14 ms·

Nokia 215

345 points by nicwest 12y ago

ghshephard 12y ago
I travel a lot, and in addition to my iPhone w/AT&T International Roaming (Company picks it up - provides a constant phone number for people to call me wherever I am, and has all the smartphone goodness that is useful for a road warrior) - I also carry a Nokia 105 which I pop a local SIM into for all my local calling - Saves about $500-$1000/Month easily on calling charges. It looks like the Nokia 215 is the same price, with the addition of some basic Internet Connectivity as well. Same 30 Day battery life as well. Super happy to see Microsoft is continuing to make the super-low end Nokia phones, though hard to see how this fits their general business model, other than being "Mobile first"
- konstruktor 12y ago
  Helping the brand stay a household name in emerging markets maybe?
- listic 12y ago
  I am sad that they don't carry on the line of phones like Nokia 1202 anymore. http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_1202-2573.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_1202-2573.php For once, I liked the sunlight-readable monochrome display that doesn't have to turn off, the snappiness and lack of features. I guess the 105 and now 215 is the new 'lowest end' now.
  - toothbrush 12y ago
    Yes, i miss monochrome displays. If my Nokia 101 ever breaks, i'll probably order some refurbished device like an 8210.
- brudgers 12y ago
  Gates and Allen's original vision was "A computer on every desk at work and in every home." One of the first things Ballmer said to rankle the punditry after Gates' retirement is that Microsoft had to move beyond that. A computer in every pocket everywhere is part of that. That was how their strategic interests led them to Nokia. This is just the first part of a long play betting on the economic development of places where an iPhone is more than the yearly per capita income of most people.
- danielki 12y ago
  The goal, in terms of business model, seems pretty obvious - get/keep people to use Microsoft services and don't lose any more of the low end to Android. While Facebook and Opera Mini are built-in, so are Bing Search and MSN Weather. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually add other services also. If they can sell this type of device at or near cost (which it seems like they are), and increase Bing marketshare at the expense of Android/Google, it's a win for them.
- mst 12y ago
  I'm sorry for such a content-light response but: I miss my 6310is.
catmanjan 12y ago
Nice, I was travelling recently and was looking for something like this. It's very easy to get a cheap phone, but touch screen phones tend to have worse battery life, and many of the entry-level phones don't have a browser or location services (GPS functionality is a big plus when travelling.
- Schweigi 12y ago
  Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have a GPS: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/
- aceperry 12y ago
  I don't think it has a touchscreen. Didn't see them touching on the video.
exizt88 12y ago
> Plus, a built-in torchlight provides convenience, whether it’s late at night or after you’ve turned off the lights. So that's what a torchlight is for! Thanks, landing page!
- reitanqild 12y ago
  Why? Because a dry "It even has a torchlight" scored so much better in your A/B test?
- duncanawoods 12y ago
  They probably have to find a non-technical way to make it clear its actually a physical light and not the brand name for some new service\app e.g. spotlight, greenlight, lightroom, lighttable etc.
  - johnchristopher 12y ago
    More likely they had to fill a placeholder. And someone got paid on a marketing team so everything's good. edit: oh, but it's not a landing page. It's a blog page.
- gilrain 12y ago
  As this is targeted internationally, they needed to account for some readers being familiar with the US English "flashlight" and some being familiar with UK English "torch". The compromise is a little awkward, but it gets the point across. I imagine local ads and marketing will adopt one or the other.
harryf 12y ago
Is that OS Meego ?
- aceperry 12y ago
  I think it's Symbian, series 30+.
  - pavlov 12y ago
    Series 30 and 40 are not Symbian, they're Nokia's in-house operating system (IIRC it was sometimes called Nokia OS by outsiders, but I don't know what the name inside the company was). Edit: Looks like Series 30+ is not even Nokia OS anymore. It's a completely different OS licensed from MediaTek.
aceperry 12y ago
The new Nokia model numbers keep getting smaller, along with the shrinking feature set and capabilities. They really are aiming for the low end/budget demographic. Although I wonder if the subsidies will help or hurt sales in the low end though. Its got the retro Nokia look which probably helps sales. Since it has only 8MB of RAM, it's no surprise that Microsoft didn't put WinPhone on it.
- mrmondo 12y ago
  Imagine the swap file it would need!
mrmondo 12y ago
1) 2G does not provide much in the way of usable Internet these days 2) Many countries are working to actively decommission their 2G networks - which is a good thing because the sooner they do this the bands can be re-used for LTE
- sspiff 12y ago
  2G is fine for what this phone can display. Opera renders and reformats data on their server farm, so it's not loading megabytes of Javascript and high resolution images over 2G.
- aberkowitz 12y ago
  I certainly hope that 2G doesn't get phased out for a long time. It is a cheap network that is perfect for IoT devices.
motyar 12y ago
why no whatsapp?
- aceperry 12y ago
  Pretty sure whatsapp is on that platform.
  - pulkitanand 12y ago
    If it had whatsapp, it would have been displayed prominently. I think it is a push for Facebook messenger over whatsapp. A lack of whatsapp could be a deal-breaker, atleast here in India.
    - kamaal 12y ago
      Indeed, In fact lack of making VOIP calls and internet messaging is both deal breaker as far Indian market is concerned. This phone is merely your usual Nokia phone with 2G and facebook push notifications.
- rplnt 12y ago
  Perhaps because Facebook is partially owned by Microsoft? Not sure if that can affect something like this.
  - razzaj 12y ago
    whatsapp is owned by Facebook, so i doubt that would be the reason.
- mcjiggerlog 12y ago
  I'm equally surprised, I think that's a deal breaker for most outside of the US these days.
- carlob 12y ago
  Some S40 nokias do have whatsapp, so I guess it's available through an update or the ovi store.
jakobegger 12y ago
This looks great. It builds on Nokia's strengths (people loved them for their durable low cost phones). I hope they get the UI right; old Nokia phones had a great UI before they added all the 'smartphone'-crap. And I hope they'll sell them in Austria too; this looks like a great backup phone.
- moe 12y ago
  old Nokia phones had a great UI before they added all the 'smartphone'-crap. I hear you! Those were the days, when your phone would react instantly to keypresses, and so reliably that you could type and send entire SMS without looking at the screen.
