Texting is a phenomenon that for one reason or another took a while for Americans to adopt, but once they did … man, you’ve got teenage girls sending and receiving over 100 texts a day on average and no one says a thing because that’s considered normal. People who do type that many short sentences need a way to bang them out fast and cheap, and that’s where devices like the Nokia X2-01 come in. It’s running Series 40, making it a bonafide dumbphone, but at least it has a full QWERTY keyboard. Rumor has it, according to Engadget, that T-Mobile will launch the X2-01 on February 16th. No word as to how much it’s going to cost, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it being offered for free with a 2 year contract. Here in Europe the X2-01 sells for about 100 Euros, making it one of the cheapest QWERTY devices on the market. Nokia has a rounder version of the same device that’s more popular called the C3, and we don’t know why T-Mobile isn’t picking up that model, which also features WiFi.
The larger and more important question here is that why would someone voluntarily pickup a dumbphone versus something running Android or even the iPhone? The heavy texting crowd loves staying in touch with friends, so you’d think they’d want something that would give them Facebook on the go. Your monthly bill doesn’t change all that much if you opt for a fancier phone, you just end up paying more for it up front, something that many teenagers are willing to sacrifice since they’ll spend countless hours in front of their devices, making their thumbs bleed by spreading gossip about the girl at the part last night who spent far too much time in the bathroom with some random dude she met that night.
Who are we to judge though, some people just want a simple device. Nokia will always serve that market.