Nokia Asha 202 Review: Another affordable Asha phone

Who said that bar phones are dead? Here is the Nokia Asha 202, another featurephone from Nokia for the people who just want to have a simple phone with some features like Dual-Sim and a touchscreen. They really want to ditch those keypad buttons in favor of touchscreens by introducing touchscreens to the low budget segment to cellphones that are very affordable. The Nokia Asha is the family of Nokia phones that are very affordable but none of the members packs a Symbian or Windows Phone operating system. Well, that’s expected on a phone that has a small budget.

Hardware

It looks like just a common bar phone. A phone like the other bar phones that we can see in the market but this one has a resistive touchscreen. The Asha phones had been known for combining physical keys with touchscreen for the affordable and budget market. There are times that the phone’s screen isn’t responsive. Well that’s a resistive and not a capacitive so that’s expected already. If you already owned a capacitive touchscreen phone I guess it will take some time to get use to it. Like me, I’m already used to using my large S3 and using a phone with a keypad and a touchscreen is such a pain. I’m not used to typing on physical keypad anymore. The resistive also detects any objects compared to capacitive that only detect your fingers.

I like the design of the phone but the phone’s body is made up of plastic, which made the phone look cheaper but the thing that I really like about the Nokia Asha 202 is the availability of colors. The review unit that I got is the red one and I really like the colors. The glossy sides also add some beauty to the phone.

At the top of the phone, you can find the MicroUSB, 3.5mm port and the charging port. Just like the other Nokia phones. They always place those things together. At the side is the Lock/unlock button and the 2nd sim card slot on the other. That’s hot-swappable and I think that’s a great feature but I guess, most people won’t be changing their sim-cards all the time.

At the back you can find the 2.0 megapixel camera (we’ll talk about the camera later) and no, there’s no flash. But I already expect that. This is an affordable phone, not a full-featured pack phone. Inside is the MicroSD card slot and the main SIM Card slot. No surprising features or whatever inside.

The Nokia Asha 202 doesn’t have a QWERTY keyboard that’s why I really have to adjust to it. If you’re not used to QWERTY keyboard on phones then you might not have a problem with it. But if you love keypads like this then you might love this phone because of the large and comfortable buttons.

You won’t have any problems with the large 1050mAh battery. That juice is enough to last up to 2 days or more on normal usage. Heck, it can even last up to a week if you don’t use it that much. The speakers are also loud and clear enough.

Camera

This phone has a 2 megapixel rear camera. The phone’s camera performance was beyond my expectations. It fared really well and the shots were good. I hate it when I need to set it to landscape mode in the settings. The camera is default at portrait. The sharpness, colors and contrast are great for a 2 megapixel camera. Here, check out some of the photos that I took using the Nokia Asha 202

The photos might be good but the video. Well. Just take a look at it.

But hey, at least the phone can do video recording.

Software

The phone isn’t powered by Symbian or Windows phone. Just a good ol S40. The phone doesn’t have a fast 1 Ghz processor unlike it’s bigger brothers but that doesn’t mean that the phone sucks. Actually, the phone’s performance is still pretty good. I didn’t experience and crashes or slow downs.

Apps? Don’t worry about it, Nokia Store got a lot of apps for you. Well, don’t expect apps from Android, WP7 and iOS but expect a dumb down or a Java version of that app like MMDA. That’s one of my favorite apps BTW. Oh and before I forgot, the Nokia Asha 202 comes with free games from EA. So yeah. You won’t get bored with your Asha 202.

Verdict

The phone packs the features that most common phones have but the hot-swappable Dual Sim slot and the touch screen with keypad is kinda rare in the market these days. Some people might prefer this phone because some prefer a keypad rather than a touchscreen or a QWERTY keyboard phone. It is now available for P3,550

Disclaimer: This is a review unit lend to me by Nokia Philippines