  - mst 12y ago
    That's why I love real keyboards - I can reply to a text message having pre-decided the words while making eye contact with the person opposite me.
canadev 12y ago
Saw this phone on reddit earlier. A few weeks ago, after an upgrade to iOS 8, I became unable to connect to wifi on my iPhone 4S and the speed of the OS became pretty bad, after it had been perfectly responsive since I first got it nearly 3 years ago. Combine this with the fact that my expensive purchased-for-durability phone case, the third in the phone's lifetime, was starting to crack, and I started looking at other phones. My contract is up in a couple of months. I went to a store and looked at the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and the iPhone 6. I found the Note 4 intriguing because I've been occasionally following John Carmack's discussions about the Gear VR (Oculus Rift that connects to the phone) and I thought it was coming out in a consumer version, but it looks like they are still labeling it as a developer kit, which makes me think there must be a reason for that (i.e. it's not really ready for prime time). Also, the phone is just massively huge, and I don't want to buy it, especially since given my way of doing things I'd end up buying some horribly large case on top of it. Then I looked at the iPhone 6. First of all I do think it's too big in terms of screen size -- though I do like the thickness and weight of it quite a bit. But the base model is 16GB, and getting either a 16GB or a 64GB on contract was $200+ or $375+ respectively. I thought about it and almost broke down and bought a 128GB model outright for over $1000. In the end, I just couldn't justify it. I think it's time for me to go back to sending SMSs on the telephone keypad. And time for me to stop getting warnings that my damn phone is not backing up (no wifi and me not plugging it in), time for me to stop worrying that the phone will die if I forget to charge it for just one evening, and time for me to stop buying expensive, crappy cases. I really want this phone. And if I don't get it, I'll probably get something that is just like it. TL;DR: I'm a fan.
- jmiwhite 12y ago
  I was in the same position as you (upgraded iOS several times on a 4S) and experienced the same issues, but I found a clean install dramatically improved performance, though not to the same snappiness of iOS 6. I love the feel of the hardware, but for >95% of the phone's life it's been wrapped in a waterproof case, so I don't really benefit from it much.
  - canadev 12y ago
    Thanks for the tip about the clean install. And I totally hear you about the way the phone feels. Every time I got a new case, I would leave it naked for a few hours, just -[fondling]-touching and admiring the damn thing.
sspiff 12y ago
Does anyone know if this will run J2ME software?
- pavlov 12y ago
  Apparently it doesn't, and this is surprising to me because Nokia's Series 30 platform did support Java apps since around 2003. But these new "Series 30+" phones are not based on the old Nokia OS any more. Instead they use a completely different feature phone platform licensed from MediaTek, and it doesn't seem to include Java ME at all (probably to save on license costs).
  - mschuster91 12y ago
    Now that's news. Let's wait until it comes out and let's see if spFlashTool is compatible with it (or, at least, compatible enough for a ROM dump)...
  - huttarl 12y ago
    Can you cite a reference for "apparently it doesn't", and for the point that the "new Series 30+ phones are not based on the old Nokia OS any more"? Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30) calls Series 30+ "a little version upgrade of Series 30 platform" but I have no idea if that's true. If so, it would suggest that Series 30+ would support J2ME: the contrary would be surprising, as you said. Thanks.
    - pavlov 12y ago
      Here are two discussion threads from the Nokia forums: http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Asha-and-other-Nokia-Series-30/Connecting-Nokia-220-to-PC/td-p/2560768 http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Asha-and-other-Nokia-Series-... http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Asha-and-other-Nokia-Series-30/Nokia-220-the-worst-s4o-phone/td-p/2814326 http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Asha-and-other-Nokia-Series-... This info comes from poster Abi99, who seems to be a highly regarded member with over 11,000 posts on the official forums: "The Nokia 220 is — after the Nokia 108 — the second phone from Nokia which uses MediaTek Feature Phone MAUI as operating system, called Nokia Series 30+." "The new Nokia Series 30+ platform (MediaTek) does not allow to add apps."
phireal 12y ago
What would be nice is a phone like this with GPS and 3G/4G (with tethering). That way I could ditch my smartphone and use my tablet for actual browsing with the feature phone serving as a router only (whilst still being usable as a phone the rest of the time). All the feature phones I've looked at don't have 3G/4G with tethering, which means they're unsuitable for my use case.
- pavlov 12y ago
  The Nokia 515 and 301 models have 3.5G, so they might fit the bill: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/515/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/515/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/301/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/301/ No 4G though -- I imagine that Series 40, Nokia's venerable in-house operating system, doesn't support it at all.
  - fstephany 12y ago
    I used to tether the 3.5G connection with Bluetooth with my Nokia 515. It worked quite well.
    - carlob 12y ago
      In my experience tethering via bluetooth the bottleneck is BT not the cellular network. I get 4-5x the speed by using USB.
  - carlob 12y ago
    The 208 has 3.5 g as well. I have owned both the 515 and the 208. While the 515 is better in terms of hardware (aluminum and gorilla glass throughout) it has some software issues and half the ram of the 208, which seems to me has a better software stack.
    - Aldo_MX 12y ago
      I thought both had 64Mb of RAM
furyg3 12y ago
Looks great, I think I've found my new extra phone. My backup travel phone is a dual-sim candybar, allowing me to leave my smartphone back at the hotel room while still taking my usual sim with me + a local sim of the country I'm visiting. This gives me a lot of freedom to really roam and still be reachable if I want to be, have some options if there's an emergency, to not really worry about my phone being lost or stolen, and not be tied to a power outlet. My telephone company let's me have two sim cards which makes this really easy (whichever phone is turned on most recently is the active phone). I leave my spare phone in my car when I'm not traveling.
keithpeter 12y ago
