GALLERY: Nokia Asha range26 October 2011
Photos of the Nokia Asha 300, Asha 303, and Asha 200
One of the surprise highlights of us this Nokia World was the Finnish manufacturer's new line of Symbian S40 phones. Yeah, feature phones, Symbian, yawn, right? When we picked up this compact, capable little numbers though, we were more than a little interested.
These handsets are targeted at emerging markets, an area Nokia has always claimed thanks to its background and reach in standard phones. But unlike many such handsets, the Asha range comes with a relatively powerful spec list and perhaps more importantly, apps that allow users to access the mobile internet as a higher-end smartphone could.
The Asha 300 (above) is one of the touch-screen
QWERTY phones, and is practically an honourary smartphone, with an impressive 1GHz processor and 3G connectivity. It comes with Facebook Chat and WhatsApp, the instant messenger that allows free messages over internet, which should endear it to anyone on a budget. Also onboard is Nokia's new mobile-optimised browser that, like the excellent Opera Mini, compresses webpages so that they're faster to download to handsets - and crucially, cheaper on the data charges.
The Asha 303 pips the 300 a bit, with Wi-Fi connectivity on top of things. It also comes with Facebook Chat, WhatsApp and Angry Birds preinstalled - plus you can get it in a bunch of colours.
Finally, the dual-SIM Asha 200 (below). Hit our launch story for the full rundown on these devices.
At least some of these handsets should hit the UK, though unlike the Lumia 800, no operators or retailers have jumped forward to claim stock yet.
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