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Nokia introduces the Asha 305, 306 and 311 for those who love 'em touchscreens on the cheap

Nokia introduces the Asha 305, 306 and 311 for those who love 'em touchscreens on the cheap

Posted: 06 Jun 2012, 01:43, by Daniel P.

Categories: Nokia Nokia Official Official

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Nokia introduces the Asha 305, 306 and 311 for those who love 'em touchscreens on the cheap

Nokia lifted the veil today over an affordable trio of phones in a new Asha Touch line - this time they are all-touch, no keypad, unlike the existing Asha portfolio members.

The Asha 305 and 306 are the cheapos of the bunch, at just $85 and $95 SIM-free, respectively, which is indeed truly affordable for even emerging markets or teens' budgets, which are the target market anyway.

They both sport a 3" WQVGA resistive display, 1GHz processor, 2MP cameras, and GPRS/EDGE radio. The Easy Swap dual-SIM slots are what sets the Asha 305 apart, while the Asha 306 adds Wi-Fi connectivity to the mix, for Nokia's cheapest Wi-Fi handset to date.

The Asha 311 won't make your wallet much thinner either, as it costs just $121 SIM-free, but upgrades the 3" display to capacitive, the radio is 3G, and the camera gets a bump to 3MP.

All three phones feature a new interface called Asha Touch, optimized for your fingertips, complete with a notification bar and all, plus the new Nokia Browser 2.0 and Nokia Maps. There will be 10, 000 web apps available for the handsets at launch, and 25, 000 in the Nokia Store, so it will be a pretty smartphone-ish experience with these three. Facebook, Twitter and email apps are preloaded.

Moreover, the phones come with 40 free EA games and 15 levels of Angry Birds to kill time with.The dual-SIM Asha 305 should be hitting shelves by the end of the month, while the other two are arriving next quarter.

source: Nokia

Press Release

Nokia accelerates the journey to mobile internet with the introduction of Asha Touch device range

