Microsoft Lumia 640, 640 XL, 940, 940 XL Release Date on U.S. Carriers: Lumia 640 is “Most Delightful smartphone”

Jul 16, 2015 12:10 PM EDT

News about Microsoft's move to lay-off thousands of its employees hogged the headlines last week causing concerns that the software giant might also close its smartphone unit.

But industry tipster Evan Blass posted on his Twitter account, @evleaks, that Microsoft is actually scheduled to unveil six new handsets, including the Lumia 640, 940, 940 XL. He posted this message on Saturday, "@hemanv Well I know of at least six upcoming handsets which would dispute that ;)."

Indeed last month, Blass also revealed the Microsoft code names for the four smartphones using towns China, Japan, and Finland.

He wrote on June 20, "Everyone's heard of Cityman and Talkman...but how about Guilin, Honjo, Saana, or Saimaa?"

CrossMap speculated that Talkman could be alluding to the Lumia 940, which is sporting a 5.2 inch screen with 1920 x 1080 pixel display and powered by Snapdragon 808. The Cityman is believed to be the Lumia 940 XL which also have a 5.7 inch screen but has a higher resolution at 2560 x 1440 pixel and powered by a more advanced Snapdragon 810 chip set.

Both the Lumia 940 and the Lumia XL will have 3 GB RAM, 32 GB memory, SD card slot, 20 MP PureView rear camera and 5 MP front facing camera, triple LED flash, iris scanner, and have a polycarbonate case.

The other Microsoft smartphone believed to be alluded in the code names is the Lumia 840, a mid-range phone with 1.7 GHz Snapdragon 610 quad-core processor, Adreno 405 graphics, 5-inch AMOLED display, 1920 x 1080 resolution, and a 2 GB RAM.

Since Microsoft has already unveiled the Lumia 640 XL, it cannot be one of the smartphones the tech giant is planning on releasing. The Lumia 640 XL 5.7 inch screen with HD720 (1280 x 720) resolution, slim 2: 9 mm body, full HD 5MP front camera and 8 MP main camera with 3264 x 2448 pixels, micro SIM slot, and will run on Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim operating system.

The Lumia 640 XL was launched in March this year and is powered by Qualcomm MSM8926 Snapdragon 400 chipset, Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, 1 GB RAM, micro SD slot, Free OneDrive storage built in up to 30 GB, and 3000 mAh battery.

Microsoft Lumia 640 is 'Most Delightful' Smartphone

Meanwhile, Argus Insights, an independent group which measures mindshare and predicts consumer demands, said that the Microsoft Lumia 640 and Lumia 535 handsets, ranked amongst the "the most delightful" smartphones over the last quarter. The increase in consumer satisfaction over the Microsoft handsets was noted despite a drop in smartphone demands amongst U.S. consumers, said BetaNews.

Argus Insights founder and CEO commented on their study, "This last quarter showed a very dramatic decline in consumer interest in the available smartphones in the US, and even the latest Samsung flagship phones barely made a difference in overall excitement. In fact, iPhone 6 demand, as measured by consumer review analysis, jumped when customers waiting to purchase and apparently open to buying a Samsung, instead chose an Apple iPhone. Even the early launch of the Note 5 is unlikely to take share away from Apple unless Samsung delivers more than just upgraded hardware. It seems at this point, with such a flagging in consumer interest, that perhaps the smartphone market has hit a saturation point."

The Microsoft Lumia 640 will sport a Full HD 5MP wide angle front camera with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Quad-core 1.2GHz processor (3G. It will also feature an 8 gigabyte memory with three hours of talking time. The Lumia 640 has a 5.7 '' display capable of 1280 x 720p resolution and powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Quad Core processor with 8 gigabyte of memory using 4G LTE network.