At the same time as it announced the 5in Lumia 640, Microsoft has unveiled a new budget Windows Phone phablet: the Lumia 640 XL.
The Lumia 640 XL is very well priced for a phablet, at just €189 (£140 approx) for the 3G version, and €219 (£160 approx) for the 4G model.
Like the Lumia 640, the new handset has a 1,280x720-pixel display, but this time those pixels are spread across a 5.7in screen. The screen is understandably not as sharp as the Lumia 640's, due to a pixel density of 257ppi compared to 293ppi, but still had saturated colours and reasonable blacks.
As we became used to when Lumia phones were still Nokia-branded, the 640 XL feels well made. It looks a little like a unibody handset, but the rear is removable to give you access to the battery and microSD card slot.
The phone is powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor and has 1GB of RAM. The handset seemed a little more sluggish when compared side by side with the Lumia 640, but Microsoft was keen to point out that the phone wasn't running final software. Windows Phone generally runs well even on low-powered hardware, so we see no reason why the OS shouldn't run well on this handset by the time it comes out “later this year”.
The 640 XL may have the same processor and RAM as the 640, but elsewhere it has had a specs bump. The rear camera is a 13-megapixel rather than 8-megapixel model, and the larger handset has a bigger 3,000mAh battery to help power its larger screen.
There is a significant difference between the phones when it comes to case design, too. The smaller 640 will be available in glossy orange and blue and matt black and white, while the 640 XL will be in matt orange, blue and black but glossy white. The glossy phones certainly stand out, especially in signature Lumia highlighter-style fluoro colours, but we thought they felt rather slippery and preferred the matt versions – and the 640 XL is the only model where you can have our favourite bright orange matt finish.
As with the Lumia 640, the 640 XL comes with a year's subscription to Office 365 with 1TB cloud storage, and you can also use the Office 365 subscription on a further tablet and a PC or Mac. This is worth around £60, so is quite a bonus.
The phone will, of course, be eligible for an upgrade to Windows 10 when it comes out – probably very soon after the Lumia 640 XL hits the shelves. Look out for our full review soon.