At the beginning of this year, Nokia added another member to the Asha clan, a phone which, like its fellow predecessors, is also addressed to the category of people who use their phones for calling or messaging and don’t need special features, like a document editor or GPS receiver. Though it’s not a smartphone, the Asha 302 is a wise phone when it comes to communication and will give its best in order to fulfill all your needs.
Key features
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Penta-band 3G with 14Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA
• Asha S40 platform
• Four-row hardware QWERTY keyborad
• 2.4" QVGA 256K-color TFT display
• 1GHz processor
• 128MB RAM, 256MB ROM
• 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera
• VGA video recording at 15fps
• Wi-Fi b/g/n
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Bluetooth v2.1 (with A2DP)
• Standard microUSB port (charging enabled)
• USB On-The-Go support
• microSD card slot (32 GB supported, 2GB included)
• 3.5mm audio jack
Full specs here.
If we take a look in its blue box, we’re going to see a charger and a single piece headset with a 3.5 mm jack. No microUSB cable and if you’re searching for a microSD card here, you won’t find it, because it’s already inserted in the phone’s memory slot. It’s a 2GB memory card.
Its dimensions are 115.2 x 58.9 x 13.5 mm and it weighs 106 grams. It has rounded edges and it’s very compact and easy to use. It’s well-built, when designing it, they use materials of a good quality and you’ll know that when holding it in your hands. I especially liked the metallic frame and the fact that fingerprints are hardly sticking to the case.
The phone comes with a 2.4 inches TFT display with a 240 x 320 pixels resolution. The colors are bright, the sunlight legibility is very good and the same story goes for the viewing angles. Under the display is the navigation deck: the D-pad is surrounded by the soft buttons, call keys and shortcuts to Messaging and the Phonebook. Above the display is the earpiece. The QWERTY keyboard is easy to use and really helps when texting or emailing.
On the left side is the microSD slot, protected by a plastic lid, and on the right side you’ll only find the lanyard eyelet. No volume rocker ? No.
The top hosts the microUSB port, 2mm charger plug and 3.5mm audio jack. Nothing at the bottom.
On the back, you’ll notice the camera lens and the loudspeaker grille.
The phone comes loaded with a 1 GHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 256 MB ROM and 100 MB storage. It runs Series 40, which doesn’t consume too many resources, so the phone works smoothly when being used.
The call quality is great, the voices were loud and clear for both sides and the reception was also good. You get support for Voice clarity, a feature which improves the sound quality when calling.
When it comes to messaging, this phone is very friendly, you have a Conversation view mode and, as I’ve said before, the qwerty keyboard is your best buddy if you’re the kind of person who usually sends tons of messages.
The Asha 302 is a real connectivity sweetheart, coming with support for Wi-Fi b/g/n, quad-band 2G/GPRS/EDGE, penta-band 3G, which is very fast (14.4 Mbps download and 5.76 Mbps upload) and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR.
For browsing, you have to deal with the oldie Nokia Browser, which is kind of okay. The pages are loaded fast enough.
The device comes with a 3.15 megapixel fixed-focus camera that takes pictures at a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. You have settings for effects (sepia, greyscale, negative), exposure, white balance. The colors are fine and the image quality is quite good.
The video camera shoots in VGA at 15 fps and QVGA at 30 fps and the video quality is also okay.
The music player supports formats like MP3, WMA, WAV and AAC, is very simple and easy to use and you have some equalizer presets which can be customized. The audio quality is excellent. You also have FM Radio with RDS support.
The video player is also decent, having support for WMW, MP4 and DivX/XviD videos.
The phone has some preinstalled useful applications. The built-in Mail app allows you to set up accounts for Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and Ovi Mail. The Social app enables you to log in with Twitter and Facebook. The WhatsApp is also available and if you’re not satisfied with what the phone has to offer, you can access the Ovi Store for more. No document viewer or GPS support, you can stop day-dreaming about them.
The phone’s 1320 mAh battery is supposed to endure over 800 hours of 3G standby, almost 6 hours of talk time and up to 50 hours of music playback. Wow. Impressive, huh ? Well, I don’t know about that, but for me, it lasted 3 or 4 days of intensive usage. I made some long calls, listened to music while jogging in the morning, sent a lot of messages and emails and played Sudoku.
My final words are that this phone is certainly a “best-buy”, if you come to think about the price you have to pay for what it has to offer. This phone, although it’s pretty cheap, comes with some good quality features, like its camera, media-player, browser and not to mention the great connectivity support and pretty, but solid design. If you value your money and want a good phone for basic needs, Nokia Asha 302 is one of the best choices you can make.
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