Microsoft Lumia 640 hands-on

The Lumia 640 is a brand-new low-midrange handset from Microsoft, which has just been announced at the MWC 2015. The phone will have an LTE variant and it is eligible for the Windows 10 update, making it a future-proof buy. But let's have a closer look!

Design

The Lumia signature brightly-colored plastic body can be seen on the Lumia 640 immediately. The specific handsets we had in our hands were these vivid orange and blue units you can see in our pictures, but rest assured that Microsoft will be offering the phone in at least one or two more colors, those being green and white.

The design language of the low-to-midrange Lumias remains unchanged – the device is a soft rectangle when viewed from the front, its rear corners are rounded off for a comfortable hold, and the back panel is still a removable one. The camera is nicely tucked even with the phone's surface and there is no uneven hump to be seen around it, which we appreciate.

Hardware

The Lumia 640 rocks a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC, coupled with 1 GB of RAM, and 8 GB of expandable internal storage. Its display is a 5-incher, protected by Gorilla Glass 3, and housing 720 x 1080 pixels. The handset has a 2,500 mAh battery to keep its lights on.

Camera

The main snapper is an 8 MP camera with an F2.2 aperture, while the front houses a 0.9 MP camera – a bit disappointing here, considering the Lumia 640 XL jumps all the way up to 5 MP for the selfie snapper.

Expectations

The Lumia 640 will run for ~$156 (€139) for the 3G version and ~$178 (€159) for the LTE one in Europe. It looks like a solid low-range device for the price, but whether it will help Microsoft gain some market share remains to be seen.