The budget priced Lumia 650 smartphone is now officially available for pre-order in the United States and interested buyers can now place their orders straight from the official Microsoft Store. The Windows 10-powered smartphone has been available in several international markets but was only made available recently in the US.

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Market analysts are still wondering why it took so long for Microsoft to release the Lumia 650 smartphone in the US.

The Lumia 650 supports dual-SIM feature. It is currently priced at $199 for the unlocked model and the Microsoft is scheduled to start shipping the smartphone on April 1, according to Phone Arena.

Microsoft claims that the Lumia 650 is by far its most affordable entry-level smartphone that runs on its latest Windows 10 platform. Microsoft plans to market the device as an affordable way of delivering its latest operating system into the hands of the masses.

While the $199 price tag would initially raise some eyebrows regarding the phone's performance, one look at its specs sheet and one can say that it is a pretty decent smartphone especially when one considers the fact that it runs on the latest Windows 10 OS.

The Microsoft Lumia 650 has a 5.0-inch AMOLED display with 1280 x 720 HD resolution. At its heart is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 quad-core processor clocked at 1.3GHz with just 1GB of internal memory.

Additional specs include an 8-megapixel rear facing primary camera and a 5-megapxiel front facing secondary camera. It has 16GB of local storage space with microSD support for storage expansion. It also supports 4G LTE networks and has a 2,000mAh battery pack to power all these hardware.

As for its design, the Lumia 650 has a polycarbonate chassis with a metal frame. A design cue that not only makes the smartphone sturdy and strong but also adds a premium touch to its design, according to Tech Times

On the software side of things, the Lumia 650 runs on Windows 10 Mobile right out of the box. It is coupled with some of Microsoft's popular apps like OneDrive, Cortana, Outlook and the complete Office suite. Despite running on the latest operating system from Redmond, the Lumia 650 is missing one key feature, it does not support Windows 10 Continuum.