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Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

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Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#61

Post by mcintyre1994 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #7
RyanZAG wrote: post #2

Hardly impressive - fairly pathetic really. Observe: http://androidandme.com/2013/04/smartphones-2/archos-reveals... http://www.androidforcheap.com/cell-phone-android-phone-c-58... http://www.pandawill.com/mobile-phone-c1/android-os-phone-c5... etc. Just Google around for tons more. Generally better in just about every way, and running a real OS that can run real apps.

Think of the difference between a namebrand and a white label. If you get a bland cheap Chinese android phone, everyone will know it and you'll lose face. An Asha is a bit more classier, well designed, higher quality, still very affordable.

Out of interest, how important is the view "everyone" has about your phone to you? I just don't see why you'd "lose face" over something like that.

Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#62

Post by dspillett »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #44
eliasmacpherson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Another big selling point of the Asha 501 is definitely represented by its battery life, as it has an astonishing 17 hours talk time and up to 48 days of standby" I challenge you to find something comparable on the sites you've linked in terms of battery life.

Is it really relevant in this day and age ? I can think of a very few cases (like, being lost in the Borneo jungle) where this would be actually useful in a normal environment. If you live someplace where you don't have easy access to a power outlet at least once per day, it's unlikely you will have support for the advanced features of a smartphone, and an older Nokia phone will work just as well ...

> Is it really relevant in this day and age ?

Yes. I find it quite inconvenient at times that my phone won't last two full days of normal standby/use cycles. There are times when it simply isn't convenient to charge the thing.

And these phones are aimed more at less affluent parts of the world, where access to power is not nearly as reliable as it is over here in the west - even those in cities with significant electricity distribution infrastructure often experience lengthy blackouts either due to under-production/over-subscription or due to failures within the grid.

Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#63

Post by ippisl »

moystard wrote: post #47
ippisl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RyanZAG also mentions an archos phone. Archos is definetly no a "a chinese no name android phone".

That's the exception in his list, but it does package the same hardware as the Chinese ones. Regarding the Archos 35 Carbon Spec (the only one under $100), I have never seen a single core processor running Android decently. Most of the time, it actually drains the battery because the processor is struggling to accomplish any task. Not saying Android is a bad OS, just saying that Android requires much more power than…

I'm dunno. My brother has a single core android, and it works fine.

Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#64

Post by Nux »

RyanZAG wrote: post #2

Hardly impressive - fairly pathetic really. Observe: http://androidandme.com/2013/04/smartphones-2/archos-reveals... http://www.androidforcheap.com/cell-phone-android-phone-c-58... http://www.pandawill.com/mobile-phone-c1/android-os-phone-c5... etc. Just Google around for tons more. Generally better in just about every way, and running a real OS that can run real apps.

How is that pathetic?

Looks like a nicely engineered _PHONE_ with dual sim capability and can also check your emails/web sites/etc. To top it off they come with a battery LIFE that puts the whole industry to shame!

I think you are greatly overestimating the power of "android smartphones"; especially the cheap Chinese stuff. The hype is impressive.

Many people just want a _reliable_ phone they don't need to worry about charging every 12 hours. After having used a "smart phone" for 6 months I'm back to my cheap 4 years old Nokia phone: makes calls, receives calls, needs charging once a week (also does radio and flashlight, how cool is that!).

Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#65

Post by feintruled »

RaduTyrsina wrote: post #52
ultimoo wrote: post #32

This "used-car salesman" undertone, wordily mulling over the same points, and over the top praise are very typical of most Indian magazines and newspapers even. I'm not trying to be nasty here, even I am Indian and not a native speaker of English. I just find this style of writing very amusing and can recognize it anywhere. :-) EDIT: I was wrong about 'recognizing it anywhere', this article isn't from an Indian publi…

It is, but I don't get your point. Though the writer is from Romania

By "the writer", you mean yourself, right? I think the GP is just pointing out how unusual in style such articles are compared to, say, US tech websites. I very much doubt you'd see a sentence like "There are many things that might steal your heart away at this device" there.