"Weighing 78.7 grams, the 215 has a VGA camera with space for a 32GB microSD card. ..." http://www.cnet.com/uk/products/nokia-215/ http://www.cnet.com/uk/products/nokia-215/ 'Europe' availability specified. 2G in UK for some years to come. Might get one on payg and I can listen to my music and take the odd low res pic of funny signs (what I mainly use the camera for).
- MistahKoala 12y ago
  But being 2G-only, it's not going to work on Three (UK). All the other networks have 2G capabilities still, don't they?
  - keithpeter 12y ago
    Yes, the mobile operators all do 2G except as you say Three. There are no definite plans to phase out 2G in UK because of rural coverage.
kamaal 12y ago
So here is the deal. If the phone has WiFi and Skype installed, nearly every single household in India will buy this in a heart beat. Plus they can get all those customers on Skype, for free. I'm currently shopping around for a phone for my father, he doesn't want a smartphone. He needs a simple phone, through which he can make VOIP calls(Skype/Viber etc). Its perfectly alright if the phone doesn't have a camera, or GPS. But for sure it needs to have WiFi connectivity, you should be able to tether, should be rugged and durable and should be cheap. Internet is taking off big time in India. And people want to make free calls over VOIP all the time. Smartphones are expensive, and aren't exactly very durable and rugged. Plus they get out of fashion very soon. A simple phone, Nokia standard, which you could use as a internet phone over WiFi with apps like Skype, Viber would sell like hotcakes here.
- gambiting 12y ago
  Nope, it doesn't have Wi-Fi, and with 8MB of ram Skype is out of the question. The device with the least amount of ram which ran Skype natively was the PlayStation Portable(and only the Slim model, which came with 64MB of ram instead of 32MB).
kmfrk 12y ago
Been trying to buy a 3210 as a back-up phone for many years, but even now, I find the form factor to be pretty weird. Just go with the 3210 design, and I'm down for one.
pdknsk 12y ago
http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ > RAM: 8 MB That's not much, considering what it can do. Decode H.264, run Opera Mini, and more.
- gsnedders 12y ago
  Compared with a lot of devices that Opera Mini ran on a decade ago, that's a lot of RAM!
  - aplummer 12y ago
    Compared to the websites those phones had to try and consume, there is a lot of HTML!
    - rtpg 12y ago
      opera mini does a bunch of magic to strip websites down a lot.
    - gsnedders 12y ago
      Opera Mini doesn't render HTML, it renders OBML — essentially a binary serialisation of a device-specific render-tree. The HTML->OBML conversion is done in the cloud.
      - aplummer 12y ago
        Ha neat i did not know that neat. But i suppose there is still just more OBML to hold in RAM (even if it is more efficient).
    - aceperry 12y ago
      You mean javascript right? :-)
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razzaj 12y ago
"Plus, a built-in torchlight provides convenience, whether it’s late at night or after you’ve turned off the lights. Or, for those who have no access to electricity (in 2014, that’s still almost 20% of the world’s population), the torch is a necessity!" So how exactly is the Nokia 215 supposed to be charged in the first place?
- Fuxy 12y ago
  That's probably poorly worded but their obviously referring to places where the power goes out for prolonged periods of time. Especially during peak times.
- teh_klev 12y ago
  Applying some imagination, I guess you head to your local internet/phone cafe and charge the thing before heading home, or you or your village have something like this: http://amzn.com/B00CTDW5TA http://amzn.com/B00CTDW5TA
  - razzaj 12y ago
    some imagination is expected from MS not the poor people without electricity, and without the luxury of imagination. This is a typical example of senseless marketing. If you are targeting the 20% mentioned, i would expect a Solar panel based charger that would charge a battery during the day, and then transfer the stored energy to the phone during the night. Now that's the imagination i would love to see.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Poor people don't have imagination? What? Besides, MS doesn't have to do everything. There are plenty of providers of solar charging equipment that no doubt will work with this phone. In fact, here's a random search result: http://www.amazon.in/10000mAh-Portable-Direct-Powered-Battery/dp/B00NFC0EBA http://www.amazon.in/10000mAh-Portable-Direct-Powered-Batter...
      - 12y ago
capdiz 12y ago
This phone will come in handy for some of us in Africa. The African phone market is flooded with cheap dual sim chinese phones that "can perform more tasks" than what microsoft hopes to achieve with its phone. But for 29$ they are [the chinese phones] still a rip-off for many. Buggy software applications, short lifespan (3-6 months) and spread viruses like crazy.
yogrish 12y ago
It certainly is targeting Indian market. Names and places in the Ad is Indian. Nokia still resonates with many Indians for its durability and Reliability. With Internet ready, it will for sure strike a chord with indians in low price segment and as back up phone.
- deleted 12y ago
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- _nedR 12y ago
  I don't know whether the 29$ price tag (even when compared to other similar Nokias already in the market) is all that revolutionary but they certainly have pitched their product perfectly: "or as a secondary phone for just about anyone... has the same durable build quality you’ve learned to rely on over the years... stand-by time of up to 29 days" After Microsoft claimed to have banished the 'Nokia' name forever, they now evoking imaging from Nokia's days of glory. Of course, the question now on every Indian's mind is - Can the Nokia 215 hold a candle to the legendary 1100?
gojomo 12y ago
Note that on January 1, 2016, old-Nokia in Finland can use the 'Nokia' name on new phones again: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2013/09/05/could-we-see-a-finnish-smartphone-from-nokia-in-2016-jolla-sailfish-android/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2013/09/05/could-we-s... There may be some strange brand contortions coming next year!
hyp0 12y ago
Like a smartwatch + keypad. 2G connectivity is slow... but I would love super-lite webpages. Like m.mobile; maybe w.watch? This could also use them. Needs less bandwidth, data, CPU, RAM, battery - and clearer because just the text. If it has an x86 CPU (specs don't say), it could be the world's smallest DOSbox. 8MB RAM is plenty for DOS.
- pjc50 12y ago
  Those who don't remember WAP are doomed to reinvent it, it seems.
- codeulike 12y ago
  There's no way its x86. This is a classic Nokia phone as from the pre-smartphone era, it must be running a small ARM chip or something. The OS is called "Series 30+"
ulfw 12y ago
A 2G phone touted as "our most affordable Internet-ready entry-level phone yet". Has Microsoft's "Nokia"/Windows Phone division lost it's mind completely? I know it's a cheap phone, but then don't market it as an internet device. It's 2015. 3G even in a cheap phone should be standard if you call it an internet-ready device.
