Nokia raises bar with Asha 501

Dubai: Stephen Elop, global head of Nokia and his group of decision makers flew in from Finland and other corners of the globe to New Delhi last week to launch the compact, touchscreen Asha 501.

This is the first device to run on the new Asha platform after Nokia’s takeover of Smarterphone in 2012 and is modelled on bold, Lumia-like colours, with quality build and a zippy user interface.

India is big on the radar for Nokia and its no wonder they chose to launch Asha’s new face here, which has been a bright spot for sales (second after China in 2012). “India is very important,” said Elop, adding the demand for feature-smartphones at a low price point is high with many users looking to upgrade from basic feature phones by paying a little extra. And the Asha 501 gives more than just a bit extra, much more.

The pocket friendly WiFi device may not boast many bells and whistles, but delivers where it really counts.

It looks brilliant and works even better. The lightweight (98gm) phone has a 3” touchscreen a ‘back’ button, a 3.2MP camera and comes in single and dual sim variants, In box memory of 4GB is expandable to 32GB.

There are two ways of accessing content. Home is a traditional, icon-based view for launching individual apps or accessing specific features like the dialler or phone settings, Fastlane gives up to 50 entries of recently accessed content. Contacts, social networks and apps unique to each person, are stored and presented in Fastlane, giving you a record of your recent past, present and future activity at one glance, while helping you multi-task easily.

Elop also announced a global partnership with Facebook, whereby Asha 501 users can access Facebook for free. Sally Hammandi, Communications Manager, Lower Gulf, Nokia said they are in talks with UAE operators for free service when the phone is launched in June.

There’s also a try and buy option where you can try out an app for some time before you buying it.

Asha 501 comes pre-loaded with the Nokia Xpress browser which compresses data on websites by up to 90 per cent through cloud computing.

It boasts battery talktime of up to 17 hours and standby time of up to 48 days.

Available in six colours (red, blue, black, yellow, white and green). Sally said the phone would be priced around Dh365, but refused to say when the 3G version will be here.