Many of us were waiting for Nokia World 2011 with great impatience, wondering what Nokia’s Windows Phone-based devices were going to look like. At last, several days ago, Nokia introduced its new WP-based Lumia series and several “unexpected” phones, too, from a new and unannounced Asha line.
I think people can be divided into two categories: those from the first group heard the “Asha” name and thought something like “WTF? Why did Nokia choose such a strange name?”; those from the second group love PC games and have played one or even several games from the “Heroes of Might and Magic” fantasy series, so when they heard “Asha” they remembered the legendary dragon-god named Asha at once (do you remember those missions on finding an artifact known as the “Tear of Asha”?).
I guess people from this second group will like this phone at least for its name, so they’ll buy it to tell their gamer friends, “Hey, my new Nokia phone is named after a god from HMM5!” But of course, the name isn’t the only interesting thing about these Asha phones, so I’m sure it will find many buyers even among those who have never heard about Heroes, dragons or any other fantasy things.
The Nokia Asha phones are based on the Series 40 platform, but they offer much more than ordinary feature phones, so those who hate smartphones with all those complicated features will surely like these phones. And now we’ll try to find out what you should expect from these Asha phones and what specs and features they have.
The Asha line consists of four phones – 200, 201, 300 and 301. The 200 and 201 have much in common in terms of both appearance and features, while the other two are a bit different.
Perhaps the only difference between the Asha 200 and the 201 is the number of SIM cards they can work with – the 200 can carry two SIM cards, and the 201 works with just one. Other than this, both phones have 2.4-inch TFT displays (with 320×240 pixels resolution), QWERTY keyboards, 2MP cameras, Bluetooth, 1430mAh batteries and microSD card slots. They also have 3.5mm audio jacks and built-in FM radio and MP3 players, so if you love listening to music, you’ll surely like these phones – everyone knows Nokia phones have great sound.
Both phones come in a number of bright colors, which will also help them stand out in the market where most phones are black (or white). The price of the Nokia Asha 200 and 201 is very compatible, too – they cost only 60 Euros before tax.
We’ll discuss two other phones from this Asha line – the 300 and 303 – in our next mobile phone reviews and posts, as for these two, they’re expected to be released very soon, in Q4 2011.
This is a Guest Post by Amelia Hunter. If you wish to write for gogi.in send your article to [email protected].