johnchristopher 12y ago
I would replace my old and trusty SonyErricson Naite and SO's cedar with this if only it'd come with WiFi and/or 3G connectivity and that weird but reliable google maps app. (Opera mini is also a requirement.)
kimb 12y ago
Great
JonnieCache 12y ago
No GPS, but will opera mini run maps at all do we think? Perhaps openstreetmap? I generally know where I am, it's going the right way I have trouble with...
- maxerickson 12y ago
  Previous S30 phones supported offline maps in the manner you describe. (The OS is listed on the product page: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ )
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skibz 12y ago
Anyone know if this phone will be able to run WhatsApp?
- jlink 12y ago
  Not for the moment. Maybe later in an update.. They really should add it otherwise it's lame!
rplnt 12y ago
> Nokia 215 and Nokia 215 Dual-SIM will be available in select markets This is not the first modern and cheap phone they have. Yet they are not available to purchase. So yeah, nice news, but not really relevant unless you live in Africa. (Yes, I know they say Europe this time, but I don't really believe them)
edpichler 12y ago
I don't know if it's possible without touch screen hardware, but I would really like if I could write WP8 apps to run on this device.
- icebraining 12y ago
  It doesn't run WP at all; it only has 8MB of RAM, after all.
zodiac 12y ago
I find it odd that it's the same price as the cheapest lumia phone... http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/AT-T---Nokia-Lumia-520---No-Contract/productID.283842800 http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/AT-T---N...
- v0lta 12y ago
  The 520 is a great phone. It's snappy and definitly feels smoother than low or mid-end android phones. WP8.1 is pretty awesome on weaker hardware.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  That's an on-contract price. Isn't this one, the 215, off-contract?
  - chiph 12y ago
    They did say it was before subsidies, so appears so. At that price, buy a second one for a spare. Or a fashion accessory.
finishingmove 12y ago
Budget people are not on postpaid, and this phone has no Wi-Fi. Big mishit there.
- icebraining 12y ago
  So what? No prepaid 3G where you live?
  - finishingmove 12y ago
    Prepaid cellular data calculates as much more expensive (at least in my country and similar countries).
davidgerard 12y ago
Have they just recreated the Kin?
Aoyagi 12y ago
A phone with physical buttons that's not targeted at senior customers? Amazing.
TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
http://m.gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/seven-firefox-os-powered-devices-announced-mozilla-aims-to-power-25-smartphone-487300 http://m.gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/seven-firefox-os-powe... Firefox Smartphone is a better choice for India. Same price tag and a much more open compute platform. There are also several Chinese made Android smartphones around INR2000 which are attractive to budget conscious purchasers. Remember that in India the phone is often the only compute platform a user has, and it is an aspirational purchase.
h43k3r 12y ago
I seriously doubt the fact that this phone will be able to make a dent in the Indian market. Just look at its price tag, it costs you around Rs. 2000($30) The basic internet pack charges (2g) is around Rs 130($2) per month. A person who is ready to take a subscription of $2 per month, will be able to afford a better phone with Android which won't cost him more than 3k. One thing that I want to see in such type of phones is whatsapp support with an extremely good battery life. If such a phone comes up, it will be second phone for every person who is suffering from the battery problem of android ecosystem.
- pacofvf 12y ago
  > Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe MS needs to preinstall whatsapp , otherwise a lot of people will prefer a phone with whatsapp pre-installed, I know that most of us would laugh about it, but believe me, In my country people buy phones just because the box has these logos: whatsapp, FB, twitter.
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  - MichaelMoser123 12y ago
    whatsapp expires every now and then and requires an update, on android/iphone i need to go to google play/appstore in order to do that; Has this phone an equivalent mechanism for software updates ? (Symbian or Nokia OS/Asha were mentioned as possible OS choices)
- pmelendez 12y ago
  >"will be able to afford a better phone with Android which won't cost him more than 3k." You are assuming that a cheap Android would offer a good experience. I won't have another Android precisely because I had a poor experience with 2 cheap Android phones.
- pearjuice 12y ago
  I don't know which OS this phone runs, but the Series 40 platform which used to ship on Nokia devices in this segment was able to run WhatsApp. The thing is, S40 never really felt "finished". It had these tiny little things which just made you drive nuts because there wasn't a way to fix it. Over time I thought it would be amazing if S40 would get open sourced for people to flash modified versions.
Chirag 12y ago
This or similar phones from MS, won't change anything. People will still go for android with a similar price range and more screen size. We got two such phones for our office to use on travel sometime back, but they just lie there with no takers. People still use their regular phones with the power backup on the go.
- hugozap 12y ago
  For some people, battery life is more important than features. Other just don't like android
t0mislav 12y ago
Nokia has many phones like this, I'm not sure why this is so special?
- kyberias 12y ago
  Who said it is "special"?
  - nmeofthestate 12y ago
    Being in the top 3 HN links rather implies that it is somehow special.
whizzkid 12y ago
Sorry Microsoft, but that era has passed and pie was eaten by Nokia. (Well deserved by Nokia) Building an affordable phone with Internet access capability is not biggest demand currently. 10 years ago, Nokia discovered what was missing in communication market. A cheap, good looking and everlasting phone. They sold it to literally everywhere in the world. It was like buy one and use forever. I am not really sure what is the biggest gap in communication market but it is definitely not this. Here are the things i can list which i think the most important ones to focus on. - Battery life - Unique and beautiful designs (Phones are getting too similar to each other) - Durability - Making phones use cases wider to interact real life scenarios. Lets see if we are gonna see something original in 2015 otherwise people will as usual wait for iPhone 7, Galaxy S6, and Nexus 10.
- freehunter 12y ago
  Do you really believe this phone is designed for you? Hint: it's not.
perseusprime 12y ago
I would buy it for my mom and dad.
schmiddy 12y ago
