Microsoft launches Lumia 650 mid-range Windows 10 smartphone

Microsoft has announced a new Windows 10 smartphone for selected European markets. The Lumia 650 adds to the firm's latest smartphone range with a mid-range model, although with sales figures still low, the Lumia line could soon be replaced altogether.

The Microsoft Lumia 650 will be launching in Europe from February 18, in single- and dual-SIM models and with prices starting at around $199. It's a stylish 5-inch smartphone with an aluminum frame and a slim (6.9mm), lightweight (122g) build. It has a 16GB internal memory, which can be extended with a microSD card, and comes with the full range of Microsoft software, such as Office, Skype, OneDrive, etc. Microsoft is billing the Lumia 650 as a handset that's suitable for business users as well as consumers.

This latest Lumia joins the high-end Lumia 950 and 950 XL in Microsoft's line-up of Windows 10 handsets. Unveiled in autumn 2015, these 5.2-inch and 5.7-inch smartphones (1140×2560 pixels) run Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 and 810 processors with 3GB of RAM, and have 20-Megapixel main cameras loaded with a triple LED flash and an optical image stabilizer. They feature a USB Type-C connection and use new liquid cooling technology. At the other end of the range, the Lumia 550 is a 4.7-inch low-cost handset with lower-spec hardware and a budget price tag.

In addition to these native Windows 10 handsets, the Lumia range includes older models that can be upgraded from Windows Phone to Windows 10. However, the Lumia 650 could be one of the last Lumia smartphones Microsoft releases, as the firm is thought to have a new generation of "Surface Phone" handsets in the pipeline, designed for improved integration with Windows 10 Mobile, like the firm's Surface tablets.

Data from Kantar shows that Windows smartphones only accounted for 7.2 per cent of handset sales in Western Europe in Q4 2015. The situation proved even worse in the USA, where the Lumia range bagged 1.6 per cent of smartphone sales over the same period. Across all hardware devices (PCs, smartphones and tablets), Microsoft has already notched up over 200 million Windows 10 users worldwide in just over six months since the OS officially launched.

The Windows Store now has almost 670,000 applications available for users of the platform.

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