Nokia expands range of Asha Touch devices
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 Nokia Asha 311with 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".
Nokia Asha 305The 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 Nokia Asha 306all 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.