Fun, colorful range of touch screen phones will bring fast mobile web browsing, social networks and gaming to millions
Bangkok, Thailand - Nokia has today taken another step towards connecting the next billion consumers by unveiling the Asha Touch family of mobile devices, taking the full touch experience to new price points. The three new phone models - the Nokia Asha 305, Nokia Asha 306 and Nokia Asha 311 - further expand the successful Asha family, first introduced in October 2011. Today, there are 10 Asha devices available in more than 130 markets, providing young, social consumers with a choice of phones to match their own lifestyle.
These latest phones have been designed to provide an incredibly rich, smartphone-like experience to consumers who want to be set free from excessive data consumption costs and short battery life. The Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306 and Asha 311 offer a new, fully re-designed touch user interface, combining the proven ease-of-use from Nokia's heritage with digital design innovations specifically fit for the purpose.
The beautifully crafted Nokia Asha 311 is a fast and fluid 3.5G capacitive touchscreen device, powered by a 1GHz processor to provide a great internet experience. The bright and edgy Nokia Asha 305 is a fun and affordable phone, featuring the exclusive Easy Swap dual SIM. Its sister, the Nokia Asha 306, is a single SIM model, and becomes Nokia's most affordable Wi-Fi handset to date.
"By introducing the Asha Touch phones to the market, we're accelerating our commitment to connect the next billion consumers," said Mary T. McDowell, Nokia's executive vice president for Mobile Phones. "These phones deliver on what young, urban people value most -- a great-looking device; and an intuitive and affordable experience for connecting to the internet, to their friends, and to a world of entertainment, web apps and content."
Great for fast, affordable mobile internet and gaming entertainment
The new devices take full advantage of the Nokia Browser 2.0, a major recent update which uses Nokia's cloud technology to reduce data consumption by up to 90%, meaning that consumers can enjoy faster and cheaper internet access. Web sites load up to three times faster in comparison to devices without cloud-accelerated browsing, making it simple for users to find and select from more than 10,000 web apps available for download. They deliver a richer and more interactive consumer experience whilst using less data than a stand-alone internet connected app.
Consumers can easily stay connected with friends and family at the touch of a button as well as share files and links across their social networks. Furthermore, the Nokia Browser's Download Manager feature helps consumers to manage external content easily, saving music, video or pictures on a memory card, while surfing the internet.
The Asha family is also getting positive support from developers and consumers. Nokia Store has just broken the 5 billion downloads landmark. From January to April, 42% of all content downloaded from Nokia Store was delivered to Asha and other Nokia devices based on the Java ecosystem. Just one year ago, that number was 10%. Also, there are 410 Nokia developers with apps which have achieved more than 1 million downloads. India Games and Pico Brothers just passed 100 million.
As well as providing a great, social online experience, the Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306 and Asha 311 have been created with entertainment in mind. All users will receive an exclusive gift of 40 EA games to download for free* and keep forever. These games range across action, arcade and sports, and include titles such as Tetris®, Bejeweled®, Need for Speed(TM) The Run and EA SPORTS(TM) FIFA 12. The Nokia Asha 311 also comes with 15 levels of Angry Birds pre-loaded onto the phone, perfect for making the most of the touchscreen and 1GHz processor.
"Nokia is taking another interesting step forward in connecting consumers to the Internet, seeking to improve their experience through a new touch user-interface that is allowing the company to compete in new mass-market price bands. The mass-market is a competitive segment, but we believe Nokia's upgraded Asha portfolio has included an attractive package that can enable consumers to have lower running costs, taking advantage of things like its compressed browser and a long-life battery", says Neil Mawston, Executive Director of devices research at Strategy Analytics. "It is also interesting to see how Nokia is promoting its Asha strategy with global launches taking place in important high-growth markets such as Asia. Nokia resonates well there and the response from local consumers is likely to be positive".
Product details
The Nokia Asha 311 is a colourful, compact touch screen device that comes with all the features you'd expect for a fun and easy mobile experience. It boasts a bright and colourful, scratch resistant capacitive glass screen with polarization filters ensuring users get the best experience from the unique and visually entertaining user interface. The Nokia Asha 311 also features a 3.2MP camera and pre-installed Nokia Maps, in addition to the 15 level pre-bundled version of Angry Birds.
The pre-loaded social client makes accessing Facebook, Twitter and many other global social networks simple while Nokia Browser makes using mobile internet fast and affordable. It also includes the most popular messaging services. "WhatsApp has a clear vision of creating a reliable and easy to use cross-platform messaging application that enables people to stay in touch with their family and friends from all around the world," said, Brian Acton, Co-Founder of WhatsApp Inc. "By partnering with Nokia whose worldwide reach in mobile is well established, WhatsApp becoming available for the Asha Touch devices will enable us to further realize our core mission".
The Nokia Asha 305 is a fun and entertaining Easy Swap dual SIM phone, helping users make the most of their phone while retaining control of their costs. The phone features a bright and colorful 3" WQVGA resistive touch screen along with Bluetooth and Dual Band connectivity. Forty EA games are available for download with every phone as well as a 2MP camera, Nokia Maps and the revolutionary Nokia Browser which helps significantly lower data costs.
The Nokia Asha 306 is the sister device to the Nokia Asha 305. Along with all the great features that come with its sister, such as bright and colorful, 3" WQVGA resistive touch screen and 40 EA games for download - a Nokia exclusive offer, the Nokia Asha 306 also provides WLAN, enabling users to stay connected while on the move. It also supports video streaming through both GPRS and WLAN, meaning this handset truly is a fun way to stay in touch.
The estimated retail price for Nokia Asha 305 is EUR 63 and it's expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2012. The estimated retail price for Nokia Asha 306 is EUR 68. The Nokia Asha 311 has an estimated retail price of EUR 92. Both devices are expected to start shipping in the third quarter of 2012. Above mentioned prices exclude taxes and subsidies.
The new devices images are available at Nokia.com/press.
*Data costs may apply.

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1. mobilefuture posted on 06 Jun 2012, 01:56 6 0

it wouldve been SO awesome had they kept the WQVGA resolution on the 311 and capacitive screens on the 305,306. seems to much too ask for the latter given the price but it wouldnt have killed them...

2. microsoftnokiawin posted on 06 Jun 2012, 01:59 5 0

the UI looks pretty intresting

12. fernsruben posted on 06 Jun 2012, 04:14 3 0

heyy............dnt know if u realised...............but it's similar to their MeeGo UX (Maemo 6 UI) which was on N9!!! Awesome..................................................!!!!!

The UI is sooooooooooooooooo user friendly!!!!!!

17. microsoftnokiawin posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:42 3 0

i have an n9 dude so not exactly similar icons just different UI

3. Bluesky02 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:03 3 1

What a wonderful offer!

4. charudutt posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:26 6 2

wow i love theese phones .... NOKIA ASHA bcomin AWESOME day by day....
gr8 UI ...nice price tag... cool fetures.... BEST BUDGET PHONE (WITH TOUCH).....

5. guildsa654 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:31 6 1

Nokia's Absolutely back in the game.

