Today, Microsoft announced two more entry-level smartphones:

Lumia 435

The Lumia 435 is the first smartphone of the new Lumia 400 series. According to Microsoft, it’s the “most affordable Lumia yet” with a price of 69 euros (currently approximately 81 USD) before taxes.

The Lumia 435 is powered by a Snapdragon 200 dual-core SoC (System on a Chip) with 1.2 GHz. Like many other entry-level Lumia phones, the Lumia 435 features 8GB of memory. That’s not much, but you’ll be able to use a microSD card to expand your memory, so since you can install (almost) all apps to the SD card, this shouldn’t be a problem. In contrast to some other entry-level Lumia devices like the Lumia 530 or the (more expensive) Lumia 630, the Lumia 435 fortunately features 1GB of RAM, so you can install (almost) all apps from the Windows Store.

It has a 4.0” LCD display with a resolution of 800x480 and a pixel density of 233 ppi. Compared to high-end devices with a Full HD display and pixel densities above 400 ppi, that’s rather disappointing, but if you keep the retail price in mind, that’s not as bad as you might think. Unfortunately, I fear that both the contrast and the brightness of the display may be quite low to achieve the low price, but we’ll have to wait for the first reviews to see if that’s true.

The main camera of the Lumia 435 has an aperture of f/2.7, a focal length of 36mm (35mm equivalent), a 1/5 inch sensor with a resolution of 2 MP, so you should not take the Lumia 435 into consideration if you love photography. The front camera has a resolution of 0.3 MP.

The battery of the Lumia 435 has rather disappointing 1560 mAh, so I fear that the battery life might be rather short.

With a height of 118.1 mm, a width of 64.7 mm, a thickness of 11.7 mm and a weight of 134.1 g, the Lumia 435 is rather heavy compared to other phones, especially when you keep in mind that it’s quite small.

Lumia 532

The Lumia 532 is slightly more expensive than the Lumia 435: it costs around 79 euros (currently about 93 USD) before taxes.

In contrast to the Lumia 435, it is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 200 with a frequency of 1.2 GHz. It also features 1GB RAM and 8GB of memory and it supports microSD cards as well.

Just as the Lumia 435, the Lumia 532 has a 4.0” display with a resolution of 800x480 and a pixel density of 233 ppi.

In contrast to the Lumia 435, it has a main camera with 5MP, a focal length of 28mm (35mm equivalent), a sensor size of 1/4 inch and an f/2.4 aperture. The front camera remains the same.

The battery seems to be the same that is used in the Lumia 435.

With a height of 118.9 mm and a width of 65.5 mm, it’s a bit bigger than the Lumia 435.

Availability

According to Microsoft, “[t]he Lumia 435 and Lumia 532 will begin rolling out in February in select countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific, India, the Middle East and Africa”.

What do you think about the two new smartphones? Feel free to comment below.