14 DAY TRIAL // Romanian OEM Allview has just announced its first smartphones powered by Windows Phone 8.1 platform, the Impera I and Impera S. Along with the two handsets, Allview has also launched the Impera i8 Windows 8.1 tablet.
Both smartphones are now available for pre-order in Romania, but for the time being, no exact release date has been confirmed for the Impera devices. However, we expect Allview to make both handsets available for purchase sometime in July/August.
Speaking of which, Allview has announced that customers can now pre-order the Impera I for just $200 (€145), while the Impera S costs around $215 (€155) outright.
Judging by their price tags, both handsets are aimed at the mid-range smartphone market, which is in fact the segment of the market that Allview usually focuses on.
Thanks to its partnership with Microsoft, Allview is the first Romanian OEM to launch Windows Phone 8.1 handsets in the country. This means that aside from Microsoft, the company won’t have to compete with any other brand on the local market.
Moving on to specifications, the Impera I sports a large 4.7-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display (based on One Glass Solution technology) that supports HD (720p) resolution and features Dragontrail Glass coating for extra protection.
The smartphone is equipped with a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and an enhanced 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back, which features autofocus, LED flash and video recording. There’s also a secondary 2-megapixel camera in the front for video calls and selfies.
The handset packs only 8GB of internal memory, but users can further expand it up to 32GB via microSD card slot. Let’s not forget the 15GB free cloud storage offered by Microsoft either.
Next in line, the Impera S is powered by a similar 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, which is complemented by 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory.
It sports a slightly larger 5-inch IPS LCD HD (720p) capacitive touchscreen display based on One Glass Solution technology. The rest of the specs are similar to Impera I’s, which means that it features an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, microSD card slot (up to 32GB) and dual-SIM capability.
Both Allview Windows Phone 8.1 handsets come with various Microsoft services and apps, but they do not offer any Nokia Lumia exclusive applications.