Why Does The Microsoft Lumia 650 Exist?

[scolaner]

Microsoft quietly announced a new handset, the Lumia 650, and it’s not especially clear why it exists.

Why Does The Microsoft Lumia 650 Exist? : Read more

 

[Marius_Bota]

Good question. The answer is: because Microsoft had not enough chances to sunk. now it has one more.

 

[falchard]

They are probably targeting that crowd which doesn't care too much about the features as long as it gets Pandora, texting, a camera, internet browsing, and GPS. For $200 the price is OK. The antenna on the Lumia 635 was pretty good with decent battery life due to the no frills aspect of it. It should be a decent update if it comes with the same capability and more battery life for $200.

 

[outlw6669]

I am sure the 5" OLED display for under 200$ has something to do with it...

https://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/lumia650/

Personally, I wish the low-end Windows Mobile devices had a bit heftier SOC under the hood.
That said, Windows Mobile is extremely efficient, even with such low specs.
If you have never given the platform a try, I would defiantly recommend doing so.
It is quite fluid, even with the most entry models.

 

[Outlander_04]

The 640 and 640xl both have quad core processors

 

[Outlander_04]

As Outlander said snapdragon 400 has 4 cores..... Which make the lumia 650 more ridicules!!

It makes the article ridiculous .

The phone is an option for a metal body and not polycarbonate, an OLED screen and more storage . Consumer choice is a plus

 

[016ive]

As Outlander said snapdragon 400 has 4 cores..... Which make the lumia 650 more ridicules!!

It makes the article ridiculous .

The phone is an option for a metal body and not polycarbonate, an OLED screen and more storage . Consumer choice is a plus

That's good and all but I think They should focus more on getting a final Windows 10 release for the 640 and 640XL as they promised. Instead, they release basically similar phone-with a few modifications, I know- as 640 with Windows 10

 

[xHDx]

Why is there no obvious reasons for bringing out a new phone? There's easily 2.
- Runs Windows 10
- Has a Quad core and not a Dual core

I don't understand what's clear. The name change has an obvious meaning, and there is quite a difference. The fact that it has Windows 10 over 8. It's pretty clear if you ask me XD

 

[lde]

I bought a 640 for $30 at a Best Buy sale and thought it great value and the handling of storage of an SD card was great compared to Google but I didn't like the low memory and the browsers that were available all sucked. I couldn't see a File Manager like ES either, that allows you to see networked PCs. As it was only to test, I sold it to a Microsoft employee from Mexico via Craig's list for the same price. Perhaps with the Edge browser in Windows 10 and extra memory, I might buy one but for $100.

 

[FlayerSlayer]

"It has twice the storage, although it’s still not much at 16 GB. All three phones have the same RAM and storage."

One of these statements is untrue.

 

[FALC0N]

Why do any of us exist? There are never satisfying answers to these existential questions.

 

[scolaner]

The 640 and 640xl both have quad core processors

You're right, and thanks for spotting the error. I fixed the copy accordingly.

 

[scolaner]

"It has twice the storage, although it’s still not much at 16 GB. All three phones have the same RAM and storage."

One of these statements is untrue.

Ack. Yes. Fixed.

 

[hellwig]

Maybe Microsoft is finding it too hard to fit Windows 10 onto an 8GB phone. Maybe they've had to release this new phone to fill in the gap left by their OS upgrade. It was a cheap a$% move to only give the 640s 8GB in the first place.

I have a tablet running Windows 8.1. It has a 16GB drive partitioned into 4GiB recovery + remainder. Thanks to that recovery partition, I don't have enough free space to actually install Windows 10, even with a microSD card plugged in. I know the Phone/ARM versions of Windows 8.1 & 10 are probably smaller, but can an 8GB phone handle an in-place upgrade?

 

[falchard]

Probably if you use the OneDrive option for the recovery partition. I did the preview version with a lower end Lumia device with 8GB storage.

 

[Outlander_04]

Why is there no obvious reasons for bringing out a new phone? There's easily 2.
- Runs Windows 10
- Has a Quad core and not a Dual core

I don't understand what's clear. The name change has an obvious meaning, and there is quite a difference. The fact that it has Windows 10 over 8. It's pretty clear if you ask me XD

Already been covered but the 640 and 640xl both have quadcore processors .The article is WRONG

I wonder if Samsung or apple had released a new model would the staff at Tomshardware write an article titled

"why does the apple 5S even exist? "

If they wouldnt then you have to think the whole article is just biased editorial nonsense

 

[hannibal]

Hmmm... 750 or 850 would be nice... So, will there be a middle range phone?
They now have two low end 550 and 650 and two highend 950 and 950XL phones. The middle range is still missing.

 

[JamesSneed]

42

 

[LOLROFL]

Because M$ knows people will spend $200 on a drink coaster. Hell, it's not even a good drink coaster, the drink would slide off.

 

[falchard]

The wireless XBox One controllers cost $59

 

[ZolaIII]

As much as I know S212 is actually the S410 (me by just with couple cosmetic differences like underclocked GPU & newer cellular radio) it still have the same QDSP6 with same multimedia capabilities.
As much as I remember M$ finally fixed the hardware acceleration blobs (for QDSP6) in Denim so I don't really see why Lumia 650 wouldn't be able to do a FHD video capture in H264. What they never fixed or better say made is normal graphical api that would be designed for mobile space, using half refined old version of Dx is retarded & it shore shows in performance where this platform actually lags far behind any other.
If you ask me I don't know why windows mobile (concepted & with a market share as it is) exist at all.

 

[elho_cid]

This phone is IT managers dream come true. This is the phone many companies will provide their employees.
Business customers did like the 640 for features, but never liked the plactic appearance. Now this is slim, shiny smartphone with gorgeous screen (unless you look too close) for great price. And fits within MSFT provided business services infrastructure. I expect Lumia 650 to be great succes in this market segment.

 

[falchard]

I never understood the appeal of a slick case for most mobile phones after getting a Lumia for the first time. The first thing most of us do with a smart phone is stick it in a protective case and put on a screen protector covering up that initial case.