"Meet <insert product name here>".... "introducing <insert product name here>", cue artsy and friendly music and lots of people having fun. I get that all this stuff works really well in marketing products, but its getting really stale.
Zigurd 12y ago
Neither fish nor fowl. Maybe somebody could make a product and make money in this segment but the odds of that somebody being Microsoft are nil. The only context in which this makes sense is keeping this part of the former Nokia alive long enough to sell it.
Pxtl 12y ago
So it's a modern stick-phone. I'm actually flabbergasted that MS/Nokia made a non-windows-phone device. To me, the big question is whether I can tether a tablet to it. A lightweight, convenient dumbphone with a tethered tablet in my backpack might be a nice form-factor.
- eli 12y ago
  Ya know it's funny. I used to write about the cell phone industry in the previous decade and this was exactly the vision at one point: a feature phone in your pocket creates a "Personal Area Network" over Bluetooth or similar that provides connectivity to your your watch, computer, etc.
- threeseed 12y ago
  > I'm actually flabbergasted that MS/Nokia made a non-windows-phone device Why ? Microsoft has made it crystal clear that they want to be an internet services company. Which means that whatever OS they use isn't that relevant if it means more users of their services.
brickmort 12y ago
the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe The phones that I really like seem to never be available in the US. Admittedly, I have a unique taste in phones. I love the idea of a minimal phone OS with a qwerty keypad (or number pad). The new Blackberry Classic looks really nice too, but it's not available in the US and Blackberry has all but abandoned ship in the US market. Nokia is getting so close to scratching that itch with this phone. I really hope there's a US version with similar specs somewhere up the pipe.
- burger_moon 12y ago
  I really want to switch back to a "dumb" phone once my contract is up on my iPhone 5. Im always at a computer or can have my iPad (which I never use anymore) with me in wifi everywhere I go except my car. The only reason to need internet in the car is for gps which convieniently they sell those too and I have one. I just don't see the need to own a smart phone anymore for myself. If I wasn't at a computer all the time I could justify it but it no long serves a purpose. I really hope they sell this in the us eventually. I suppose you can still buy an unlocked one and use that however. Just make sure it has the right keyboard and language.
  - pkorzeniewski 12y ago
    I second that. I use my phone for two things - calling and texting - and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. I'm switching to a small, lightweight "dumbphone" (we got so used to the brick-sized smartphones we forgot how handy the old phones were), that can last a week without charging and has a physical keyboard which - in my opinion - is so much better than a virtual one.
  - kregasaurusrex 12y ago
    I've recently bought an old Blackberry from eBay, and it's a refreshing change to not have the need to check multiple applications on your phone while having idle time and value actual conversation. The physical keyboard is also nice, having come from a fullscreen android phone.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
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higherpurpose 12y ago
The "1 month of battery life" is such bullshit, and I'm surprised so many people, especially on Reddit, believe it without question. Nokia announced a phone like this a year ago, too, and the same happened. The "2 weeks" of battery life or even 4 weeks thing is at least a decade old. It's nothing new. Old Nokias and Sony Ericsson's used to promise that all the time. The thing is that's just idle time. You're not going to keep your phone in idle that much. This type of marketing definitely came from the Nokia guys themselves - this "old type of thinking". It reminds me of when laptop makers used to promise "8h of battery life" on their laptops 5 years ago, when their laptops only lasted 2-3h with normal use. They were also thinking idle/almost no usage-time, and being misleading about it in their marketing campaigns. For most people here, I imagine that phone will last them 3-4 days, which is nothing to scoff at, but it's also not nearly as much as "1 month" of battery life as they imply, and you also lose so much more compared to a smartphone. Yes you get "Internet", but it will also be a pain to use it on that non-touch tiny screen. The price is also not that special. There have been feature phones costing that much for years. The only difference is now some components have become cheap enough that they can also add some that make having Internet on it a little more usable than before. People here are aware Firefox launched a $25 Firefox OS smartphone right?
- PyErr_SetString 12y ago
  "The "1 month of battery life" is such bullshit" Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and call BS on that too. Here's the info about standby time you can find for iPhone6:" "Up to 16 days (384 hours)" I'm interested in knowing if anyone even got half of that. And if you actually start using your phone it'd go down a lot more (which you probably would want to, since you know... you bought it to have as a phone)
pmelendez 12y ago
Are they allowed to continue using Nokia band? I thought they had to ditch it a few months ago
- notatoad 12y ago
  They chose to ditch it a few months ago in favour of lumia for their windows phones. They still have the rights to use it though, for a couple years i think.
- abrowne 12y ago
  MS has a license for use with non-smartphones for several more years.
vamur 12y ago
Right now in Russia you can buy an Android 4.4 smartphone (Beeline Smart 3) with Wifi, GPS and 4 inch screen for $30. Not sure how Microsoft's phone can compete with similarly priced Chinese or Indian smartphones.
jastanton 12y ago
Nokia 105 - $20 Nokia 130 - $25 Nokia 215 $29 Not sure why Nokia keeps coming out with new phones but I like it. Yeah it may be expensive in 2nd / 3rd world countries still but I personally like the no distractions of a dumb phone. If they called a cellphone a tether when they first came out, they are handcuffs now and I like the feeling of breaking free from it all and focusing on other things in life like the people in my life, or self improvement etc...
abhididdigi 12y ago
I don't believe this to be something new. My mom had been using this ( very very similar - the OS) from Nokia since 2009. Nokia released many such cellphones in India.
MisterBastahrd 12y ago
There are plenty in the 60 and up crowd for whom smartphones are confusing things because they obfuscate the entire purpose of owning a cell phone: making calls. My parents both still have clamshell style flip phones because they don't use their phones primarily as an entertainment or computing device, but as actual phones. This kind of phone would be a great halfway point for them: give them the functionality of a smart phone without making their phone confusing.
