The Lumia 535 is the first Windows Phone to drop the Nokia branding, which Microsoft says is to help avoid confusion. Here's everything you need to know about the Microsoft Lumia 535 smartphone including release date, price and specs. See also: 18 best budget smartphones of 2014

Microsoft Lumia 535: release date and price UK

Microsoft has said that the 535 is expected to go on sale in the UK in "Q1 2015" and has lived up to its promise with the phone going on sale on 2 February. You can now find it at a range of retailers including Amazon, O2, Tesco Mobile, Carphone Warehouse and Virgin Media - altough some still list it as 'coming soon' at the time of writing.

There are two models, with the second being the Lumia 535 Dual SIM. There's no word on whether this will be available in the UK or not.

The price of the Lumia 535 in the UK is a very affordable £85 placing it around the same price as the Motorola Moto E.

Microsoft Lumia 535: specifications

Microsoft is calling the Lumia 535 a "5x5x5" innovation, which is an odd way of saying it has a 5in screen, a 5Mp wide-angle selfie camera and "five great integrated Microsoft experiences".

Those would be: Skype, Office, 15GB of free OneDrive cloud storage, Cortana and Outlook.

Returning to the 5in screen, which is a significant inch bigger than the Lumia 530's, it has the expected qHD resolution. This is not to be confused with quad HD (QHD), as it stands for quarter HD, or 960x540.

The good news is that it's an IPS screen, rather than the nasty TN-based display in the Lumia 530. It equates to a just-acceptable pixel density of 220ppi, and it's covered in Gorilla Glass 3.

Microsoft says it has a "High brightness mode" with "Sunlight readability enhancements" so we'll have to test those out when we get a 535 for review.

Microsoft Lumia 535: Cameras

Both the front- and rear-facing cameras have 5Mp sensors, with the front one having a wide-angle 24mm-equivalent lens. The rear camera (equivalent of a 28mm lens) can use the built-in LED flash.

Video has been limited to a paltry 848x480 for both cameras, which is very odd since a 5Mp sensor is more than enough for 1080p video. We fully expect video quality to be atrocious.

Microsoft Lumia 535: Processor and storage

The processor is an obvious weak point: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 isn't a powerful chip, and don't let the quad-core spec fool you. It's paired with 1GB of RAM.

There's 8GB of internal storage which you can expand via microSD with cards up to 128GB in capacity.

Microsoft Lumia 535: Connectivity

Connectivity is fairly basic, with 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS. Sensors include ambient light, an accelerometer and proximity.

There's no support for 4G, but that's not a huge surprise at this price. Even the second-generation Moto G at £149 is limited to 3G.

Both the single- and dual-SIM models take micro SIM cards, and charging is via microUSB. Microsoft claims 6.5 hours of video playback and 8.5 hours of web browsing via Wi-Fi.

Microsoft Lumia 535: Dimensions and weight

The Lumia 535 measures 140x73x8.8mm and weighs 146g.

Microsoft Lumia 535: design

With a range of bright colours - orange, green, blue - plus neutrals including black, white and grey, the only difference to previous Lumia designs is the absence of the Nokia badge. The rear cover is removable (as is the battery), so you can change them as you like.

Since it runs Windows Phone 8.1 with Lumia Denim, you get all the latest features including Cortana and the 'word flow' keyboard.

We'll bring you a full review of the Lumia 535 as soon as we can.