Blu, purveyor of low-cost Windows phones, can now be found in Microsoft Stores in Canada. The pair of Windows Phones had previously only been available from Blu and Microsoft Stores in the United States. Blu's phones aren't associated with any carrier in either country, so that these prices are off-contract is an encouraging thing: $179 for the Blu Win HD and $89 for the Blu Win Jr.
So what do these low prices bring to the party? The Win Jr has a meager 4GB of internal storage, but sports microSD expansion, plus 512MB of RAM and a 1.2Ghz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor. The 4-inch display has a resolution of 480x800, while the rear camera clocks in at 5-megapixels with a little VGA shooter on the front. These aren't mind-blowing specs, yes, but a phone with a small number following the dollar sign also comes with small numbers in the specifications department. Laws of economics and all that.
The Win HD is a more impressive phone, with the same Snapdragon 200 processor, but throwing in an Adreno 302 GPU, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage with microSD support. The screen here is bumped up to 5 inches with an improved 720x1280 resolution — it's not the 1080p HD we'd like, but again, we're talking about a sub-$200 Windows Phone here. The cameras are also bumped up on the Win HD, with 8MP on the back and 2MP on the front.
There are trade-offs for phones at this price, of course. They're not as awesome as the more expensive phones you can get from HTC or Microsoft, and they're missing out on support for some features like microSD cards larger than 32GB or LTE.
Even so, it's good to see Blu's Windows Phone distribution expanding beyond the borders of the United States. Anybody in Canada picking up a Blu Win HD or Blu Win Jr?
Via: Windows Phone Canada, Reddit
