14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has officially acknowledged the demise of Windows phones earlier this week in a series of tweets from Joe Belfiore, and while we could all see this coming, it’s important to know that the platform would have had a completely different future should the software giant made the right calls at the right time.
One example of such a questionable decision concerns a Lumia phone codenamed Vela and which has never seen daylight with the design that Microsoft originally sketched for the model. Instead, it launched as Lumia 435, a rather ordinary phone that didn’t bring too many new things to the market.
The initial design of the Lumia Vela was created in 2014 and was based on an approach that phone makers like Apple and Samsung are only now embracing: a bezel-less screen with no physical buttons on the front.
As you can see in these photos published by WindowsCentral, the phone looks quite modern despite being created nearly 3 years ago. And what’s the most unexpected is that Microsoft wasn’t planning to launch it as a premium product, but as a low-budget phone that would have allowed nearly everyone to have a bezel-less phone for less than $200.
Technical specs
Of course, specs weren’t exactly the best, but they weren’t even supposed to be. Running Windows Phone 8.1 and powered by a Snapdragon 200 processor paired with 1GB RAM, the unreleased Lumia featured a 5.0-inch display with 1280x720 pixels resolution, a 5-megapixel camera, and 4GB internal storage. It was equipped with a 1,800 mAh battery.
If there’s something to criticize at this phone, it’s probably the bottom bezel, which was Microsoft’s own version of the “notch” installed at the top of the screen on the iPhone X. The bottom bezel was used by Microsoft to install the front-facing camera.
Unfortunately, this leak once again proves that Microsoft was way ahead of its rivals in terms of smartphone projects, but for some reason, the company decided this side of the industry just wasn’t worth it. Eventually, Samsung and Apple are now getting most of the praise of mobile innovation, while Microsoft, despite creating features that are only now widely-adopted, such as Continuum, facial recognition, and a bezel-less display, is actually giving up on phones completely.