6. PhansMuneeb posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:40 1 1

Nokia is back again...... :D

7. mobilefuture posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:53 3 0

Phonearena, i would like to inform you that in your specs sheet it says the 311 does QVGA recording at 10fps. Check the nokia website you are wrong. Its 25fps. Kindly fix this error to avoid confusion

8. smartphone posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:59 3 0

The 305 is more beautiful than most mid range smartphones.
Will b getting one for my dad.

10. UnlimitedSkye03 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 03:27 2 1

My mom would love asha 311 :)

11. loken posted on 06 Jun 2012, 04:03 2 0

40 ea games????/?? wow

13. jackhammeR posted on 06 Jun 2012, 04:54 3 0

wow..that uiu looks like Symbian a little bit but it's not a Symbian...meltemi maybe?

14. steelicon posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:00 1 0

Still Series 40.

18. -RVM- posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:50 3 0

UI looks like a mix of Belle and Swipe UI from N9.

15. akr91 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:25 2 1

Nokia 808, now this asha series and windows 8 and meltemi devices in the future ...... nokia is back ,with a bang

20. nishant posted on 06 Jun 2012, 08:51 3 1

u r right dude
nokia going to bang this year,.,,,,,

24. QinEmpire posted on 06 Jun 2012, 11:39 3 0

Bang the copycat, Samsung.

16. Veigald posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:37 2 1

The phones look great, even with light years better design than most cheap phones (but of course we expect Nokia to sport that).

Only little thing I didn't like in the 311 video was that it said "1 GHz processor", which really is completely uninteresting if the phone runs smoothly. The undesirable effect may be that people have seen android phones lag like crazy with a similar processor and may assume the Asha phones will lag too.

19. jade272727 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 06:49 2 1

Will it be available in the Philippines?

21. nishant posted on 06 Jun 2012, 08:53 3 0

it will available in all over the world......

22. thedarkside posted on 06 Jun 2012, 10:06 1 0

nokia is popping out phones like theyre octomom

23. snowgator posted on 06 Jun 2012, 10:19 3 0

Like economy cars, feature phones and basic flip phones will always have an audience. Nokia is smart to try and offer decent options. These have always looked nice. Hope they are durable, and perform well. Nokia needs the good buzz......

25. crysco posted on 06 Jun 2012, 15:58 1 0

I really like my Nokia Symbian phone but have been wondering for a while what to get next. I wanted to stay w/ Nokia so I could keep my Nokia Maps. (You just can't beat that you get turn by turn directions with out using ANY data.) But I just can't get pass the "live tiles" of the Windows Phones & Zune. So here's the answer for me. The Asha 311 looks usable & inexpensive. And I get to keep my Nokia Maps.

26. andyboi_ph posted on 10 Jun 2012, 19:41 1 0

i want 311 as my spare phone. very cool interface. Not cheap looking but so affordable. I heart it....................

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- Announced: 05 Sep 2012
- OS: Windows Phone 8
- Hardware: Dual core, 1500 MHz, Krait, 1024 MB RAM
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Nokia introduces the Asha 305, 306 and 311 for those who love 'em touchscreens on the cheap

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25 Comments Follow Following

1. mobilefuture posted on 06 Jun 2012, 01:56 6 0

2. microsoftnokiawin posted on 06 Jun 2012, 01:59 5 0

12. fernsruben posted on 06 Jun 2012, 04:14 3 0

17. microsoftnokiawin posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:42 3 0

3. Bluesky02 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:03 3 1

4. charudutt posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:26 6 2

5. guildsa654 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:31 6 1

6. PhansMuneeb posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:40 1 1

7. mobilefuture posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:53 3 0

8. smartphone posted on 06 Jun 2012, 02:59 3 0

10. UnlimitedSkye03 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 03:27 2 1

11. loken posted on 06 Jun 2012, 04:03 2 0

13. jackhammeR posted on 06 Jun 2012, 04:54 3 0

14. steelicon posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:00 1 0

18. -RVM- posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:50 3 0

15. akr91 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:25 2 1

20. nishant posted on 06 Jun 2012, 08:51 3 1

24. QinEmpire posted on 06 Jun 2012, 11:39 3 0

16. Veigald posted on 06 Jun 2012, 05:37 2 1

19. jade272727 posted on 06 Jun 2012, 06:49 2 1

21. nishant posted on 06 Jun 2012, 08:53 3 0

22. thedarkside posted on 06 Jun 2012, 10:06 1 0

23. snowgator posted on 06 Jun 2012, 10:19 3 0

25. crysco posted on 06 Jun 2012, 15:58 1 0

26. andyboi_ph posted on 10 Jun 2012, 19:41 1 0

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