Microsoft Lumia 650 - a step forward towards the Surface Phone

Microsoft's latest interest has been towards the hardware division, and that has been a rather new territory for the company.

While Microsoft argued that Bitcoin was not mainstream in December 2014, the market has rapidly changed in that time, including a record amount of venture capital flowing into Bitcoin startups in 2015. The Lumia 650 comes out into the markets with a hope that things will now be better. To take advantage of these updates and future enhancements Microsoft advise existing users to upgrade to Windows 10 and uninstall previous versions of this app before upgrading to this release. The report added that the new device from Microsoft will be roughly designed around the Surface tablets and Intel has been heavily involved with Microsoft for the Surface Phone Project. For its camera it as an 8mp rear camera, and on the front is a 5mp camera.

Extensions do support ARM processors which indicates that they may be available for Edge on Windows 10 Mobile as well.

Microsoft had announced that the phone would "soon" be out for pre-orders, and that "soon" was just one day later. The phone is expected to be followed by Lumia 750 and Lumia 850 as well. The Lumia 650 is now available for pre-orders and interested users can now order it for a price of $199 in the United States and CAD 199 in Canada.

Microsoft copped flak last September for quietly downloading Windows 10 components onto users' computers in preparation for a later upgrade, taking up storage space and eating into data caps.

If you are still using a Windows Phone handset and you use apps like Spotify to get your fix of music streaming, you might be disappointed to learn that Spotify has recently confirmed that they have officially ended support for its Windows Phone app, so don't expect to see any new versions of the app being pushed out in the future.

If you are in the UK, Carphone Warehouse is selling the Lumia 650 for £129.99 (first spotted by our friends at Neowin).

Source: Microsoft Lumia 650 - a step forward towards the Surface Phone