I
remember when mobile phones used to be simple little devices that we
would just use to make phone calls and send the occasional text message.
Now our phones talk to us, give us directions, keep track of our
appointments, and feed us a constant stream of information. After all,
who wants a phone that does anything less? Well, Nokia seems to think
that there’s a market for people who want simpler, affordable phones
that do a bit more than just phone calls. While the company has been
going on about its new Lumia range, it’s found time to also launch the
Asha range of smartphones, with the Asha 311 being the latest.
Build quality amp; design
The
Nokia Asha 311 at first glance looks almost enticing, but after the
initial curiosity wears off, you’ll find that it’s a pretty ordinary
looking phone, build mostly of very glossy plastic. It does however come
in a few different colors, mine being in the ‘Rose Red’ option. Despite
being built of plastic, the phone has a bit of weight to it and
certainly feels like it could take a few knocks – at least most of my
Nokia phones have gone through various stages of abuse and lived to tell
the tale, long before screen-protectors and phone cases came about.
The
front of the phone has just two buttons, which you’ll use for placing
or disconnecting a call. The button to disconnect calls also functions
as a ‘back’ button when you’re navigating through the phone, which is
quite nifty. On the right side of the phone you’ll find a lock button
and volume rocker, while at the top you have a headphone jack, micro-USB
port, and a small socket for a power connector. Nokia have kept the
number of buttons down to a minimum, and given the small size of this
phone, that’s worked out in their favor.
Specifications
Nokia have
designed the Asha 311 to be an affordable handset, and as such it won’t
be packing a lot of hardware under the hood. The specs are enough to
run the phone’s Series 40 OS, but you’ll see some apps lag slightly when
using them.
Performance, UI and Apps
I have to admit that when
I first started using the Asha 311, I was not too impressed by its
speed compared to other phones that I’ve recently tested. But then I
took a step back and realized that I wasn’t the target market that this
phone was designed for. This phone is designed for anyone who’d like a
very basic phone that has a touchscreen, and has a few apps or features
that would stand it apart from other entry-level phones. So it was only
fair that I had the phone tested by someone other than myself, or I
would be constantly comparing it to other phones that were more
powerful. I handed the phone over to a family friend who’s never used a
touchscreen phone in her life. After inserting her SIM card and teaching
her a few basic functions of the phone, she was able to swipe around
confidently to get to the dialer, and was even able to operate the
camera and music apps to her delight. For her, it was an incredible step
up from the clunky phone she was currently using, and its bright
display, minimal buttons, and large text made navigating around the
phone very easy.
The UI for the Asha 311 is bright and simplistic –
the main screen lists all of the installed apps and icons for the
various features of the phone, such as contacts, camera, music, etc. The
phone comes preloaded with a few games as well as social apps for
Twitter and Facebook, and you can download more games and apps from the
included store. While most of the games are sadly Java-based, they are
perfect for the phone’s hardware. You can also quickly assign some apps
as your favorites, so they’re quickly accessible from the main screen by
simply swiping to the right. You also have a pull-down notification
bar, similar to what’s seen in Android and iOS, where you can quickly
turn off Wifi or Bluetooth, or also access shortcuts to music, phone,
and SMS.
The web browser however needs serious work – even after
downloading an update the browser was hard to use. You only have two
zoom levels, which makes reading sites quite hard. Of course there’s no
flash support which is a good thing, as that would probably bring the
phone down to a crawl. When zoomed in you can read text fairly clearly,
but a lot of sites (including ours) showed up with alignment issues or
pictures taking a long time to load. Another app that was a bit of a
disappointment was the Maps application – this is usually a strong suit
for Nokia, but since this phone doesn’t have GPS it’s unable to
triangulate destinations accurately.
Screen and Camera
The 3 inch
240x400 screen isn’t much at first, but it’s bright enough to be used
outdoors, which is something a lot of smartphones often fail at.
Pictures and video show up with slightly washed out colors, but it’s
hard to critique this given the 155 ppi pixel density. As it’s a TFT
capacitive screen it’s not as responsive at times (especially when
you’re trying to play Angry Birds), but for navigating around the phone
and launching apps the screen works well.
The camera sadly is just
3.15 megapixels, and fills in a lot of noise when taking photos. It’s
also got a fixed focus, so you’ll need to fiddle around a bit when
taking photos to ensure that everything is in focus. There is a ‘pro’
mode where you can adjust the lighting and exposure, but given there’s
no flash provided you’re going to have a challenging time taking
half-decent photos with this thing. I think if Nokia had at least
included an LED flash, that would have made some of the photos at least a
bit better.
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Sound amp; Call Quality
The
sound quality on the Asha 311 is decent; when listening to music on the
loudspeaker (as some people often love to do when in public) tunes were
quite loud, though at times a bit shrill because of the average
speaker. But for such a tiny device, I was pleasantly surprised by how
loud I could crank the volume up to. Call quality was also very good,
with callers sounding clear on the phone without any interruption or
noise.
Battery life on the Asha 311 was great, with the phone only
dying out after nearly two days of use – this was with Wi-fi always on,
and plenty of phone calls. Obviously if you listen to music or play a
lot of games, this may drop the battery life a bit, but you can still
get a full day’s use out of the Asha 311 before you need to charge it.
Conclusion
So
what exactly have Nokia got on their hands with the Asha 311? Well as
said before, it’s a phone for anyone who’s not quite ready to splurge on
a smartphone, but still would like a touchscreen phone that can pull
off a few tricks. For its low price point, the Asha 311 will certainly
get the job done as a lightweight touch-enabled phone that doesn’t
necessarily pack too many features, but can still be a smart purchase.
