The Lenovo SoftBank 503LV is Lenovo’s First Windows Phone Smartphone and it’s Available in Japan

It has taken Lenovo 2 years and 5 months to launch a Windows Phone after becoming a Windows Phone hardware partner in February, 2014. The company had earlier announced that it will launch a Windows Phone by the end of 2014 but that product never saw the light of the day. Now after all this time Lenovo has finally introduced a Windows Phone, but in a very limited capacity. Let’s take a closer look at the new Lenovo SoftBank 503LV.

Specifications – Lenovo SoftBank 503LV

The Lenovo SoftBank 503LV has a 5 inch TFT LCD display with a screen resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. The phone comes with a 1.5 GHz Octa Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor alongside an Adreno 405 GPU. Add a 3 GB RAM to the mix and this becomes a powerful phone in terms of performance.

The phone comes with a 32 GB internal storage capacity which can be expanded up to 128 GB using a microSD card slot. Interestingly, the camera configuration on the phone is pretty average. The phone has an 8 megapixel primary camera with LED flash alongside a 5 megapixel secondary camera. One would expect Lenovo’s first Windows Phone device to boast of a better camera configuration than that. Apparently, Lenovo doesn’t think too much of it.

The phone supports 4G connectivity and weighs 144 grams. The battery capacity on this phone is 2250 mAh. Once again nothing much to write home about. The dimensions on the phone are 142.4 x 71.4 x 7.66 mm. The phone will be powered by Windows 10 OS.

The Lenovo SoftBank 503LV is only available in Japan

In February, 2014, when Lenovo became one of the 8 hardware partners for Windows Phone little had we imagined that it would take the company this long to finally unveil a Windows Phone. What’s even more perplexing now is the knowledge that the Lenovo SoftBank 503LV will, at least for now, only be available in Japan.

As the name suggests this is a carrier influenced device. The device was made to enhance Japanese carrier SoftBank’s product portfolio, which means the phone will only be available in markets where SoftBank exists as a carrier, which at the moment is the Japanese market.

More from iSpyPrice: Check out the detailed specs on the Lenovo SoftBank 503LV mobile

India is one of SoftBank’s favorite investment markets. The telecommunications giant has made some huge bets on India in the recent past and has made clear its intentions to invest over $10 billion in a space of 5-10 years. SoftBank is also the controlling stakeholder in US telecommunications holding behemoth Sprint Corporation.

It is not clear whether Lenovo will bring the SoftBank 503LV to markets other than Japan but the fact that they decided to finally deliver a Windows Phone, even if it was at the behest of SoftBank, says something about Lenovo’s future product lineup.

Lenovo is one consumer electronics brand that doesn’t shy away from experimentation and launching something different to test the waters every now and then. From laptops to smartphones, and beyond, Lenovo has the most diverse consumer electronics product portfolio of any brand in its league. So I won’t be surprised to see a variant of the Lenovo SoftBank 503LV making its way to India and other markets in the future.