Nokia today made a splash with the introduction of three new Android-based devices but the company also introduced a new Asha device and an ultra cheap new smartphone that doesn't fall under Nokia's Lumia, Asha or X branding. These are both super affordable phones at price points that cost less than a lot of people pay for their broadband service each month.
First up is the Nokia Asha 230, which is a dinky little device with a 2.8-inch display (30 x 240, 142 ppi) and a 1.3-megapixel camera. This phone can go all month, literally. Though it’s battery is relatively small (just 1020 mAh), the phone isn’t extremely bulky in terms of features or specs. As a result, it’s not too heavy on power consumption. Nokia promises 33 days of standby or 42 hours of music playback time. That changes a bit when you look at talk time; Nokia says you can expect 11 hours of talk time on 2G. There’s also WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, Java games, 7 GB of OneDrive storage and optional dual-SIM support. It runs on Nokia’s Asha 1.1.1. The Asha 230 is going to cost you €49 and is available immediately in Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. No word on US launch just yet but we'll try and get more information on that as soon as possible.
Next up is the Nokia 220, which isn't an Asha device and carries no branding other than the Nokia name. It's Nokia's cheapest data-enabled phone to date. That's right, if you thought it couldn't get cheaper than €49, you've got another think coming. The Nokia 220 costs just €29 outright and boasts a 2.4-inch QVGA 320 x 240 166 ppi display, a hardware keyboard, a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth 3.0, a 1100 MHz battery (29 days standby, 15 hours of talk time on 2G), optional dual-SIM support, and storage expandable to 32 GB via MicroSD. Nokia didn’t offer any information on integrated storage for either the Asha 230 or the Nokia 220, but we’re going to try and find that out. Similar to the Asha 230, the 220 is already available in Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.
Stay tuned for hands on!
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