New Delhi: Nokia on Thursday unveiled its Asha 501, a touch screen mobile with internet capability on its popular Asha series. 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.
Asha 501 is clearly one of the affordable smartphones.
Speaking at the event held in the national capital, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that Indai is very important for the company and that is one of the reason they are launching Asha 501 in India.
He also said that the Series 5 Asha phones had been made specifically for consumers in countries like India.
"India is a bellwether market. It's symbolic that we are launching it here, "said Elop.
Elop also spoke about Nokia's deal with Facebook and which will ensure that Asha users on Airtel in India will get free and unlimited access to Facebook for a limited period of time.
The specifications of the handset are:
3-inch screen, with a 320 240-pixel resolution and fully touch-screen device.
3.2 megapixel camera.
Dual-SIM and Single SIM version of the phone.
Single standby time is up to 48 days, while the Dual SIM standby time is up to 26 days.
The smartphone has up to 17 hours talk time.
Supports 2G and WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0.
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.
It will support a number of Indian languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil in its virtual keyboard.
Asha 501 is meant for 2G users but very soon Nokia may launch a 3G version also.
