Dubai: The Nokia Asha 501 is the Finnish manufacturer’s attempt at delivering a smartphone experience at the price of a feature phone. The mobile phone promises smartphone capabilities including a touchscreen, a new application platform, bundled social networking apps and dual SIM capabilities for extended connectivity. Let’s find out if the Asha 501 delivers to that promise.
The device features a candybar form factor with a three-inch screen. The phone comes in multiple colours with a plastic body and is 12.1mm thick with a weight of 98.2 grams. The plastic body makes the phone look a little bit like a toy, but as all things Nokia, it feels solid.
While the screen has an unimpressive screen resolution of just 240 x 320 pixels, it is touch enabled which brings a new experience at this price point. Until now feature phones have been mostly button driven.
With the Asha 501, Nokia has introduced a new platform for developers to build apps on top of. The Asha platform, although a modified version of Nokia’s Symbian platform, allows developers to extend the capabilities of the platform; bringing the Asha 501 closer towards ‘smartphone’ territory. The device already features applications for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other news portals.
The internals on the Asha 501 are definitely on the lower end; it has 64MB of RAM and a 1Ghz processor. Despite that, the phone isn’t sluggish and is actually tremendously responsive. Interactions are smooth and applications start up fairly quickly.
The Asha 501 features a 3.2 MP camera and features a fixed focus. The resulting images are not very good, but you wouldn’t expect anything else. Video capture is at QVGA (320x240) and 15fps with the results being worse than the photos.
The phone does have WiFi for connectivity, but not 3G. You will be relegated to 2G speeds with the Asha 501. Thankfully the Nokia Xpress Browser promises to reduce data usage by compressing data thereby reducing data costs, and of course improving data transfer times.
The standout feature on the Asha 501 is its battery, which at 1,200 mAh, promises 48 days of standby or 17 hours of talk time.
The Nokia Asha 501 is a good starter phone, but it may serve as an even better second phone, especially when roaming. At its inexpensive price point of Dh365, the Asha 501’s dual SIM capabilities ensure connectivity, applications for interactivity and a battery life that will let you get through a short trip on a single charge.
The writer is a marketing professional based in Dubai.
