Nokia debuts four cheapo phones
Nice second phone for rich, great first phones for the poor
Yesterday we reported Nokia’s launch of a bike-powered phone charger. A marvellous concept, Nokia’s announcement grabbed headlines everywhere.
Rather more important to the company’s fortunes was the news, released at the same time, of four cheap phones – the sort that people in rich countries buy for their pre-teen kids – and the sort that people in the developing world buy in the tens of millions.
The new C1 and C2 phones cost between €30 and €45 before tax and cellco subsidies – and include Nokia’s first dual-sim phones. These are good for travelling abroad and as Nokia points outs, help with "sharing a phone within a family and still use their own SIM”.
Nokia C1 phones have a battery life of – get this – up to six weeks – and they include a standard flashlight, colour screen, FM radio and standard headphone jack. A good phone for camping then, as well as for the rural poor.
The C1-1-01 and C1-02 single SIM phones feature web browsing over GPRS and in the C1-01 case a built-in VGA camera. The C2 offers – “where available” - access to Nokia’s Ovi apps range and Ovi Mail – described by Nokia as “the email account for the developing world”.
Pricing and ship dates
- Nokia C1-00 (dual SIM) - €30 ships Q3 2010
- Nokia C1-02 €35 - ships early Q4
- Nokia C1-01 €39 - ships towards end Q4
- Nokia C2-00 (dual SIM) €45 ships towards end Q4
COMMENTS
My perfect phone
Looks like it's the perfect phone for me! My entire feature list that I look for when buying a new mobile is:
- is it a phone
I don't want to play music, take pictures, blue tooth porn to my mates or play games. I just want a phone. And then my deciding criteria are: is it small enough to fit in my pocket and which one has the longest battery life so I don't have to keep fannying around with chargers. Six weeks? That's the phone for me!
@AC 09:51 GMT
The phone is aimed at a specific market and will sell millions. No point having both sims activated at once, how would u handle 2 calls at once ??. 8 year olds dont care what make is on a phone. In fact no one with any sense does. U paid 500 quid for a N97 ?, shows what a muppet u are then.
..oh and another thing....
I'd also like to appologise for sounding so rabidly anti-Nokia. I was posting from a Mac and had forgotten to disable the reality distortion field.
@ AC post#1
Dual sim Nokia for 45 fecking euros before subsidies and you still complain, sweet bejesus - i'm surprised you haven't complained that it doesn't have a 12mp camera as well.
@AC 1 and 2
Boo bloody hoo! What exactly do you expect, an iPhone?
It costs €30!
"sharing a phone within a family and still use their own SIM”
Seems like a pretty good reason to have them running separately. You don't want the teenager to use your SIM. You want them using the one they pay for.
Also, since when did Nokia become a 'budget brand'? Sure, they're not Apple, but neither are they one of those tiny companies that produce nothing but Argos-fodder.
No, I'm not a Nokia fanboy. I haven't bought a Nokia since the 3310.