IgorPartola 12y ago
I like how this phone includes that it's built to be durable as one of its major features. Phones should be tough. Waterproofing them should be standard. They should not break when dropped from 10+ feet. Their screens should not crack. On top of this, either optional or built-in warranty should include coverage for accidental damage. A phone like that would be worth quite a bit of money. Another thing about the current generation of smartphones: unlike this Nokia offering, they are not yet "good enough". Chances are, you will replace your phone in 1-2 years, or at least you'll want to. Their speed is still growing very fast, and the demand on the CPU/GPU/RAM is growing very fast too. I can see buying this phone and keeping it for 5+ years: nothing in what it can do will see substantial improvements over that time period. Contrast this with the top of the line smartphones where simple things in 2017 will take 2x the processing power that they do now, because of the improved UI, etc. Eventually, I think smartphones will settle down. I remember when PC's were getting faster and faster in the late 1990's, early 2000's. It seemed that you could upgrade every year and still not keep up. Eventually they got "good enough" where you can keep the same PC for 5-10 years (except power-users such as programmers, gamers, etc.) I look forward to a day when iPhones and such are a commodity such as this Nokia.
- carlob 12y ago
  > They should not break when dropped from 10+ feet. I dropped my 515 from 12 m (40 ft) and it kept working…
  - freehunter 12y ago
    I had a Lumia 920 that I dropped down three flights of stairs and it still worked with only minor scratches on the plastic and one scratch on the screen. I'm not sure you can do that with any of the Lumia flagships that followed that one though. They caved to the "thinner is better" market, even though the 920 was thinner and lighter than an iPhone with an Otterbox or Lifeproof that a lot of people have.
- Joky 12y ago
  "It should be XXX, YYY, ZZZ". Not everyone shares your need. Some people a careful and want a pretty phone, light, and just awesome to use. Why would they need a heavier phone, with constrained design, and pay extra for an accidental damage coverage (you mentioned that it could be builtin)? Moreover over these kind of phones exists, it is just that we have choice not to buy them.
desireco42 12y ago
I've been looking at those nokia asha's with keyboard. I think I would enjoy using something like that. I am a fan for sure, however, it is not likely I will abandon my OnePlus soon which also solves my main complaint, that battery dies quickly on 'modern' phones.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bpatel576 12y ago
How can they make a phone for only $30 and still make money. I'm curious, does anyone on this thread happen to have a tear down report.
- fosk 12y ago
  Commoditized cheap components, and economy of scale. This phone has 8MB of RAM for example, which not only is a very cheap component to buy, but given the amount of phones Nokia will be producing, it will cost them even less. Same for camera, and every other component. In 2015 some things that used to be very expensive, like multi megapixel cameras, are worth less or more like a few peanuts nowadays if bought in large amounts.
stove 12y ago
Let's ask the important question: will it have snake?
swengw 12y ago
This brings back fond memories of the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic [1] that I used for two years. The battery lasted a week, and using T9 on that phone was the fastest I've ever typed on a mobile device. It's nice to know that the 215 exists if I ever want to return to those days. 1. http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php
swengw 12y ago
This brings back fond memories of the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic [1] that I used for two years. The battery lasted a week, and using T9 on that phone was the fastest I've ever typed on a mobile device. It's nice to know that the 215 exists if I ever want to return to those days. 1. http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php
swengw 12y ago
This brings back fond memories of the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic [1] that I used for two years. The battery lasted a week, and using T9 on that phone was the fastest I've ever typed on a mobile device. It's nice to know that the 215 exists if I ever want to return to those days. 1. http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php
swengw 12y ago
This brings back fond memories of the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic [1] that I used for two years. The battery lasted a week, and using T9 on that phone was the fastest I've ever typed on a mobile device. It's nice to know that the 215 exists if I ever want to return to those days. 1. http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php
yalogin 12y ago
So I need to pay for data on a severely restricted phone? Why would I do that? I understand the allure of a cheap phone but why should it have internet access? I understand if I can get a data plan specifically tailored for this (as in cheap).
- maxmouchet 12y ago
  In France there's subscriptions for as low as 2€ a month for 2h of voice and 50MB data (5cents/MB above), this would be perfect for those phones. Edit: Internet is useful for chat apps like messenger, they mostly replaced text messaging for me.
okasaki 12y ago
You can get a no-name Android phone for not much more (if at all)
teekert 12y ago
Just give me the titanium Nokia 8850 [1] with color screen, whatsapp (preferably also telegram), imap and calendar sync. 1 http://www.retromobile.nl/images/productimages/big/8850zilver3.jpg http://www.retromobile.nl/images/productimages/big/8850zilve...
vdfs 12y ago
You can get Nokia Lumia 520 for the same price, at least for now: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E45043A http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E45043A
toothbrush 12y ago
Hm, this is a bit too full-featured for my tastes. I'm currently on a Nokia 101, and my gripes are few: if only the battery cover would stay on better (current solution: tape), and the build quality was $60 as opposed to the $10-20 currently, it'd be ideal. Other than that, it is perfection. I'm glad this type of thing is still being made, even if the trade-off between the triad [features, price, build quality] isn't exactly where i'd have liked it.
Kluny 12y ago
Wow, at $29 I'm going to get one for sheer curiosity.
balladeer 12y ago
They should be talking about battery life; and battery life with 3G on. They left it at "Exceptional battery life" and "Battery capacity: 1100 mAh"[1], the latter definitely didn't do anything to boost confidence. This is too much to ask, I agree. But then if I just want a phone to make calls and text then I would buy something even cheaper than this phone. [1] http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/

