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Microsoft/Nokia
Nineteen euros won’t buy you much in this day and age, but it will buy you a no-frills Nokia phone. The Nokia 130 is an old-school mobile phone at an old-school price for developing markets, with basic smartphone features like music and video in a phone that will last over a month before it needs juicing up.
This new phone is one of the first to be announced since Microsoft bought the phone-manufacturing part of Finnish company Nokia — and, per Microsoft’s plans to ditch the brand, perhaps one of the last phones to have Nokia written on it. Before the brand disappears, however, Microsoft will use the Nokia name as a trojan horse to build up Windows Phone in regions where the smartphone market is still in its relative infancy. Although the 130 isn’t a Windows Phone, it is an opportunity for Microsoft to build on Nokia’s popularity to corner more of the budget end of the market in these regions.
Microsoft says the Nokia 130 will go on sale in selected countries, including China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Exact release dates are yet to be confirmed, but it will be “this quarter” — so between now and September. Both the single and dual-SIM models will cost the equivalent of 19 euros (about £15, $25, or AU$28) when bought unlocked and SIM-free. Nokia traditionally gives its prices in euros, and it looks like Microsoft is continuing that policy for the moment.
It’s a candy bar phone with a 1.8-inch colour screen above an old-fashioned nine-button keypad, with soft keys in the middle. The 130 comes encased in white, black or red.
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Basic it may be, but there’s still a few features that you’d find on a more powerful smartphone, including music and video. Powered by Series 30+ software, the 130 has a microSD slot for up to 32GB of MP3s or video. It has an FM radio built in-too.
The battery lasts 36 days on standby, an impressive amount when most smartphones won’t last 36 hours.
As with many of Nokia’s cheaper phones, there are two versions: a single-SIM version and a model that holds two SIM cards.
Dual-SIM phones are useful for anyone who wants to combine their work and personal numbers in one phone, or hand out different numbers to their significant others and their bits on the side. They’re popular in developing countries but less so in mature markets such as the UK and US.
