So we’ve already seen the Nokia Lumia 610, a budget sub 200 EUR Windows Phone, and the Nokia PureView 808, a gigantic 41 megapixel camera phone, but what about the low end of the market? Today Nokia announced three feature phones that all come in at under 100 EUR. Two of those devices, the Asha 202 and 203, are the exact same phone, except that the 202 take two SIM cards, while the 203 takes only one. Looking at the spec sheet, what makes these two phones exciting is that they feature a 2.4 inch touch screen. Small as that might be, it’s still impressive to see Nokia putting touch into such low end devices. We’re talking 60 EUR before taxes and subsidies when they’ll land in the second quarter of this year. Other features include a 2 megapixel camera, FM radio, and … hey, it’s a feature phone, what did you expect?
The third and final feature phone is the most interesting. Coming in at 95 EUR, it looks like the Nokia E6 and Nokia C3 had a baby. Seriously, from the front it looks like Nokia’s latest business phone, and from the back it looks like Nokia’s previous budget QWERTY device. What makes the 302 special is that it has Microsoft Exchange baked right into the operating system. It also has a 2.4 inch touch screen. Nokia likes to point out that there’s a 14.4 Mbps HSPA radio in there, and that no one else is including that kind of radio at such a low price point, but we just have to roll our eyes. What exactly is a phone like this going to do with data that fast? More importantly, this is a budget device, so how many emerging economies even have 14.4 Mbps HSPA enabled networks?
Still, we have to applaud Nokia for bringing low end devices to the masses, though we question how much longer feature phones have to live. The Lumia 610 is just 189 EUR. Give this industry a year, and the next version due out in 18 months will be almost half that.
[Image Credit: The Verge]
