BARCELONA: Microsoft has launched Lumia 640 and the Lumia 640 XL at Mobile World Congress. The Lumia 640 has 5-inch display, while the Lumia XL comes in at 5.7 inches.
Lumia 640 and Lumia 630 XL accompanied with 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processors, with 1GB of memory onboard. Those are thoroughly midrange specs, but Windows Phone isn’t a particularly taxing OS, so the Lumias felt smooth in casual operation. Speaking of Windows Phones, the 640s are both running on Windows Phone 8.1 along with the Lumia Denim update, and both will be upgradeable to Windows Phone 10 when it comes out later this year. Both will be available in single-SIM and dual-SIM LTE and dual-SIM 3G variants.
Microsoft Lumia 640 Microsoft Lumia 640 Back Microsoft Lumia 640 Side Microsoft Lumia 640 XL Microsoft Lumia 640 XL Back Microsoft Lumia 640 XL Top Microsoft Lumia 640 XL Camera VIEW ALL PHOTOS IN GALLERY
So what makes the two phones different? Size, for one. The Lumia 640 has a 5-inch, 720p display. It has a 2,500mAh battery, along with an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and 1-megapixel front-facing shooter. The phone will be available starting in April and will come in glossy cyan, orange, and white, as well as matte black. Those glossy colors looks super slick in person, but they feel pretty slippery.
The Lumia 640 XL, meanwhile, has a 5.7-inch display, also with 720p resolution, so it’s slightly less sharp than the Lumia 640, though it still looks crisp and saturated in person. The 640 XL has a slightly larger 3,000mAh battery, as well as a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with Zeiss optics. And a 5-megapixel front-facing camera should be good for shooting some pretty sharp selfies. The phone will begin rolling out globally in March and will be available in matte cyan, orange, and black, as well as both matte and glossy white. I’m thinking there’s less gloss here because it’s harder to hold a big phone without the grippy support a matte finish provides.
Back to similarities again, both phones come with a one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal, which gets you the latest Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote) on the Lumia, as well as on one PC or Mac and one tablet. You also get 1TB of OneDrive storage, and 60 free minutes of Skype Unlimited Worldwide calling per month. That’s a pretty good bundle.
The Lumia 640 is estimated to cost around $159 for a 3G model and $175 for an LTE model, though I imagine we’ll probably just see an LTE version for free with contract in the U.S. The same goes for the Lumia 640 XL, which is estimated to cost between $210 and $245 for the 3G and LTE models.
