Nokia outs budget phone pair
Two-Sim simple handset
Nokia has unwrapped a couple of budget phones this morning, pitching the 110 and 112 as internet devices despite their - by modern standards - tiny 1.8in, 128 x 160 screens.
The two dual-band handsets can take two Sims, mind, handy for mixing business and pleasure.
New Nokias: 110 (left) and 112
There's a variant of the 110, called the 111, which has but one Sim slot. However, it's a quad-bander, so it'd be my choice out of the three for a cheap voice phone. Or would be if I hadn't just bought a Nokia C1-02 to replace my now-abandoned smartphone.
Other specs include a 0.3Mp camera, FM radio and a Micro SD slot for storage - cards of up to 32GB capacity are supported.
The 112 is fractionally bigger and heavier than the 110, but there's not a lot in it. The 112's advantages over the 110? A slightly bigger battery - for 14 hours' talk time to the 110's 10.5 hours - and the inclusion of eBuddy instant messaging software.
The 110 and 111 will retail for around €35 (£28), while the 112 will cost €38 (£30). It'll be out in Q3; the 110 and 111 will be out later this quarter. ®
COMMENTS
"a gap where nobody actually lives."
Or how about a gap where over three quarters of the Earth's population lives?
Take away the operators' subsidies, and the cheapest "Budget Android Job" is four times the price of either of these handsets, and has poor talk time, questionable build quality, and very likely no Dual-SIM support. And four times that €35 price is a lot of money in a country where you can get a decent meal for €2.00.
This is primarily a voice phone, but with added internet connectivity and instant messaging support. No 3G because there's limited 3G infrastructure in the places these will be bought.
There is a niche for these in markets like Western Europe too: there's a small but significant minority of customers who want a purely voice-call phone, or just something they can rely on to still be working even after a week of use. Also, there are people, even in "rich" nations, who cannot afford three-figure sums for a phone. They mightn't hang around in your local Starbucks (and this is one of the Starbucks USPs, but not one they explicitly mention), but they're out there.
Re: "a gap where nobody actually lives."
You're still coming at this from a European perspective: assuming that people are buying what you see as a "cheap" phone because they don't want access to the web, Facebook or IM service. That's not where these will sell. (Although watch out for them in Tesco, who do a nice trade in cheap unlocked handsets). Phones like these two are offering access to the net for people who's budget did not stretch to that before.
An example of where this is aimed: India. This new Nokia 112 costs, before tax and subsidy, the equivalent of five or six meals for two in a casual-dining restaurant. In UK terms, that puts it at the equivalent of £200. Do the same sums with the price of an iPhone or high-end Android (around €450 before tax and subsidy), and see where it lies in the market.
The press launch for these two phones was in Pakistan -- not London, Berlin, San Francisco or Helsinki. That should give you an idea of the markets they're aiming for.
Re: No flip-phones!
Motorola should never have stopped making the V3. Upgrade the hardware as tech improves, keep the form factor, and they'd rake it in.
No flip-phones!
Nobody makes a nice flip phone any more! The last Nokia one was years ago.
Keylocks just don't work in handbags.
Re: Great, I'm sure they'll sell quite a few in India etc.
They still make more on these phones, at this price, than anyone except HTC and Samsung are making from Android.
"platforms Nokia doesn't want to sell but people would rather buy"
Statistically speaking, nobody wants to buy Symbian phones. I say that as an owner of an N8, who is actively considering an 808 PureView as my next phone, but the fact remains that "Symbian" is now synonymous with "Shit" in the mind of anyone who reads a lot of tech blogs, and that's a good description of the sales-guys in Craphone Warehouse or Phones4U or in the operator stores, or the "pet nerd" people ask about these things. This reputation might not be true anymore, but reputations, both good and bad, hang around longer than the truth behind them.
