14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this month, Microsoft introduced the new Lumia 830, and the company is now working to make the device available in as many countries as possible, and the next on the list is China.
According to a report by LiveSino, Microsoft will soon introduce the Lumia 830 in China with the local version of Cortana, hoping not only that it will thus improve its market share in the country, but also that local officials will appreciate its willingness to focus on the Chinese market and thus finalize the anti-trust investigation it’s currently involved in as soon as possible.
China is undoubtedly a troubling market for Microsoft, and the company is now part of an anti-monopoly probe started this summer and claiming that the company refused to share some critical compatibility issues of Windows and Office.
While Satya Nadella himself traveled to China to discuss with local officials the way to address these complaints, the company is also trying to expand its presence in the country by bringing new products to local users, so the new Lumia 830 is part of this strategy.
Cortana and several colors to be offered
Nokia Lumia 830 will launch in China very soon, the aforementioned source writes, but specific details are yet to be disclosed.
A company official, however, has confirmed that the Chinese launch of the Lumia 830 will indeed happen in the coming weeks, with the same marketing push based on the “affordable flagship” motif to be used.
Cortana will also be available on the Lumia 830, as the personal assistant has already learned to speak Chinese following the Windows Phone 8.1 update.
Lumia 830 will cost 2,399 Yuan ($390 / €310) in China and will be available in multiple color options, including orange, green, black, and white.
Of course, the device will first and foremost be sold through Microsoft’s online store, but Jingdong Mall will also make it available in its retail stores.
Decent specs, but not really flagship-worthy
Interestingly, Microsoft promotes the device as a very affordable flagship phone, and while its specifications are more than decent, they’re still below the ones of other really powerful top-of-the-range smartphones manufactured by other companies.
For example, the Nokia Lumia 830 features a 5-inch screen with a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 display, a 10-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, optical image stabilization, autofocus, and LED flash, a quad-core Qualcomm processor running at 1.2 GHz, and comes by default with 16 GB of storage space.
At this point, the device is being released across the world, so it’s too early to discuss its success, but given its price, expect it to sell in pretty big numbers.