'Affordable' Nokia Lumia 530 Windows Phone 8.1 smartphone now available in the UK

Touted as one of Microsoft's most 'affordable' smartphones, the Lumia 530 is now officially available for purchase in the United Kingdom.

The entry-level smartphone can be purchased on Amazon UK which has priced the handset at £64.95 ($100).

Amazon is claiming to deliver the smartphone 'free of cost' within the UK and can buy the SIM-free Lumia 530 variant from Amazon.

The USP of the entry-level smartphone is its Windows Phone 8.1 operating platform, and the handset looks tailor-made for people in the UK looking at buying their first smartphones.

The Lumia 530 can be considered a 'value for money' gadget as its sub £70 price tag justifies entry-level technical specifications.

Key technical specifications of the Lumia 530:

Lumia 530 incorporates a 4in FWVGA LCD display, and a 5MP rear camera similar to its predecessor, the Lumia 520, which earned the sobriquet of the 'most popular Lumia' handset.

The smartphone is driven by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, along with a 512MB RAM. The device comes with 4GB internal storage, and provides both single and dual SIM-card slots.

Users purchasing Lumia 530 have the option to upgrade the internal storage up to 32GB via micro SD card. The smartphone also offers its users 15GB of free cloud storage.

Microsoft claims the Lumia 530 battery can support a maximum talk-time of up to 10 hours on 3G networks, and nearly 14 hours on 2G carriers, after one charge.

Being a low-end device, Lumia 530 has a modest removable 1430 mAh battery.

Competition

With the United Kingdom known to be a hub of 'value for money' gadgets, Lumia 530 should do well to compete with major Android smartphones like the Moto E, Moto G and the recently released Karbonn Google Android One budget smartphones.

Also, with people in the UK assigning top priority to comparatively low-end/value-for-money gadgets, more than premium high-end gadgets (evident by Moto G's first quarter sales), Lumia 530 with its Windows Phone 8.1 operating platform and significantly lower price-tag should manage to strike the right chord in the UK.