The Microsoft Lumia 640 will be the first Windows phone to receive the Windows 10 update.
Once the Windows 10 OS is released, which is most likely in July (or October by the latest), the Lumia 640 and its larger counterpart, the Lumia 640XL, will be the first one to get away from the Windows 8 platform to the Windows 10.
"It's a high end device that is affordable for the consumers and businesses... It will be the first device that will run later on, this year, Windows 10. This device will include the Office 365," Microsoft general manager Ossi Korpela said in a promotional video released recently.
The Lumia 640 and the Lumia 640XL are priced around US$190 and $240, respectively.
The main differences between the two units are the dimensions, the main cameras, and batteries. The Lumia 640 is smaller at 141.3 x 72.2 x 8.8mm and lighter at 145g with a 5-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display, while the Lumia 640XL has a 157.9 x 81.5 x 9mm dimension and bulkier at 171g with a 5.7-inch display of the same type.
The Lumia 640 has an 8MP main cam and a 1MP front cam, as well as a Li-Ion 2500 mAh battery. It supports dual micro-SIM standby.
The Lumia 640XL has a 13MP main Carl Zeiss cam and a 5MP secondary clilcker with a bigger 3000 mAh Li-Ion battery. It has single SIM support.
They also have LTE versions of themselves as well.
Under the hood, all other specs are the same. The Lumia 640 currently runs on Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 powered by a Qualcomm MSM8926 Snapdragon 400 chipset with a Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 and Adreno 305 GPU. It has 1GB RAM and an internal storage of 8GB which is expandable up to 128GB via microSD.
Even if all Windows Phone are set to receive Windows 10 eventually, not all features would be available due to the phone's different hardware which may or may not meet the requirements of some features like the Continuum and Windows Hello.
At any rate, the success of the Lumia 640 rests on how well people will receive the Windows 10 OS in the coming months. If Microsoft hits the nail on the head on this one, it will be one of the most successful multi-platform endeavors ever.
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