Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Unveils Nokia 215, a $29 Phone With Internet Access
An anonymous reader sends word of the Nokia 215, Microsoft's $29 internet-ready phone. "Smartphones may be more affordable than ever, but, for quite a few people, they are still too expensive. And they offer short battery life, pretty much across the board. It is not a winning combination, especially for those living in developing markets, looking to be connected to the Internet while on the go. Enter Nokia 215, a dirt-cheap Internet-ready phone, which Microsoft announced earlier today. It packs some of the most-important features people want in a smartphone, but without any of the major drawbacks. The software giant calls it its "most affordable Internet-ready entry-level phone yet", costing just $29."
But I find this pretty awesome.
Here is what else you should know about Nokia 215. It has a 2.4-inch display, 0.3 MP camera on the back (which can shoot video), 8 MB of RAM (that is not a typo)
Well that's one way to keep Android from being ported to it...
I don't want one any more, but was a time when this would have been right up my alley. I use my phone for a lot of browsing these days, so it's right out. But a lot of people have been asking for a phone exactly like this; it has the uSD slot so it can be used as an MP3 player, which is where most cheap phones fail.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't get "smartphones are too expensive." Fifteen years ago people paid $1,000 or more out of pocket just to connect a desktop to the Internet. Today, you can buy a new Android smartphone for $50-60 or 8" Android tablet for the same money. Even if you pay the Apple tax, you're still paying just half what you had to ten years ago to get an ultra-portable, Internet-enabled device.
Furthermore, phone plans with plenty of (non-video, non-streaming) Internet access can be found for something like $25/month from places like Virgin Mobile. (I just moved my wife and kids to one of their shared plans...still only pay about $40 a month for all of them.) If you want more, you still can probably get all the bandwidth you need for less than $100/month. (Again, cheap for those of us who remember agonizing over corporate T1 lines.)
Unless the Nokia 215 is aiming to be the next Obamaphone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio)...what exactly is the point of this?
It's a Slashvertisement. A $30 phone isn't newsworthy, let alone a $30 "enhanced" feature phone.
It runs Series 30 software which isn't Windows and is limited in capability. So technically while it may have Internet, it may not have many apps. So it's not a replacement for a smartphone for many people.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Looks like their last cheap phone for kids, with a layout change.
In what way does it look like the Kin? It doesn't have the same form factor (QWERTY keyboard vs traditional Nokia-style). It doesn't use the same software user interface. It doesn't have the same features (eg. 8MP camera on the Kin vs 0.3MP on this new phone, 256MB RAM vs 8MB, etc). The Kin used a proprietary browser labelled IEMobile, while this phone uses Opera Mini. The operating system on the Kin was based on Windows CE, while this phone uses Nokia's System 30.
The Kin was marketed specifically as a wanky social-media platform, while this phone is really just a traditional feature phone like Nokia has made for years. It is certainly nothing new, nor does it have anything particularly Microsoft about it as Nokia have made feature phones with web browsers since before smartphones were invented. And it doesn't deserve being splashed on the front page of Slashdot.
Slashvertisements are articles that may actually target slashdot's userbase. How would this phone do that on anything more than a marginal level?
Exactly. The $10 Samsung that I got as a temporary phone at Best Buy has a built in browser and runs the old Java apps. Whoopdeedoo, welcome to 2004. The extra $19 does appear to buy you a crappy camera and external storage - so I guess there is that.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It's a $30 phone without any subsidies and you're bitching that it lacks fancy features? You do realize that there are lots of people who don't actually need maps/navigation on their phone right? Hell I have a current generation iPhone and I very rarely use it for navigation since my car has a GPS built in.
There is a very sizeable market for basic phones with basic features at a low price. Nokia has been serving this market successfully for many years now.
It's worthless without a data plan, which I haven't seen any mention of.
Why would it be worthless? It would still work as a phone, camera and MP3 player. Obviously, the web browser wouldn't work. If you don't have a data plan you could save money by buying a phone without a web browser at all - except that you really aren't going to find one much cheaper than $29.
And hearing it's likely 2g makes it nearly useless for most people.
Well, yes. This is a phone made for countries that still use 2G. There are still some countries where 2G is the only choice. Just because it is not the choice for your neck-of-the-woods doesn't mean that they should not make the phone.