Nokia Lumia 530 release date: cheapest ever Windows Phone available from 4 September

The 530 is cheap and colourful - but its specs don't offer that much more than the handset its replacing, the Lumia 520

Microsoft’s cheapest Windows Phone handset yet is set to go on sale in the UK from September 4th for just £60.

The Nokia Lumia 530 is the successor to the popular (and equally price conscious) Lumia 520, which claimed a whopping 30 per cent of the Windows Phone market at the end of 2013, selling well in countries including Spain, Poland, India and Vietnam.

The 530 is available in a range of typically bright polycarbonate cases, but unfortunately the specs haven’t seen much an improvement from the 520.

There’s a 4-inch display with a similar resolution of 854 x 480, along with 512MB of RAM and a quad-core 1.2GHz processor. This looks like an improvement on the 520, which was only dual-core, but as the 530 uses less powerful components (A5 instead of A9 cores) it might not make that much of a difference.

Similarly, although the 530 now offers a microSD slot to expands its memory, the default options have actually taken a cut when compared to the 520 – from 8GB to 4GB. The camera remains the same (5 megapixels with no front lens) although Microsoft promises the battery will be good for 22 days on standby and 13 hours of talk.

The Lumia 530 will certainly attract a lot of people thanks to its attractive styling and low price (it’s available from EE, O2, Three, Vodafone, Phones 4u and the Carphone Warehouse), but other budget handsets like the Moto E will give it a run for its money.