This looks fantastic. Keep in mind that this phone is designed for the worlds poor-- people who can barely afford enough prepaid airtime to send a text message. Nokia and WhatsApp are bringing technology to an underserved market that have the most to benefit from it. They are achieving what OLPC couldn't.<p>Now, I only wish this phone had a flashlight.
Series 40 was one of the best operating systems built by Nokia. Unlike the Series 60/Symbian series, these Nokia phones are snappy and do not slow down with time.<p>These feature phones were quite capable for basic phone features, but never evolved to the Facebook era. This effectively led to the mass adoption of touch screen based phone. If Nokia has solved the social app problem with this phone, I think they have a winner.
I think it's great that you can get a cheap phone with good functionality.<p>What I don't think is great is tying your phone to WhatsApp. It's great that it runs WhatsApp, but what happens when something new and better comes along? All of a sudden your phone doesn't look so hot and the button is a constant reminder that it's physically tied to an old app.<p>I would be much more interested in a simple cheap phone that provided an accessible button that allowed you to customize what it loaded. That way you could link it to WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever app you use the most.
Here's what I want in a phone:<p><pre><code> – Ability to place calls
– Ability to text
– Whatsapp
– Google Maps
– The ability to remove all other applications from the phone, including the browser.
</code></pre>
If I can do that, then great. I'm a college student. I have an iPhone 3GS that is slowly dying with a 14 EUR (~18 USD) p/m plan. If I can just buy this thing cheap, then I'll stick to the dataplan I already have.<p>What OS does this phone use? I couldn't find that information.
Perhaps other "non-first first-world" (Russia?, Spain?) HN readers can help me, but it seems to me that Nokia has got the pulse of markets like India, Africa, et al very well mapped. I can definitely see phones like these gracing people's pockets soon in places like India. Plus value for money is a big thing, in such markets over features or other riff-raffs. While colour preference is a highly personal thing, those colours are definitely going to be popular in India or Africa...
I'm glad some manufacturers aren't jumping into the "big screen" and "minimal buttons" trend. Now if we could just remove the "social networking" trend. Understandably, a phone is considered a social device but there's calling someone and then there's tweeting/facebooking (is this the common verb now?). Will we start seeing physical buttons on laptops for facebook or twitter?
While Asha phones are very well designed, they are fighting a losing battle. In the developing world, your phone is your internet access. Choosing between an Asha and an Android is going to be a hopeless proposition for the Asha. Dozens of Chinese OEMs are making Android phones for India and Africa, some of which cost less than $100. Rockchip, Mediatek and other chip makers are pushing the price down as fast as they can on Android-ready chipsets.
Looks amazing for $72, there's a huge market for this, even in US. I see dirt broke people paying $200/month for iPhones and data plans when this would do them just fine.<p>On another note: You can love /hate them for Android vs Windows Phone or patent lawsuits, but Nokia is legendary. Their phones never freaking die. Nokia would be my first choice for a phone that just works. (I don't "live on the cloud" and can do just fine by checking FB once or so a day so maybe I'm different)