A more cynical man than I might label it a gushing puff piece garnered by some expenses paid Nokia PR event, GP points out cultural differences that might belay such an accusation.

Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#66

Post by Maxious »

Alterlife wrote: post #43

If by "free access to facebook" they mean no data charge for facebook access for the lifetime of the phone, I wouldn't be surprised by this being a hit with the college crowd... especially if the camera is decent.

A lot of carriers provide "free" access no matter what phone you have https://www.facebook.com/blog/blog.php?post=391295167130

The catch is the videos/photos are not free, nor are the links to other websites of course.

Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#67

Post by Zigurd »

moystard wrote: post #15
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not running Symbian. From the article: > Nokia Asha 501 represents the first fruit after Nokia bought Smarterphone, back in November 2012. And maybe thanks to the Smarterphone software, Nokia has managed to pack so much inside a tiny, 3inch touchscreen device. As for the iOcean, I can't find a review about it anywhere on the web in English. Kind of risky.

Indeed, it is running on a modified version of the S40 platform.

That's correct. That means the "app" runtime on Asha is J2ME plus some Nokia-specific classes. Only pre-installed software can access the S40 OS directly.

That's not competitive with Android, Sailfish, or Firefox OS, all of which are already or will soon be in comparably priced devices in the developing world markets.

Nokia should have kept Meego and/or Meltemi to remain competitive in this segment. They also could have sold Android alongside Windows Phone, as other OEMs do.

Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#68

Post by Zigurd »

pavlov wrote: post #58
anonymous wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK there's no freely available SDK for S40 phones, which limits the number of available applications to only what Nokia deem in their interest to make.

Certainly there is a S40 SDK. It's been around for a decade -- the S40 phones have always been programmable with Java ME and many Nokia extensions. As of this new device, the S40 SDK has been renamed as the "Asha software platform": "The new Nokia Asha software platform builds on the success of the Series 40 Developer Platform, to deliver consumers globally the power of a smartphone in an affordable, pocketable form…

That's technically correct, but J2ME, even on Asha, is limited in capability and capacity: 2MB jar size and 4MB heap size, and without the rich component lifecycle that enables Android software to fit in small-ish heap limits. There is also no background processing, and no concept of middleware components like bound services.

If you are a close partner of Nokia, you can get an SDK to create code that accesses S40 OS directly, but that's much like coding on a feature-phone's RTOS, and only for creating pre-loaded software.

Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#69

Post by Zigurd »

moystard wrote: post #47
ippisl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RyanZAG also mentions an archos phone. Archos is definetly no a "a chinese no name android phone".

That's the exception in his list, but it does package the same hardware as the Chinese ones. Regarding the Archos 35 Carbon Spec (the only one under $100), I have never seen a single core processor running Android decently. Most of the time, it actually drains the battery because the processor is struggling to accomplish any task. Not saying Android is a bad OS, just saying that Android requires much more power than…

Had Nokia kept Meego they would not be in the pickle they are in. Asha sales fell sharply in the previous quarterly report. S40 is not a competitive OS. Meego devices would have multiprocessing and Qt-based apps.

While some customers prioritize industrial design, battery life, and UI responsiveness, the success of Android phones among low-cost Chinese OEMs indicates they think some customers want capabilities before a nice physical package.

Re: Nokia Asha 501: Impressive Low-end Touchscreen Phone for $99

#70

Post by claudius »

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #50
Kurtz79 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really relevant in this day and age ? I can think of a very few cases (like, being lost in the Borneo jungle) where this would be actually useful in a normal environment. If you live someplace where you don't have easy access to a power outlet at least once per day, it's unlikely you will have support for the advanced features of a smartphone, and an older Nokia phone will work just as well ...

Short battery life would be more acceptable if they all charged from usb, but they don't. Festivals, staying out of home for days at a time, holidays - times when you really need a phone, are easier with long battery life. Don't know why people accept it.

Which phones don’t charge via USB, apart from the weird idea Apple has of a standard to require an extra cable?
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