What is a cheap off contract wp device that fairly represents the operating system and ecosystem?

[WPCentral Question]

For a class project I am starting up a blog, one of my planned articles is to cover two weeks with windows phone first and eventually blackberry. I am looking for the cheapest possible device that will work on t-mobile that fairly represents the capabilities of the windows phone operating system and app ecosystem. The device does not need good optics although I will talk about camera apps but knowing I will be using a low end device I will not be unfair to the operating system with regards to camera quality. Thank you in advance for your help, I am excited to try Windows Phone and have admired it since the original release I have always just leaned more towards Google's ecosystem.

 

[bo_woods]

You should be able to find a good tmobile Lumia 925 on eBay for about $90...It's not low end, it was considered a flagship when it came out and now, by today's standards would be considered midrange, but as far as on tmobile, any phone lower class or price than that WILL NOT be a good representation of windows phone or Lumia. The low end windows phones lack some of the most prominent and appreciated features of Lumias.

But if you don't care about whether the phone is good or not, then you can easily grab a 521 or 630 for around $20-$50 bucks, but they don't represent Lumia line good at all because other than the OS, they have pretty much no features, the camera is poor with no flash, has no front facing camera, can't run all apps in the windows store, and the touchscreen has a cheap feel, that gathers lots of smudges, etc

 

[colinkiama]

For a class project I am starting up a blog, one of my planned articles is to cover two weeks with windows phone first and eventually blackberry. I am looking for the cheapest possible device that will work on t-mobile that fairly represents the capabilities of the windows phone operating system and app ecosystem. The device does not need good optics although I will talk about camera apps but knowing I will be using a low end device I will not be unfair to the operating system with regards to camera quality. Thank you in advance for your help, I am excited to try Windows Phone and have admired it since the original release I have always just leaned more towards Google's ecosystem.

Lumia 735. It has 1gb ram and runs the Lumia denim update out if the box. Well if it is available I your country.

 

[techiez]

For a class project I am starting up a blog, one of my planned articles is to cover two weeks with windows phone first and eventually blackberry. I am looking for the cheapest possible device that will work on t-mobile that fairly represents the capabilities of the windows phone operating system and app ecosystem. The device does not need good optics although I will talk about camera apps but knowing I will be using a low end device I will not be unfair to the operating system with regards to camera quality. Thank you in advance for your help, I am excited to try Windows Phone and have admired it since the original release I have always just leaned more towards Google's ecosystem.

Go for L535, its the cheapest with 1gb ram, I would not suggest anything with 512MB ram, 730/735 is a good phone to have but mid range, and only has better screen n better back cam than 535.

 

[aximtreo]

If you are in the US, Target has a good one on-sale today for $49 unlocked, no contract. There is a posting here in the recent forums with the details.

 

[JamesDax]

The L520 is available on Amazon right now for $30.