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Microsoft, as part of an ongoing effort to grow its tiny share of the mobile market in the U.S., is going to be offering more of its Lumia smartphones through U.S. wireless carriers.
Redmond has been pretty quiet on the phone front of late, especially as it finalizes Windows 10, but the new move will at least bring some of the phones it sells elsewhere to the U.S. market.
Starting next week, the company’s Lumia 640 XL smartphone will become available through AT&T Wireless for around $250 ($8.34 a month over 30 months). The Lumia 735 will start selling through Verizon today at around $200 ($8 a month for 24 months).
At least in size, the Lumia 640 XL will be competing with the likes of the iPhone 6 Plus, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, the Asus Zenfone 2 and the Nexus 6. Jumbo smartphones have become increasingly popular in the U.S. after initially taking off globally. The 640 XL has a 5.7-inch display, a 1Ghz quad-core Snapdragon processor, a 13-megapixel HD rear camera with Zeiss optical lenses and a front-facing 5-megapixel HD camera. Its 8 gigabytes of onboard storage can be expanded with an SD card.
The Lumia 735, which has been available outside of the U.S. since last November, has a “regular”-sized, 4.7-inch display and a 1.2-Ghz Snapdragon 400 processor, but its most notable feature is probably its “selfie” cam. Its 6.7-megapixel rear cam is nearly matched by its 5-megapixel front camera. It also has a removable back.
Both phones will ship running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.1 operating system, but will be upgradeable to the newer OS once it becomes available later this year. Microsoft has also pledged to have a new flagship device later this year — something it badly needs in the U.S. market, where high-end phones are still the yardstick by which phone makers are measured.
Microsoft has seen some success in selling its Lumia devices to budget-conscious consumers both in the U.S. and in developing markets, but as a platform it claims only around 3 percent of smartphone users in the U.S., with Google Android and Apple iOS fully dominating the market.
With Windows 10, the company is hoping to get a boost, since developers can more easily write applications that can run across PCs, tablets and desktops. Given its tiny market share, Microsoft has had trouble both attracting and maintaining developers, with many key apps absent from its devices.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
