Amidst all the Android frenzy caused by the release of the HTC One M9, the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet, Microsoft added its own offering, albeit non flagship, to the table with the announcement of the mid range duo of Lumia 640 and 640 XL.

Marketed as being "Windows 10 ready", both these devices launch with Windows Phone 8.1 out of the box. Under the hood, they rock Qualcomm's Snapdragon 400 chipset with a 1.2 GHz Quad core CPU and Adreno 305 handling the GPU department. Both the devices also sport 1 GB RAM, 8 GB of onboard storage along with micro sd expansion of up to 128 GB.

Points of difference between the two devices arise in the screen, camera and battery specs. The smaller of the two, Lumia 640 sports a 5" IPS LCD display offering a pixel density of 294 ppi, while the Lumia 640 XL sports a 5.7" 259 ppi IPS LCD display, thereby putting it in the phablet category. 640 has a 2500 mAh battery while the 640 XL has a higher capacity, 3000 mAh battery

The 640 has a 8 MP rear camera with LED flash and a 1 MP wide-angle front facing camera, while the 640 XL has these bumped up to 13 MP for the rear and 5 MP for the front.

Along with the hardware, Microsoft is also offering a range of premium software goodies in the form of 1TB of OneDrive storage, free 60 mins of Skype Unlimited Worldwide calling per month, and a years subscription to Office 365 for the phone, one PC and one Tablet. Microsoft has also added the "Lumia Glance" feature to both the devices, allowing users to view time and notifications with the display timed out, which sounds similar to Motorola's implementation of Active Display.

Priced at €140 for 3G version and €160 for the LTE version, the Lumia 640 will be available in single sim and dual sim variants in April. The 640 XL phablet shall be available for €190 for the 3G version and €220 for the LTE version. Both the devices will have various color options at release.

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What do you think about Microsoft's latest piece of technology? Do you feel it can make its mark in the competitive mid-range segment, holding its own ground against Android rivals? Let us know in the comments below!