my taste. The Note 3 took care of both, but I always loved the 16:10 of the Note 1 better than the 16:9 of the Note 3.
No problem at all finding a (front) pocket for these Notes to fit in pants or jackets, so sores, no tear nor stretching.
Use a Note 3 for personal stuff. Corporate IT "upgraded" my Blackberry Torch to a Lumia 530: What an insufferable piece of crap!
Looked for an alternative and ran across the 535 for €110. Simply bought it because I felt I deserved something that I wouldn't hate to touch.
It's a lot like the Archos Platinum 5 I got for a son of mine some time back. Couldn't get a silicion cover for that and sure enough it got cracked in weeks. But it lasted long enough to convince me that a 5" phone at that resolution using a Snapdragon 200 quad was a rather useful phone.
And that is what the 535 is: Windows phone 8.1 is pretty usable for a guy using Android 5.x for all primary drivers and it gets the job done on corporate mail and scheduling.
Touch screen, even after the Denin update is a little tricky: It seems to prefer macho gestures, then it's allright.
Found a Mumbo Silicon cover none of my phone survive long without and that left me with only one major issue: The "Gorilla Glass 3" on the 535 is a sucker for grease! It positively wallows in any grease it can find! Finger that leave no trace on a Note 1, Note 3 nor even a Nexus 7 with a cheapish screen protect cover, will be smeared dry on the 535 screen.
Spend another €10 on an iProtect (or similar) real glass, anti grease screen protector and that worked out the last kink: Now only swapping from a grease dripping sandwitch to the phone will leave a faint trace, not normal operations.
Windows phones are absolutely boring, no rooting, no apps, no custom ROMs etc. But when it comes to recommeding a phone to the elderly or young and irresponsible kids or simply a corporate driver I find myself thinking that this Lumia 535 isn't too bad.
And at that price, Microsoft absolutely can't be making any money of the phone, so that's fine with me, too!
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jjj - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Oh well guess i've missed the low cost and the price went all the way up to 110Euros.editorsorgtfo - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
In the past, people might give Lumia phones the benefit of the doubt due to the Nokia branding.Now, with the Nokia branding purged, this phone will fail spectacularly.
You can get much better specced budget Android phones in the market now.
With the bugbear of Windows and the bundled Microsoft crap ecosystem e.g. Internet Explorer, Onedrive, Bing, Microsoft should be paying users to use its phones.
damianrobertjones - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Such a silly post. It hurt to read it. The kids next door have Android phones and, frankly, the ecosystem is a mess.garretelder - Thursday, December 4, 2014 - link
Why in the world would anyone get that thing? /Garret at http://www.topreport.org/phones/Alexvrb - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
You're silly. It's a solidly built full-featured device for a good price. The latest IE11 mobile (as found in 8.1) is quite good, Onedrive is great but they're integrating DropBox too, Bing is actually decent too. You clearly haven't used a WP 8.1 device for any length of time.They've even got pretty much all the key apps. The last one I would want is VLC and they've got it ported to Windows 8.1 Modern UI already with preliminary work done on a WP 8.1 port. Even so, better developer support would be good going forward. Hopefully more developers will get on board with Universal Apps.
Michael Bay - Thursday, November 20, 2014 - link
It is what Lumia 530 should have been, nothing more.Nokia was out of its mind indeed if they planned to sell flash-less lowspec phone at a pricepoint higher than similar droid crap.
CaedenV - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Well that makes the first of the 3 new devices announced. I am not particularly thrilled to see yet another low end WP device come to market, but if this is priced in that low $100 price range that the Lumia 5xx devices normally hit then it should be a decent seller... but if it really does sell for ~$140 as mentioned in the article then I am not sure they can compete against the Android devices.Glad to see it has a full 1GB of ram, it was insulting when the 530 was released with only 512MB. The OS runs just fine on half a gig, but it locks you out of a lot of programs.
Also glad to see Cyan coming back as a color option. Personally prefer Black or White devices, but if I ever did jump on a color then Cyan would be it.
Next we should expect to see a refresh of the 1320 as a cheap 6" device, and then a midrange 5" device which should hit market soon after (or at the same time) as this 535. Once those are out of the way then there is a chance we will see the next gen flagships with 3D touch and Win10, that's what I am waiting for to replace my 920!
ABR - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
The Lumia line is a mess right now. Almost every phone is oversized, thick as a brick, or both. The insistence on day-glo plastic doesn't help either. Some models are switching to these horrible on-screen buttons, even without taking away the space the dedicated buttons used to take up on the bezel. The last good phone they made was the successor to the 925, which I can't even remember since you can't find it on shelves anywhere. I sure hope someone else steps up to keep the OS alive besides Lumia and walking-dead HTC.BedfordTim - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Agreed. I don't care about thick, but I do want a small phone I can put in a front trouser or shirt pocket. I also want a decent camera. Lumia offer lots of slightly too large phones with poor cameras, and a few briefcase only monsters. Why do we need the 535, 625, 630, 635 and 7xx when they are all the same spec and price within a pound or two.dayoATX - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Lumia 530 by Nokia is 11.2 mm thick, this baby 8.8, see spec comparison here. "http://wmpoweruser.com/microsoft-lumia-535-vs-noki... This is the first MSFT branding and their first design release, one can tell, they are showing corrections of what the 530 should have been, I bet there are more corrections, updates and upgrades coming.coburn_c - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
I like it. The current 5xx series seemed like a step backward from the 520. A 5" phone for a hundred bucks? The 5xx has its place again.Laxaa - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Disappointing.Confusing naming scheme as well. Nokia already have a phone in that price segment(the 530). This seems like to be halfway between the 530 and the 630(also a low-end phone at around 100 EUR) with more RAM and a higher resolution than the 630, but a weaker CPU.
eddman - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
It's for those who want a cheap phone with a big screen.Actually the CPU isn't weaker, the GPU is; adreno 305 vs. 302, but it's still fine for that low-res screen.
dayoATX - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
the current 530 is actually an embarrassment that this 535 corrected.see details here: http://wmpoweruser.com/microsoft-lumia-535-vs-noki...
and at 110euro, it is a better value proposition.
