NOKIA ASHA 308 REVIEW

Price     Rs. 5,680

 Typical Asha Nokia’s budget range continues to go strong.

The Lumia range might be grabbing the headlines, but Nokia’s Asha series has been making cash registers ring at the sales counters across India. And the company is in no mood to rest on the laurels earned by this series, as can be seen from its constant expansion. The Asha 308 is the newest member of this family.

PROS

• Dual SIM functionality
• Good touchscreen response

CONS

• No Wi-Fi or 3G
•  Limited internal memory

LOOKS: ‘ASHA’ STYLE

Be it an entry level device or a smartphone, one thing that remains standard in a Nokia phone is its style and design, which generally exudes quality and concurrence with international standards. Nokia Asha 308 delivers on these fronts. The phone may not be the slimmest, but is comfortable to hold and at 104 grammes, is pretty light. The front panel is dominated by the 3.0-inch display and below the screen are two physical keys for calling and call end/power. At first glance you may think that the screen is a bit small but the phone itself is very easy on the eye.

HARDWARE: NOT BAD AT ALL FOR THE PRICE

The Asha 308 is is slightly underpowered if compared to the Asha 311 when it comes to the processor, but its touchscreen’s response can even compete with a high-end smartphone. On the memory front the Asha 308 comes with 20MB internal memory (expandable to 32GB using a microSD card) with 64MB RAM. The microSD card is hot swappable i.e. one can change it without switching off the device. The device comes with dual SIM (GSM+GSM) support - while one SIM goes under the battery the other SIM is hot swappable. On the connectivity front it comes with Bluetooth, GPRS, EDGE and GPS.

SOFTWARE: GET (S) FORTY!

The Nokia Asha 308 is a Symbian Series 40 device, and sports a interface similar to that of other Asha devices. The interface of the phone is plain vanilla and easy to use. There are three homescreens given with the central one being the hub to all the icons. Swiping the screen to the right reveals a screen with all the pre-loaded apps arranged in a matrix, and swiping to the left navigates to the dialler. One can customize all three screens as per one’s convenience. There is also a notification drop down panel given on the top of the screen, which can be used to access shortcut keys to Bluetooth, music player and data connection.

MULTIMEDIA: ENTERTAINMENT ENCORE

The Asha 308 has a 2.0-megapixel camera, FM Radio and music player. The camera takes good pictures in well lit conditions, but video quality is just about acceptable. Music, however, is the forte of the Asha series and the 308 does not disappoint in this department. The device comes with unlimited downloads from the Nokia Music store for a year, and downloading is smooth as the songs come compressed and occupy minimum onboard memory. You can also download 40 free EA games straight to your phone and fire up the fun when you are on the go. Also on board are Nokia Maps for navigation. Browsing the Web on the device was a pleasant experience. The FM Radio reception was very good as well, catching stations even in low signal regions.

USER EXPERIENCE: WE ARE SATISFIED

The Nokia Asha 308 is definitely a very good phone at its price point. The touchscreen and music experience is excellent and even our Internet experience was decent, notwithstanding the absence of Wi-Fi and 3G.

NOKIA ASHA 308 REVIEW RATING

The Asha 308 is a value for money device for those looking to enjoy the affordable Symbian experience. It is available for Rs. 5,680. As an alternative, one can go for Nokia’s own Asha 311 which comes with a 1 GHz processor and is available at Rs.6,150.

Looks

8

Features

8

Ease of Use

8

Performance

8

Value for Money

9

82 %