Nokia has announced is new Asha 501 globally from India which is one of the largest feature phones markets for Nokia.  The new phones use high quality build, strong materials, come with vibrant colour options, expandable memory, capacitive touch screen and high quality cameras. The Asha series get their name from Hindi word “Asha” which means hope, signifying the hope and aspiration from these affordable devices. The Asha series have up to 18% market share in their price segment. The Asha series phones also use Nokia Xpress browser compression technology to speed up browsing.

Nokia Asha 501 Video Review

Features And Specifications

Nokia Asha 501 comes loaded with a large 17 hours battery life, hot-swappable micro-SIM, hardened glass, Capacitive touch screen, Dual SIM,4GB card included, direct social options. Features include swipe features between different screens, Nokia Xpress cloud technology to make web browsing faster. It has been launched in 6 colour options  including red, yellow, white, green, blue and black.

The Fastlane technology of Asha offers two different home screen which is one for the social network, updates an notes and other one for Apps. Nokia also claims that the performance of the Asha 501 is one of its USPs. Nokia has SLAM sharing technology for sharing pictures and files which uses Bluetooth transfer with other Asha phones in the proximity with the SLAM feature. This is something parallel to BUMP on iPhone or s-beam on Samsung.

Talking about the software platform, the Asha 501 is based on Symbian S40 platform, which we though is out, but Nokia has given it a second life with the 501. Interestingly, Nokia is branding it as Asha platform.

Nokia Asha 501 offers 3.2 MP camera. The initial model of the Asha 501 is a 2G and EDGE enabled, but Nokia will follow up with newer models with 3G options.

Free Facebook On Nokia Asha In India

Nokia has also tied up with Operators and Facebook to offer Facebook for FREE on certain operator networks like Idea mobile using their Nokia Asha 501. This will give a good boost to the sales of Asha phones and also to operators.

Details Specs

• Dimensions: 99.2 x 58 x 12.1 mm; 98 grams
• Camera: 3.2 MP
• Single SIM standby time: up to 48 days
• Dual SIM standby time: up to 26 days
• Talk time: up to 17 hours
• Additional memory of 4GB (card included in box), expandable up to 32GB
• Forty free EA Games downloadable from Nokia Store
• Available colours: Bright Red, Bright Green, Cyan, Yellow, White and Black

Developing story.

Pricing And Availability

Nokia Asha 501 will be available in June 2013 and the pricing will be around Rs. 6000 or USD $99 for global markets.