Month: March 2013

  • Nokia Asha 311 Review

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    Welcome to the 2013 Nokia Asha 311 mobile phone review. The Nokia Asha 311 was released in 2012 and comes with the latest version of S40 Nokia OS. It's one of the most fully featured regular mobile phone you can buy at the moment. It's not a 'smart phone' but something that sits in-between the basic ones with a regular keypad. The 311 is one of the cheapest touch screen mobile phones priced around $129 at the time this was posted. The build quality of the Asha 311 is is good but its not exactly premium with a shiny  plastic rear panel. The screen is quite responsive and looks pretty good for the price and no complaints.  The bonus of having Wi-Fi makes life a little cheaper too assuming you wouldn't be getting a decent data plan at this price point. In terms of use and compared with the cheapest Android phones for the same price the Asha 311 is our choice. It's fast by comparison and does virtually everything you need. Mind you it is better at notifications for all your social networks like Facebook and Twitter rather than inputting which really requires a bigger screen to be faster. However for talk and text it works perfectly and reliability without any lags. The free 40 EA games are a nice bonus too. In the end the Asha 311 is a good cheap mobile phone. It is better than the 308 version without the dual SIM functionality. The 311 is also better than the cheapest Android phones at this price point as we have yet to find one comparably priced that works without significant lags. It may not have GPS or a proper web browser but the basics are full covered and if that is all you need than its a great little phone. Specifications
    • Nokia Asha 301
    • Network Quad-band GSM 900/1900 and 850/1800 Penta-band 3G 850/900/1700/1900/2100 Mini-SIM
    • Design Touch screen
    • L106 x W52 x D13 mm Weight 95 grams
    • Display/s 3 inch TFT 240 x 320
    • Camera 3.2MP
    • Video Camera 640 x 480 pixel video camera 25FPS
    • Connectivity Wi-Fi Bluetooth V2.1 Micro-USB
    • CPU 1Ghz
    • Memory Up to 100MB available to user MicroSD up to 32Gig
    • Ring tones MIDI, MP3, Video, vibration and others
    • Features Accelerometer/Pr0ximeter/Ambient Light senors JAVA Apps Inc. Angry Birds Music and Media player Organiser/Calender SMS, MMS, IM, Email JAVA MIDP 2.0 FM radio with RDS Speaker Phone/Hands free 3.5mm AV/headset BL-4U 3.7V 1110mAh Up to 32 days Standby Up to 14 hours Talk Time
    • Price history Under $129 AUS early-2013 (Outright)

  • Nokia Asha 308 review

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    Welcome to the Nokia Asha 308 phone review. The Nokia Asha 308 was released in late 2012 and comes with the latest version of S40 Nokia OS. The claim to fame for the Asha 308 is that it is one of the more powerful a dual SIM phones yet priced very reasonably. The Asha 308 retails for around $120 if you can still buy one since dual SIM phone are niche models in this market. The Asha 308 is essentially an upgrade for the C2-03, besides being a dual-SIM phone it is also a pure touch screen model. The dual SIM setup also allows for live swapping of SIM cards without turn off.  Like its predecessor the 308 is missing features specifically 3G capability which means this is mainly a mobile phone for talk and text although it can do emails.... If you want 3G and Wi-Fi you have to go for the Asha 311 model which is a mere $9 more. But you can't have the dual SIM. In terms of construction the 308 is put together really well but the materials are for durability rather than 'luxury'. The gold version looks quite good and not too tacky for a cheap phone. Nothing to complain about or commend thanks to the low outright handset price. On terms of use, bearing in mind it's cheapness is very good. There's a camera and phone FM radio touch screen and so forth, 10 years ago this would be top of heap... It's very easy to use and quite responsive ... We don't have much more to say since we all have seen it before, Nokia's efficient but old S40 interface. We can see where the Apple iPhone copied its simplicity from. Mind you higher screen resolution or nicer icons would have been nice. In the end the Asha 208 is a decent low end dual SIM mobile phone that works. If this was the sort of phone we where after and on a budget then this would definitely be on the final list. Specifications
    • Nokia Asha 308
    • Network Quad-band GSM 900/1900 and 850/1800 Dual SIM
    • Design Touch screen
    • L110 x W54 x D13 mm Weight 104 grams
    • Display/s 2.4 inch TFT 240 x 320
    • Camera 2MP
    • Video Camera 176 x 144 pixel main video camera 8FPS
    • Connectivity Bluetooth V3 Micro-USB
    • CPU xxxMhz
    • Memory Up to 10MB available to user MicroSD up to 32Gig
    • Ring tones MIDI, MP3, Video, vibration and others
    • Features JAVA Apps Music and Media player Organiser/Calender SMS, MMS, IM, Email JAVA MIDP 2.0 FM radio with RDS Speaker Phone/Hands free 3.5mm AV/headset BL-4U 3.7V 1110mAh Up to 21 days Standby Up to 6 hours Talk Time
    • Price history Under $120 AUS early-2013 (Outright)