Nokia Aims To “Connect The Next Billion People” With Budget-Friendly Asha Series

We’re all waiting for Nokia to unveil their new Windows Phones already, but Nokia’s clearly going to make us wait a bit longer. The Nokia Asha series is the first to take the stage, and according to Nokia’s Blanca Juti, it’s all about being “affordable, irresistable, and easy to use.”

The Asha series is made up of four different models: from left to right, we’ve got the 200, 201, 300, and 303. Nearly all of them have QWERTY keyboards, and they all have Nokia Maps, but the specifics vary a bit between each.

The Asha 200’s main claim to fame are the dual SIM card slots that allows users to swap between phone numbers on the fly, but it also packs some solid music performance and battery life (Nokia claims 52 hour of music playback). Those with one-track minds need not worry though, as the 201 takes the same hardware but strips out that second SIM card slot.

The Asha 300 is the oddball in this scenario, as it skips the full keyboard in favor of a traditional nine-key layout and a touchscreen. It does however pack a 1 GHz processor, a 3G radio, and a 5-megapixel camera into a relatively tiny body.

The Asha 303 is easily the flashiest of the three, as it combines a large capacitive touchscreen and a spacious 4-row keyboard. A 1GHz processor sits under the hood, and a pair of Wi-Fi and 3G radios ensures that users can get better connections in more places.

Nokia states that their goal here is to “connect the next billion people” — in other words, they’re trying to get web-connected phones into the hands of another billion people who’ve thus far gone without.

Developing…