345 points by nicwest 12y ago

I travel a lot, and in addition to my iPhone w/AT&T International Roaming (Company picks it up - provides a constant phone number for people to call me wherever I am, and has all the smartphone goodness that is useful for a road warrior) - I also carry a Nokia 105 which I pop a local SIM into for all my local calling - Saves about $500-$1000/Month easily on calling charges. It looks like the Nokia 215 is the same price, with the addition of some basic Internet Connectivity as well. Same 30 Day battery life as well. Super happy to see Microsoft is continuing to make the super-low end Nokia phones, though hard to see how this fits their general business model, other than being "Mobile first"

konstruktor 12y ago
Helping the brand stay a household name in emerging markets maybe?
listic 12y ago
I am sad that they don't carry on the line of phones like Nokia 1202 anymore. http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_1202-2573.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_1202-2573.php For once, I liked the sunlight-readable monochrome display that doesn't have to turn off, the snappiness and lack of features. I guess the 105 and now 215 is the new 'lowest end' now.
- toothbrush 12y ago
  Yes, i miss monochrome displays. If my Nokia 101 ever breaks, i'll probably order some refurbished device like an 8210.
brudgers 12y ago
Gates and Allen's original vision was "A computer on every desk at work and in every home." One of the first things Ballmer said to rankle the punditry after Gates' retirement is that Microsoft had to move beyond that. A computer in every pocket everywhere is part of that. That was how their strategic interests led them to Nokia. This is just the first part of a long play betting on the economic development of places where an iPhone is more than the yearly per capita income of most people.
danielki 12y ago
The goal, in terms of business model, seems pretty obvious - get/keep people to use Microsoft services and don't lose any more of the low end to Android. While Facebook and Opera Mini are built-in, so are Bing Search and MSN Weather. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually add other services also. If they can sell this type of device at or near cost (which it seems like they are), and increase Bing marketshare at the expense of Android/Google, it's a win for them.
mst 12y ago
I'm sorry for such a content-light response but: I miss my 6310is.

catmanjan 12y ago

Nice, I was travelling recently and was looking for something like this. It's very easy to get a cheap phone, but touch screen phones tend to have worse battery life, and many of the entry-level phones don't have a browser or location services (GPS functionality is a big plus when travelling.