Daniel Egger - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Ridiculously large display? Check."The Lumia 535 joins the already launched 530, 630, 635, 730, 735, and 830 as low cost devices."
Funny you say that, although I'd rather say all of those are low specs devices (compared to the x20 series) not necessarily low cost.
Arnulf - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
110 EUR before taxes comes out to 130+ EUR after taxes throughout Europe. 130 EUR is the off-the-shelf price of Lumia 520 where I live so 535 at same price would be a nice upgrade. I am Android user (N5) but was really looking forward to Moto G like phone at similar price point and Lumia 535 appears to be it (except for lower display resolution). There was just no point in buying device with only 512 MB RAM. I'll purchase one just to try it out if it indeed hits the ~130 EUR price range (without subsidies).Daniel Egger - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Maybe you should mail order then? The 520 is available for 89,99€ including VAT. You can without a problem go 620 for < 130€ or even higher if you don't mind waiting for special offers...Arnulf - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Unfortunately 620 has the same downsides as 520. This new 535 at same price point finally feels like a real upgrade.dayoATX - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Exactly... It seems folks are not properly exploring HW features comparisons to this 535 at that price point.silv - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
If it's really a low cost phone with around the price u say, they will sell a lot coz the specs are not bad http://versus.com/en/microsoft-lumia-535-vs-samsun...eddman - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
It seems that some people don't get it.1) 110 euros is considered cheap in europe, for a just launched low-end phone.
2) All new phone models, no matter from which brand, are priced rather highly in their respective segments. Just wait a month or two and 535's price will fall like a rock.
3) As for 480p recording; something had to give. They basically took a 530, increased the display size and resolution, doubled the RAM and internal storage and even added a camera flash, and a few other minor things. That's already quite good for the price.You can't have it all in such a low-end phone.
coburn_c - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
What gave was the Snapdragon 200, its imaging processor can't do HD video. The only things that gives me pause is the 635 has their clearblack LCD bonding and the 535 has a small battery for the size.Yakero - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
I love the Windows Phone experience, still don't see a reason to change from the physically perfect NOKIA Lumia 800. The Lumia 735 is tempting though. A quality compact phone please, Microsoft, with Intel inside. Way too many models in their lineup now, it makes differentiating a low end purchase too confusing, for me anyway.Wolfpup - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Thumbs up! This is really kick ass for a cheap phone. I love that it's got 1GB in an entry level phone and a big screen.Bear in mind that a quad A7 would be painful under Android, but run Windows Phone fine.
Guess I'd just want a higher end version with LTE.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, November 14, 2014 - link
I don't know about anyone else, but 5 inches is just too much for me to handle every single day without getting really sore about finding a good place to stick it. I mean really, I'd be constantly moving it from one place to another because of its tendency to stretch and tear anything you stuff it into. And don't even get started with the idea of clipping it at my waist. I don't want it just hanging out there for everyone to gawk at. Seriously Microsoft, not everyone likes it that big so follow suit with nature and offer us different sizes to suit our individual tastes.abufrejoval - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link
I couldn't agree more that people come in different sizes. For me anything below 5" is just unusable both in terms of screen size and in terms of entering text: My piano teacher was always envious of the fact that my fingers had proper key size and no issues way beyond an octave.Had a Galaxy S as my first smartphone, but that was painfully small and slow.
Got a Note (1) the minute it came out and loved it, except for being a little slow and eating battery too fast for my taste. The Note 3 took care of both, but I always loved the 16:10 of the Note 1 better than the 16:9 of the Note 3.
No problem at all finding a (front) pocket for these Notes to fit in pants or jackets, so sores, no tear nor stretching.
No waist nor gawking either :-)
abufrejoval - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link
Use a Note 3 for personal stuff. Corporate IT "upgraded" my Blackberry Torch to a Lumia 530: What an insufferable piece of crap!Looked for an alternative and ran across the 535 for €110. Simply bought it because I felt I deserved something that I wouldn't hate to touch.
It's a lot like the Archos Platinum 5 I got for a son of mine some time back. Couldn't get a silicion cover for that and sure enough it got cracked in weeks. But it lasted long enough to convince me that a 5" phone at that resolution using a Snapdragon 200 quad was a rather useful phone.
And that is what the 535 is: Windows phone 8.1 is pretty usable for a guy using Android 5.x for all primary drivers and it gets the job done on corporate mail and scheduling.
Touch screen, even after the Denin update is a little tricky: It seems to prefer macho gestures, then it's allright.
Found a Mumbo Silicon cover none of my phone survive long without and that left me with only one major issue: The "Gorilla Glass 3" on the 535 is a sucker for grease! It positively wallows in any grease it can find! Finger that leave no trace on a Note 1, Note 3 nor even a Nexus 7 with a cheapish screen protect cover, will be smeared dry on the 535 screen.
Spend another €10 on an iProtect (or similar) real glass, anti grease screen protector and that worked out the last kink: Now only swapping from a grease dripping sandwitch to the phone will leave a faint trace, not normal operations.
Windows phones are absolutely boring, no rooting, no apps, no custom ROMs etc. But when it comes to recommeding a phone to the elderly or young and irresponsible kids or simply a corporate driver I find myself thinking that this Lumia 535 isn't too bad.
And at that price, Microsoft absolutely can't be making any money of the phone, so that's fine with me, too!