The Christmas fever has started and we can feel the heat with a roller coaster ride of offers flooding the web. Microsoft’s here with a big holiday surprise -- the new Lumia 550 -- a $139 (AU$192) Windows 10 smartphone available only in Europe.

The smartphone was announced last October and was released in Europe starting today. It will reach out to other regions globally in the weeks to follow. The biggest and most unique selling point of the smartphonbe is its affordable price and a bagful of features meticulously designed to meet the demands of office-goers.

Lumia 550’s bundled with Microsoft features and apps, including Cortana, OneDrive and Office. This means you can work across multiple devices and even pick-up from the point where you left off, reports VentureBeat.

As for specs, the new device features 1 GB of RAM, a 5 MP rear camera along with a 2 MP front-facing camera and 8 GB native storage space, which is expandable to 200 GB by using a microSD card. This means you can save as many picture, videos and movies you want.

Some might think the Lumia 550’s the cheapest branded phone to hit the market, but Microsoft earlier launched an $80 (AU$110) Lumia 435 and a $90 (AU$124.61) Lumia 532 back in January. The two phones were aimed at developing markets, however.

Microsoft wrote down $7.6 billion (AU$10.49 billion) on its Nokia unit earlier this year and CEO Satya Nadella decided to shift focus from “devices to services”. The software company hasn’t given up on the smartphone business, however, as can be seen in its new Windows 10 phone line-up.

By combining the desktop and mobile experience, Windows 10 encourages developers to build apps applicable across all smartphones, Microsoft platforms, PCs, tablets and Xbox.

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