Nokia Asha 501 unleashed: Cut price smartie takes on Android

 

Smartphone? What’s a smartphone now? Meet the brand new Nokia Asha 501, a “dumbphone” running an all new version of Nokia’s low-power, low price Asha operating system. It’s designed to do just about everything that a smartphone can do, but for a fraction of the price. Read on to find out all about it.

At a glance, the Nokia Asha 501’s specs don’t impress: a three-inch touchscreen with a low-res 320×240 screen and 4GB of storage, plus Wi-Fi for jumping online at high speed. But it’s what the Nokia Asha 501 can do with just that that impresses: there are apps for Facebook, Twitter and more, games, even Nokia’s HERE mapping for directions, and WhatsApp is believed to be working on its own chat app for the new platform/

The Asha OS on the 501 has had a big revamp too, with Nokia using the expertise from feature-phone software developer Smarterphone, which it bought last year. The bright, clear homescreens are clearly reminiscent of today’s smartphones, putting contacts and apps at the fore.

One big difference: few of today’s smartphones cost $99 (£63) unlocked and none boast a battery life of up to 48 days. It’s a bold move on Nokia’s part, but one it needs to make as app-packed Android phones get cheaper and cheaper. The Nokia Asha 501 goes on sale in June in red, green, cyan, yellow, white and black hues

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Nokia 620: Windows Phone 8 slims down!

Say hello to the Nokia Lumia 620, the world’s smallest Windows Phone 8 smartphone. Bringing several shots of even more colour to the Lumia family, the new Nokia Lumia 620 brings Microsoft’s new OS to a more affordable price range at last, and even lets you pick and mix your colour like paint.

Using a new dual-shot colour technique, the Nokia Lumia 620 lets you pair up the base colour with seven additional shells to mix and match. For example, starting with a yellow base and adding a cyan shell, you end up with a lime green shade.

While dubbed as being affordable, the Nokia Lumia 620 is still a capable little machine. Packing a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4, it’s certainly no slug. The phone also boasts a healthy 512MB RAM, 8GB of storage space and micro SD memory card support for up to 64GB, not to mention 7GB of free Microsoft SkyDrive storage – giving you no shortages of trunk space.

The Nokia Lumia 620 also touts a 3.8-inch display, which also features the same sunlight readability enhancements as the 920 and 820, as well as NFC capability which also lets the phone easily pair up with accessories.

When it hits shops, the Nokia Lumia 620 should cost around $249 (around £150) and will roll out in January, starting in Asia with Europe a close second. What do you make of it? Let us know in the comments below