Nokia has just launched its Asha 501 in New Delhi. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was also present at the launch of the device. He spoke about how Nokia has announced a global partnership with Facebook to ensure that Asha users on MTNL and Airtel will get free access to Facebook.
Some of the key features of the device are:
- The device has a 3-inch screen, with a 320×240-pixel resolution and fully touch-screen device.
- It has a 3.2 megapixel camera.
- There is a Dual-SIM and Single SIM version of the phone.
- The Single standby time is up to 48 days, while the Dual SIM standby time is up to 26 days.
- The smartphone supports 2G and WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0.
- The smartphone has up to 17 hours talk time.
- It comes with additional memory of 4GB (with the card included in box), expandable up to 32GB and has 64 MB RAM.
- Available colours: Bright Red, Bright Green, Cyan, Yellow, White and Black.
- The smartphone has a lot of pre installed apps such as Facebook, Twitter. Nokia has forged a special deal with Facebook to ensure that users can share photos directly to Facebook. The smartphone also comes with the Nokia Xpress Browser. Other apps include FourSquare, Bejeweled 3, Plants vs. Zombies.
- Asha 501 will also support a number of Indian languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil in its virtual keyboard. The device will hit the markets in june and is priced at $99 which is Rs 5,347 according to current rates but with taxes it could go up. This is clearly one of the affordable smartphones, a category that Nokia sees as worth $4 billion by end of 2014.
It is clear that for Nokia the Asha series is where its placing a lot of bets. Elop said that India is very important to the company and that is one of the reason they’re launching the Asha 501 in India. The device will come to India in June, though he confirmed.
Asha 501 is meant for 2G users but soon Nokia may launch a 3G version also. The company said at the launch that currently 80 percent of the globe is right now on 2G and so it is addressing 80 percent of the market through Asha 501.
Elop also talked about how they’re hoping to ensure that with the Facebook partnership will help a lot more people to get online, especially those who’ve not had access to the Internet before.