The affordable T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 530 smartphone has officially gone on sale in the U.S. through the Microsoft Store and Best Buy, sporting an attractive $69 price tag.
The Nokia Lumia 530 has already drawn plenty of interest due to its decent specifications and low price tag, combined with Microsoft's latest Windows Phone 8.1 OS that also brings Cortana to the table. For those not up to date with the news, Cortana is Microsoft's new digital assistant and answer to Apple's Siri and Google Now.
Just a few days ago, T-Mobile announced that it will start selling the Windows Phone 8.1-powered Nokia Lumia 530 this month, on Oct. 15. The Uncarrier also noted, however, that eager buyers will be able to get the handset earlier from the Microsoft Store and Best Buy.
As promised, the Nokia Lumia 530 is now officially available for purchase. The handset costs $69.00 on the Microsoft Store, and $69.99 on Best Buy. These prices are for the contract-free model of the smartphone, on T-Mobile's network.
The Nokia Lumia 530 made its debut back in July this year, arriving as Microsoft's first shot at an affordable handset after it acquired Nokia's device unit. The budget-friendly smartphone comes as the successor to the widely popular Nokia Lumia 520/521, and is expected to be just as successful.
"T-Mobile prepaid customers can fall in love with the Lumia 530 the same way they did with its predecessor, the Lumia 521 - one of the best-selling Windows Phones EVER at T-Mobile," the Uncarrier recently touted in a press release.
"The Lumia 530 is a full-featured smartphone providing customers a great value at an entry level price point. Rocking the new Windows Phone 8.1 operating system, the Lumia 530 comes with personal assistant Cortana - the only personal assistant that can set reminders by people as well as location or time, a beautiful 4-inch touchscreen and a quad-core processor for an incredible overall experience at crazy-fast speeds," added T-Mobile.
As a reminder, the Nokia Lumia 530 sports a 4-inch FWVGA display and packs a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor clocked at 1.2GHz, paired with 512MB of RAM. Other specs include 4GB of internal storage capacity, microSD support for additional memory, and a 5-megapixel rear camera, among the highlights.
It remains to be seen whether the Nokia Lumia 530 will be able to live up to the success of the Lumia 520/521, but the handset is nonetheless off to a promising start considering its specs and price tag. It's worth pointing out, however, that while the Microsoft Store and Best Buy are already offering the Lumia 530 for $69.00 and $69.99, respectively, T-Mobile will start selling the device on Oct. 15 for $79.20.
