Although the feature phone market is shrinking globally, it still generates considerable chunk of revenues and market share for Nokia – especially in developing markets like India. Also, with the low cost Android smartphones on the boundaries of the feature phone price segment, Nokia would have been well advised to fortify what has been traditionally its forte.
The Nokia Asha 305 is a budget feature phone, which gives you both dual SIM and multi touch enabled full touch screen capacilities along with a refreshed S40 UI at perhaps one of the lowest price points in the Indian market.
We decided to check out what the Asha 305 has to offer and if it stands any chance against low cost Android devices waiting to flood the market.
In the box:
- Asha 305 handset
- 2GB microSD included
- Earphones
- Charger
- Manuals
Specifications:
- 3 inch resistive screen
- Dual SIM standby (GSM+GSM)
- 2MP Camera
- Internal Memory 10MB, Expandable to 32GB
- 32MB RAM
- EDGE, Bluetooth
Build & Design:
The Asha 305 has a plastic body which is cut around the glossy edges giving it a decent look. The plastic doesn’t look very cheap and the finishing is decent for a budget device. At 98 grams, it is pretty light, fits nicely in the hand and is comfortable to grip as well.
Let’s delve deeper in to the design, the front of the device sports the 3 inch resistive screen and the two physical buttons as the call and end / power button which has a glossy finish on the front. It doesn’t look very elegant to say the least and acts as a finger print magnet as well.
On the right hand side of the device you have the slots for the secondary SIM along with the microSD card. On the left you have the volume controls and a screen lock button.
On the top you have the standard Nokia pin charger slot, micro USB port and a 3.5 mm jack. While on the back you have the 2MP camera sans flash and a speaker right towards the bottom.
Performance:
Display
The Nokia Asha 305 has a 3 inch ‘resistive screen’ which supports multi touch. Now talking about the quality of the display, it is a very mediocre one with a resolution of 240×400 pixels and a meager pixel density of 155 ppi.
The colors look washed out on the screen and the legibility under the sunlight is not that great as well. And the screen being a resistive one, the touch response is below average and as such would require a lot of getting used to. Whereas multi touch is concerned it works only in ‘gallery’ wherein pinch to zoom can be used to expand images.
And watching multimedia on this low resolution screen is best avoided.
S40 User Interface
Nokia has done a fabulous job at refreshing and redesigning the UI. There is a touch of Meego with the way the slide to unlock the screen works and the pull down menu reminds one of Android. Interestingly, we also noticed bounce back feedback as well which, (no prizes for guessing) seems inspired by iOS.
Although the UI is intuitive and supports a lot of apps including social networking ones like Facebook, Twitter etc, along with a host of gaming apps as well, the lag in the UI due to the lack of sufficient RAM under the hood completely spoils the user experience which gets magnified with the unresponsive resistive touch screen. In fact, it’s a wonder how Nokia even managed to put multi touch on this kind of screen.
The accelerometer on the device works decently for a budget phone and we liked the QWERTY keyboard which lets you type flawlessly despite the small size of the screen.
Camera
The Asha 305 has a 2MP camera with no auto focus and no flash as well. Thus taking images in low light and in the night is completely out of question. But we were disappointed with the fact that it does an average job even during the day in sufficient lighting conditions. While taking close shots, we found it very difficult to get objects under focus.
Still the landscape shots taken with the camera under good lighting conditions gave decent results with almost natural color reproduction. Though, the image quality diminished with visible noise even under slightly darker conditions.
Here are a few sample shots taken with the 2MP camera on the Nokia Asha 305:
Now talking of the video capture abilities, it is best avoided to say the least. It’s completely washed out, with very little detail and lots of noise.
Here is a sample video
Dual SIM Functionality
The Asha 305 functions on the dual SIM standby technology which means that, if you receive a call on either of the numbers, the other one goes unavailable simultaneously.
Also for the hot swappable secondary SIM to function, the primary SIM is always required to be inserted at the back of the battery inside the device.
Internet & Connectivity
The browser on the device is nothing great and Opera Mini should be your savior here. Though, disappointingly there is only 2G options, i.e. EDGE / GPRS but no 3G or WiFi. Hence you would have to do with the snail speed that EDGE allows for surfing.
Multimedia
For starters, we loved the speakers on the Asha 305 which are surprisingly loud, just like the Chinese ones but at the same time they offer much better clarity from the latter ones. Sadly, the sound tends to get a bit shrilly at higher volumes.
Now speaking of the music player, the UI has a simple layout but still manages to cramp in a lot of features one can use to enjoy music on their phones, like creating lists, shuffle, artists track and equalizer as well.
The image gallery on the Asha 305 isn’t bad either. It not only allows pich to zoom but also has a host of image editing features which would come in handy. Alas, If only the Asha 305 could click good images that one can play with!
Call Quality
As usual, the network connectivity and the call quality is a non issue with almost all Nokia devices, which applies to the Nokia Asha 305. The call speaker is comfortably loud enough for one to hear the other person clearly.
Battery
A Nokia feature phone with an 1100 mAh battery should easily last around two days and it did not disappoint with the phone easily tiding over a day and a half of listening to music for about 6 hrs, 4 hrs on calls, 4-6 hrs of net connectivity, lots of text and a little bit of gaming here and there.
Here is a quick video review of the Nokia Asha 305
Conclusion
The Asha 305 is Nokia’s first full touch screen feature phone. And although the device boasts of a brilliant S40 UI the experience is marred with because of not so responsive resistive touch screen and the visible lag due to lack of power under the hood.
On a brighter note the device offers features which are unparalleled at this price point including pinch to zoom, QWERTY keyboard, etc. A special mention must be made of the S40 UI which is so very smartphone UI like and has some features you would desire in the Symbian UI.
The Nokia Asha 305 is priced at around Rs. 4,500 which makes it your best bet under Rs. 5,000 for a feature phone with full touch screen. Even the nearest smart phone device like the Samsung Galaxy Y will cost significantly more. The Nokia C2-03 is a good choice if you are looking for a touch screen plus keypad device.
