Nokia Asha 501 Review

Right up until Android smartphones arrived, Nokia was one of the most desired brands for mobile phones in our country. Choosing to distance themselves from Android, they stuck with their Symbian operating system and worked simultaneously on the Meego platform. When that didnt pan out as planned  they left it and adopted Windows Phone as the main operating system for most of their flagship devices. This proved to be a good move as is evident with the success of their Lumia series. Nokia, though, hasn't forgotten about those who are on a tight budget and has kept the Asha series alive, giving it a facelift to now look like the flagship Lumias. We have the Asha 501 for review today so lets see if it lives up to the value for money segment.

1 GHz processor with 64 MB RAM and 128 MB onboard storage

Design and build
The Asha 501 looks pretty similar to the Lumia series smartphones and has a rugged build with a very firm chassis. The phone looks like it has a unibody case, but actually the rear panel fits firmly and flushes well with the front panel. The looks are appealing—thanks to the all-black front panel and the bright and colorful exchangeable rear panel. The device is available in around six colors ranging from black, white, red, green, blue and yellow. The front panel is a capacitive touch panel with a scratch resistant coating. Towards the top lies the earpiece and the bottom features a single protruding physical back button. The rest of the controls are all included in the user interface itself and are swipe-based. The right side sports the power/standby button and the volume rocker which is pretty big in size and has good tactile feedback. The top features the micro USB PC interface, a headphone jack and a fine pin charger port. The micro USB port also supports charging so you don’t need to tag along your travel charger.

Moving on, the rear panel sports the main camera, but there is no flash to support night shots. Towards the bottom (on the rear panel) is a small nub that rests on the speaker. Pushing the nub downwards releases the phone from the rear panel under which lies the battery compartment  and a one micro SIM slot. Towards the right are two slots—one for the micro SD memory card and the other for the second micro SIM module. The two are hot-swappable which means you can keep the phone operational while replacing the respective cards.

The overall build quality of the Asha 501 looks pretty rugged with a matt-finished exterior for the rear panel to protect it from scratches and fingerprints. The phone is 99.2 mm tall, 58 mm wide, 12.1mm thick and just 91 g. Though tiny enough to fit your plam, the phone is pretty comfortable to use. Bundled along with the phone is a travel charger and a pair of headphones.

Features
The Asha 501 is a dual SIM GSM feature phone with GPRS and EDGE support for mobile Internet. Sadly, it does not feature 3G support, but that would be too much to expect on a phone with this price tag. The phone runs on the Nokia Asha software platform v1.0 with most features similar to the smartphone category. It sports a 3-inch capacitive TFT display with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and two-fingered multi-touch capability. The internal hardware comprises of a 1 GHz processor, 128 MB of storage and 64 MB of RAM. The 128 MB storage is basically for installing apps and user data needs to be stored on the SD card. Good enough, Nokia supplies a 4 GB micro SD card bundled with the product and you will find it already inserted into the slot, ready for use.

Connectivity options apart from GPRS and EDGE are Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth v3.0 with EDR and a micro USB 2.0 PC interface. The main camera has a 3.15 MP sensor with a video recording capability of QVGA @15 fps. Accelerometer and proximity sensors are included along with the quintessential FM radio. Lastly, the 501 is fuelled by a 1200 mAh battery, which is slated to give you a talk time of almost 17 hours and a whopping standby time of 624 hours which is almost a month (26 days).  

Display
Form Factor	Bar
Screen Type	TFT Capacitive Touchscreen
Screen Size	3.0 inches
Screen Resolution	240 x 320
Number of Colours	256K
Memory
Internal Memory	64MB
Extendable Memory	microSD, up to 32GB
Camera Features
Sensor Resolution	3.2MP, 2048 x 1536 pixels
Digital Zoom	3x
Video Recording	Yes
General Features
FM Radio	Yes
Bluetooth Features	Yes, v3.0
Dual Sim Support	Yes
Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, IM
USB Connector	Yes
Available Colours	Bright Red, Bright Green, Cyan, Yellow, White and Black
Carrier Networks
2G	GSM 900 / 1800
Data
GPRS	Yes
EGPRS or EDGE	EDGE
WiFi	802.11 b/g/n
Body
Dimensions	99.2 x 58 x 12.1 mm
Weight(grams)	98.2
Sound
Media Player	Music formats: MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC - Video formats: MP4, H.263, WMV
Alert Tone	Vibration, MP3
Speakerphone	Yes
Audio connector	3.5 mm
Battery
Type	Li-Ion
Capacity(mAh)	1200
Talk Time with Standard Battery (Minutes)	Up to 17 h
Standby Time with Standard Battery (Hours)	Up to 624 h
After Sales Service
Warranty Period	1 Year