When a Nokia handset launches in America, somewhere in heaven an angel gets its wings. The Finnish handset maker has had such terrible luck with exporting their products to the United States that we wonder why they still even bother trying. In their Q1 2011 financial results Nokia said they shipped 1.2 million handsets in North America, and let’s not forget that includes Canada. Terrible numbers aside, today we’re glad to report that the C3, a low cost QWERTY monoblock, otherwise known as “the BlackBerry form factor”, is launching on Consumer Cellular. If you’ve never heard of them then you’re not alone. We had to do some research about these guys and it turns out that they’re a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that piggy backs on AT&T’s network and the majority of their customers are senior citizens. We’ll let you come to your own conclusions. Anyway, the C3 will be sold for just $80, without a contract, and then you can pick any one of their overpriced plans. You’re better off getting something from Boost Mobile or Virgin if you’re a talk and text kind of person.
So what does the C3 actually come with? It runs S40, a dumb phone OS, which shouldn’t be too surprising considering the cost. It has a 2 megapixel camera, 3.5 mm headphone jack, WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1. That’s right, no 3G and no GPS, but for this price point we can’t complain. The massive 1320 mAh battery promises 20 days of standby time and 7 hours of talk time. It’ll probably be able to deliver that thanks to the tiny 2.4 inch 320 x 240 pixel resolution screen, that unlike most Nokia handsets which usually show 16 million colors, this runs at 262,000 colors. It’s pretty light weight and not too thick, just a hair under 14 mm.
Update: Our apologies, it looks like the C3 already came to America back in October 2010 via AT&T. Have you seen one in the wild? We sure haven’t.
[Via: Phone Scoop]