Samsung Ativ Odyssey priced at $49.99, available from Verizon starting January 24th

Verizon has announced that the Samsung Ativ Odyssey, a 4-inch budget Windows Phone 8 handset, will arrive on Verizon on January 24th for a price of $49.99 with a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate. The phone was supposed to release last December, but the release date slipped — still, it’s Samsung’s first Ativ phone in the United States. The Ativ Odyssey is a lower-end Windows Phone 8 device, with a 4-inch WVGA Super AMOLED screen, a 5-megapixel camera, and a 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor. The phone joins the HTC 8X ($99.99) and Nokia Lumia 822 ($49.99), becoming the third Windows Phone 8 device in Verizon’s lineup.