Nokia Asha series phones to enter India for budget customers

Nokia Asha series of phones is to enter Indian market late December and early next year. The Finnish mobile maker, which lost huge market share due to the decline in its feature mobile business, has rolled out a set of moderate Asha phones as a business strategy.

Along with coming up high-end Windows Phone-based phones like Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, Nokia intends to gain soil in emerging markets with its Asha lineup. Asha is a new line of phones with Nokia’s Symbian S40 operating system. Nokia has already uncovered four models of Asha in a media event in London in October. They are Asha 200, 201, 300 and 303.

Nokia Asha models are meant to blur the gap between feature phones and smartphones. For a long time, Nokia has been a leader in feature phones in the world. But with the emergence of Samsung as a leading maker of both feature phones and smartphones, Nokia could not survive the challenge. As a result, the company extensively lost its market share. The Finnish mobile maker is now to concentrate in African and Indian markets with the Asha line of phones, which loll in between smartphones and feature phones.

All Asha phones are with web surfing, social networking and camera features. They have QWERTY keypad, Nokia OSS Browser, Nokia Music Store, integration of key social network sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Orkut and many other features. They have processors with moderate speed and Symbian S40 operating system, a respected mobile OS from Nokia, which supports Angry Birds, one of the world’s most popular games. Of course, you are to have Angry Birds in every Asha phone. Here we succinctly have a look into the tech specs of all Asha phones.

Asha 200
Price: €60 ($85)
The low-end model of Asha is up with a 2.4-inch QVGA TFT display with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. The display supports up to 262 000 colors. The phone features 10MB of internal memory and microSD slot for 32GB memory expansion. It supports dual SIMs and comes with many preloaded apps like Nokia Messaging Mail & Chat 3.2, Nokia Browser v1, Nokia Store, web search, 1 Gameloft Try & buy game and others.

Asha 201
Price: €60 ($85)
Asha 201 sports a 2.4-inch QVGA TFT touchscreen with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels and it supports 262000 colors. The phone also comes with almost the same tech specs of Asha 200. It mainly differs with its distinct size and design. All Asha 200 preloaded apps are there on Asha 201 also. It mounts a 2-megapixel rear camera with 4x digital zoom.

Asha 300
Price: €85 ($120)
Nokia Asha 300 has the same 2.4-inch display, but it is a resistive touch display with proximity sensor. The phone features a candybar with a keypad and it sports a 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel camera and 3G connectivity. You have 140MB of external memory and it will support a microSD slot for 32GB memory stick. It is also up with all essential Nokia apps and other programs.

Asha 303
Price: €115 ($160)
It is the high-end model of Asha line of phones from Nokia. It has a 2.6-inch capacitive touchscreen with QWERTY keypad as well. Asha 303 has large connectivity options like Wi-Fi 803.11b/g/n, 3G, Bluetooth 2.1, micro USB AB connector/charger, USB 2.0, 3.5 mm AV connector and much more. You have 100MB of RAM for free and there is a microSD slot for 32GB memory expansion.

What others say?
See what D Shivakumar, managing director at Nokia India says of the company’s new Asha line of phones,

“At Nokia, we strive to offer our consumers the best technology suited to them through affordable and relevant innovations. Nokia Asha 200 and Asha 300 will set new benchmarks in the mobile internet and music space.”

See what Engadget says in its review,
“All four Asha devices are made of polycarbonate and come with a Nokia Browser, which is powered by the cloud and compresses data by up to 90 percent, saving users from racking up excessive charges.”

Wrap-up
Nokia is concentrated efforts to retain its name and reputation in the global mobile industry. Along with launching high-end smartphones on Windows Phone, the company looks to retain its name with special focus in African and Asian countries with the moderate Asha phones. As per reports, Asha lines of phones are to bring large benefit for the company. The phones are to arrive in India late December or early next year.

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Posted by admin on December 5, 2011. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry