January 14, 2015 we saw a blog post from Lumia conversations announcing the Lumia 532 as their new affordable handset in the market. One thing Nokia, now Microsoft after the success of Lumia 520 got it right that budget market is the one which can let them earn few bucks. This has been adopted well by other players not specifically Windows Phone but Android as well. Talking about the facts here, we agree that Windows Phone runs equally well on a low end hardware much before when Android was busy handling its fragmentation. This is the reason why Lumia 520 observed such good sales.
Observing the trend, there were more devices launched in their Lumia 500 series following the similar fundamental principle. Lumia 532 falls in the same category making the ‘affordability’ factor even better. On February 19, 2015 Microsoft brought its latest product to India which has a fairly good probability to accommodate in an already competitive market.
The Microsoft Lumia 532 reminds me of the Nokia Asha 503 with its crystal edges and color shells difference being this time it is a little bigger and runs Windows Phone 8.1. Talking about the technical specifications, the Lumia 532 sports a 4-inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 480×800 pixels. It packs a Qualcomm MSM8212 Snapdragon 200 chipset with a 1.2 quad-core processor with Adreno 302 GPU and a 1,560 mAh battery. On the memory upfront, the handset comes with 1GB RAM and 8GB on-board storage which can be further expanded up to 128GB using the a standard microSD card. The smartphone features a 5MP rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera.
Spending few minutes with the smartphone, we had this forced feeling of ‘Okay we have a new smartphone to include in the budget category’. I know its an affordable smartphone and is not meant to do everything. Well, so is the case with others but why will people buy this one? Two things where I could see 532 giving a face off to others is Windows Phone operating system and a well designed build at this price point. Android One smartphones which have not been that successful are a direct competitor having an edge in specifications and the app ecosystem.
Microsoft will be selling the Lumia 532 for ₹6,499 and is already selling the Lumia 435, its first 400 series for ₹5,999. Lumia 435 is basically a stripped down version of Lumia 532 with 2MP camera and a dual core processor. Microsoft partners with third party services to bundle few offers which make the deal more tempting. The India special offer includes free recharge for ₹750 via PayTM, ₹1500 off on redbus.in, 500MB 3G on Airtel for 2 months and Truecaller premium subscription for 6 months. We are not sure how well it will be accepted by the Indian market but sure we shall keep you updated with the same.
