Nokia unveils five dirt-cheap phones

by Stevie Smith - Nov 4 2009, 16:00

Looking for a new mobile phone to replace your old house brick and improve your street image without breaking the bank? Allow Nokia to tease your recession-choked purse strings with not one, not two, but five stylish new handsets that offer basic functionality at similarly basic prices.

While calling them stylish is perhaps a stretch on The Tech Herald’s part, the Nokia 1280, Nokia 1616, Nokia 1800, Nokia 2220 slide and Nokia 2690 certainly qualify when it comes to being perfectly suited for the more pennywise consumer.

Priced as €20 Euros, €24 Euros and €26 Euros respectively, the first three of those phones comes with a modest display screen, support for FM radio, a prepaid tracker, a flashlight, an anti-scratch cover, a dust-resistant keymat, and up to 22 days of standby time. A lack of cutting-edge features, you may say. Yes, but then you generally get what you pay for.

Sporting slightly more elevated prices of €45 Euros and €54 Euros, the Nokia 2220 slide and Nokia 2690 come equipped with more modern aesthetics, e-mail support through Nokia’s Ovi Mail service, an FM Radio, a modest VGA camera, GPRS, MMS, Bluetooth, and respective standby times of 20 days and 13 days.

Although the first of these phones will be available globally before the close of 2009 – the rest in the first half of 2010 – it’s worth noting that their distinctly form-over-function design has been primarily created for less affluent buyers in emerging markets.

Prices listed here are without the addition of taxes and subsidies.

Around the Web