My old Lumia 620 was a very solid phone, and the new 635 is coming in with LTE at $129 unlocked at the Microsoft Store. WP8 flies on very modest hardware. That's a phenomenal bargain on the low end. I don't see any point of having Android in their lineup.

> I don't see any point of having Android in their lineup.

Well, as someone who likes Major League Soccer, the inability to get MLS Live on a Windows Phone is a reason I as a user wouldn't see any point in buying a Windows Phone.

The point being that Windows Phone is kind of a failure, at least in terms of getting the ecosystem on par with iOS or Android, and it's been that way for many years with no signs of improvement. So I do see a point in a manufacturer of phones, even if you build your own phone OS like both Microsoft and Samsung do, making phones for operating systems developers actually care about.

This whole moving away from "devices and services" promise falls flat on its face in light of Microsoft investing more into Windows Phones. I don't think Microsoft has figured out that being only on 14% of devices means you should make software for other devices the focus of your company, not try to grow that 14% when the reality that this is very unlikely to happen seems kind of obvious.

I would have loved to buy a premium Nokia phone that runs Android.

But that's not what was being talked about here. Nokia X was low-end handsets running a forked version of Android without Google's services, including the Play Store. So you're looking at an app selection similar to what Amazon has for the Fire at best, not the full Android ecosystem. And you're not looking at premium devices. Microsoft has no interest in being another second-class Android OEM, competing with all the other companies that are losing to Samsung in that space.

Come on, 512MB RAM in 2014? Bargain? Underspecced device, unable to run any slightly advanced recent WP game, incomparable even to Moto E. 935 with Win 8.1 might be interesting to talk about, 635 is underwhelming, the only possible advantage are offline HERE Maps.

Meh, WP8 runs just fine on 512MB. On the other specs, the 635 is between the Moto E and Moto G LTE, notably: it has the same processor, storage, and LTE support as the Moto G LTE, despite being the same price as the E ($129) and much cheaper than the G LTE ($219).

You have to make compromises to hit these price points, and with WP8's memory efficiency, I think the often dramatic user-visible improvement from supporting LTE is a much bigger deal than being able to play certain memory-intensive games.

If you look at forum complaints with low-end WP devices, most people complain exactly about low memory that prevents them to install a lot of interesting stuff from the Windows Phone Store. I couldn't believe when Nokia decided to limit availability of 525 to 3rd world countries (that one had 1GB), and continued offering 520/6xx in the rest of the world, and then acting surprised when their sales were dropping like crazy. And after that they decided to release 635 again with 512MB...

I remember when Elop was arguing that WP doesn't need to support more cores as it runs fine on a single core (when Nokia didn't have multicore SoC supplier and MS had only single core kernel in WP7). Immediately as Nokia signed Qualcomm and MS released multicore kernel in WP8, Elop started marketing the more cores, the better. I just have feeling that your argument is a different version of the same.

I'm not saying that 512MB isn't a step down from 1GB. I'm saying that, considering WP8's overall memory efficiency, I'd rather have LTE (Lumia 635) at the $129 price point than the extra memory (Moto E). I think for typical usage (web, e-mail, music, etc), the 635 is a lot more compelling than the E, because of LTE + double the storage. I certainly don't see how you can call it "underwhelming" given that the E with lesser specs on everything except memory has gotten very good press for being a good value.

Lowest? Android is on $25 (retail) handsets. I've not seen WinPho running on the same cost hardware as FFOS, either.

At that cost, the licensing fees eat up a significant chunk of profit. Not to mention that the OEMs now have a several years' of Android experience.

The problem with the $25 handsets is that they are unusable abysmal pieces of junk. I've used an $80 Android and it was impossibly horrible. The 520 is pretty neat and performs well. My daughter has one.

I'm one for Android though so I settled for a Moto G 8Gb which is just about the lowest price Android handset that actually works properly.

    >At that cost, the licensing fees eat up a significant chunk of profit. 

There is no longer a license fee for devices with screens under 9 inches for Windows.

Where can you get a $25 Android handset?

AliExpress, though the listings might be lying.

$50 is a more reasonable ceiling: http://www.aliexpress.com/category/5090301/mobile-phones.htm...

That said, from everything I've heard they're almost unusable.

Sorry, got the £$ conversion the wrong way round! It's easy to find £40 handsets (no contract) in the UK. See http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/alcatel/alcatel-pop-c...

Is it shitty? No, not if it's your first smartphone. Or it's the most convenient way to read Wikipedia / play Angry Birds.

I too am interested. The cheapest I was able to find (and one that is almost definitely a terrible phone) is here on DX.com[1] and is still $44.55.

[1] http://www.dx.com/p/m-h0rse-9500mini-w-e08-sc7710-android-4-...

Windows Phone on the Lumia 520 is indeed surprisingly fantastic. It's an easy recommendation for a phone that costs $50 new-in-box without a contract.