Nokia’s finished messing around. After a fairly exciting product launch of its flagship phones, the Lumia 820 and 920, Nokia’s now gone and released two baby-smartphones. Let’s welcome the Asha 308 and 309 to the party and see what these hardy devices offer outside of the new “fluid swipe” interface.
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Humble hardware
These phones are not meant for the usual suspects. These are smartphones for the rest of us. There’s the tough but tiny 3-inch screens, a 2MP rear camera and Nokia’s Asha Touch UI which is really a re-skinned Series 40 OS. Remember the N9? While it’s a lot like that.
What else? There’s an 800Mhz CPU, an 1110mAh and a paltry 20MB internal storage though there is an SD card slot. Finally, and most heinously there’s EDGE. Yes, both the 308 and 309 are EDGE-only devices. For those hard-pressed to pick a phone, the only difference between these two phones is that the 308 has support for GSM/EDGE 850, 1900MHz bands and “Easy Swap dual SIM accommodation.” Having a dual-sim phone is all the rage these days.
This, on a 2012 device released from one of the world’s biggest mobile phone makers.
Here’s the best part though. Both phones ship an economically priced US$99. Nokia’s going to ship the Asha 308 and 309 Q4 2012.
