While we’re anxiously awaiting to see what Nokia can do with Windows Phone given enough time, the Lumia 800 is a rushed out product when you really think about it, there’s one area of the mobile industry where the Finnish handset maker remains untouchable. Feature phones. It may seem difficult for most of readers to imagine going back to a device that has a small screen, traditional numeric keypad, and more importantly to a phone that can actually last more than 2 days without needing to be charged, but in many parts of the world a smartphone is simply out of reach financially. Enter the Nokia X2-02, the latest dumb phone to come out of Espoo. It’s going to sell for roughly 60 Euros before tax, and the feature list it brings to the table is quite extensive: dual SIM card support, including the ability to hot swap; microSD card slot, which can take up to 32 GB; an internal FM radio antenna so you don’t need headphones, the ability to record radio broadcasts, and best of all you can even transmit your tunes via a built-in FM radio transmitter. Nokia calls the latter feature “Play via Radio” instead of what they used to call it, “FM Transmit”, but regardless of what it’s marketed as, if it’s still hard to enable then forget about it taking off.
Anyway, what we’re really excited about is oddly enough Nokia’s next generation feature phone operating system. After Nokia decided to kill both Symbian and MeeGo, rumors started floating around the internet that Nokia was going to make the guys who created MeeGo work on a new low end operating system called Meltemi. If it gets even close to replicating the swipe UI of the N9, smartphone owners may want to reconsider downgrading.
Would you if Meltemi did everything you needed from a phone?