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Microsoft Starts Selling Lumia Windows Phones Again (theverge.com)
After removing its Lumia devices back in June, Microsoft has started selling them again at the company's online retail store. According to Windows Latest, Microsoft U.S. Store is selling the Lumia 950 for $399, Lumia 950 XL for $499, Lumia 550 and Lumia 650 for $139 and $199 respectively. From the report: A Microsoft Store sales agent confirmed to us that Lumia phones are back in the store on February 4 after a long gap. "They are recently back this early February. Specifically, on February 4th 2018," Microsoft sales team told us. Rumor had it that Microsoft wanted to sell as many Lumias as possible until stores ran out of stock, but it looks like the plans have changed or the company is selling the remaining stock which they recently discovered.
It really is a decent OS, but I wouldn't say better than the alternatives. They really wanted world dominance or nothing, without any patience for getting there. And they had to be delusional to think everyone would jump ship from established ecosystems.
Seriously, with all the dickery MS has pulled over the years with their phones, just how much of a glutton for punishment would you have to be to sign up for this? And how stupid would you have to be to expect anything but the worse?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Someone probably came across a couple pallets worth in the back of a warehouse that had been forgotten about, so they're trying to sell at least some of them rather than write them off completely.
And I agree with the others. Windows Phone was surprisingly good. If it had a more robust app ecosystem, it could have given Apple and Google a run for their money. Android, now matter how much Google improves it, always has this "not quite finished" feel to it, and iOS is generally very polished, but is also very "look but don't touch." Windows Phone inhabited a kind of happy middle ground. More flexibility than iOS, and more polish than Android. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it had a UI that was designed around specifically for a touch interface, instead of trying to shoehorn desktop "mouse & keyboard" concepts onto a phone. The catch, of course, was generally second rate apps, when you could even find one.