Schweigi 12y ago
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have a GPS: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/
aceperry 12y ago
I don't think it has a touchscreen. Didn't see them touching on the video.

exizt88 12y ago

> Plus, a built-in torchlight provides convenience, whether it’s late at night or after you’ve turned off the lights. So that's what a torchlight is for! Thanks, landing page!

reitanqild 12y ago
Why? Because a dry "It even has a torchlight" scored so much better in your A/B test?
duncanawoods 12y ago
They probably have to find a non-technical way to make it clear its actually a physical light and not the brand name for some new service\app e.g. spotlight, greenlight, lightroom, lighttable etc.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  More likely they had to fill a placeholder. And someone got paid on a marketing team so everything's good. edit: oh, but it's not a landing page. It's a blog page.
gilrain 12y ago
As this is targeted internationally, they needed to account for some readers being familiar with the US English "flashlight" and some being familiar with UK English "torch". The compromise is a little awkward, but it gets the point across. I imagine local ads and marketing will adopt one or the other.

harryf 12y ago

Is that OS Meego ?

aceperry 12y ago
I think it's Symbian, series 30+.
- pavlov 12y ago
  Series 30 and 40 are not Symbian, they're Nokia's in-house operating system (IIRC it was sometimes called Nokia OS by outsiders, but I don't know what the name inside the company was). Edit: Looks like Series 30+ is not even Nokia OS anymore. It's a completely different OS licensed from MediaTek.

aceperry 12y ago

The new Nokia model numbers keep getting smaller, along with the shrinking feature set and capabilities. They really are aiming for the low end/budget demographic. Although I wonder if the subsidies will help or hurt sales in the low end though. Its got the retro Nokia look which probably helps sales. Since it has only 8MB of RAM, it's no surprise that Microsoft didn't put WinPhone on it.

mrmondo 12y ago
Imagine the swap file it would need!

mrmondo 12y ago

1) 2G does not provide much in the way of usable Internet these days 2) Many countries are working to actively decommission their 2G networks - which is a good thing because the sooner they do this the bands can be re-used for LTE

sspiff 12y ago
2G is fine for what this phone can display. Opera renders and reformats data on their server farm, so it's not loading megabytes of Javascript and high resolution images over 2G.
aberkowitz 12y ago
I certainly hope that 2G doesn't get phased out for a long time. It is a cheap network that is perfect for IoT devices.

motyar 12y ago

why no whatsapp?

aceperry 12y ago
Pretty sure whatsapp is on that platform.
- pulkitanand 12y ago
  If it had whatsapp, it would have been displayed prominently. I think it is a push for Facebook messenger over whatsapp. A lack of whatsapp could be a deal-breaker, atleast here in India.
  - kamaal 12y ago
    Indeed, In fact lack of making VOIP calls and internet messaging is both deal breaker as far Indian market is concerned. This phone is merely your usual Nokia phone with 2G and facebook push notifications.
rplnt 12y ago
Perhaps because Facebook is partially owned by Microsoft? Not sure if that can affect something like this.
- razzaj 12y ago
  whatsapp is owned by Facebook, so i doubt that would be the reason.
mcjiggerlog 12y ago
I'm equally surprised, I think that's a deal breaker for most outside of the US these days.
carlob 12y ago
Some S40 nokias do have whatsapp, so I guess it's available through an update or the ovi store.

jakobegger 12y ago

This looks great. It builds on Nokia's strengths (people loved them for their durable low cost phones). I hope they get the UI right; old Nokia phones had a great UI before they added all the 'smartphone'-crap. And I hope they'll sell them in Austria too; this looks like a great backup phone.

moe 12y ago
old Nokia phones had a great UI before they added all the 'smartphone'-crap. I hear you! Those were the days, when your phone would react instantly to keypresses, and so reliably that you could type and send entire SMS without looking at the screen.
- mst 12y ago
  That's why I love real keyboards - I can reply to a text message having pre-decided the words while making eye contact with the person opposite me.

canadev 12y ago

Saw this phone on reddit earlier. A few weeks ago, after an upgrade to iOS 8, I became unable to connect to wifi on my iPhone 4S and the speed of the OS became pretty bad, after it had been perfectly responsive since I first got it nearly 3 years ago. Combine this with the fact that my expensive purchased-for-durability phone case, the third in the phone's lifetime, was starting to crack, and I started looking at other phones. My contract is up in a couple of months. I went to a store and looked at the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and the iPhone 6. I found the Note 4 intriguing because I've been occasionally following John Carmack's discussions about the Gear VR (Oculus Rift that connects to the phone) and I thought it was coming out in a consumer version, but it looks like they are still labeling it as a developer kit, which makes me think there must be a reason for that (i.e. it's not really ready for prime time). Also, the phone is just massively huge, and I don't want to buy it, especially since given my way of doing things I'd end up buying some horribly large case on top of it. Then I looked at the iPhone 6. First of all I do think it's too big in terms of screen size -- though I do like the thickness and weight of it quite a bit. But the base model is 16GB, and getting either a 16GB or a 64GB on contract was $200+ or $375+ respectively. I thought about it and almost broke down and bought a 128GB model outright for over $1000. In the end, I just couldn't justify it. I think it's time for me to go back to sending SMSs on the telephone keypad. And time for me to stop getting warnings that my damn phone is not backing up (no wifi and me not plugging it in), time for me to stop worrying that the phone will die if I forget to charge it for just one evening, and time for me to stop buying expensive, crappy cases. I really want this phone. And if I don't get it, I'll probably get something that is just like it. TL;DR: I'm a fan.

jmiwhite 12y ago
I was in the same position as you (upgraded iOS several times on a 4S) and experienced the same issues, but I found a clean install dramatically improved performance, though not to the same snappiness of iOS 6. I love the feel of the hardware, but for >95% of the phone's life it's been wrapped in a waterproof case, so I don't really benefit from it much.
- canadev 12y ago
  Thanks for the tip about the clean install. And I totally hear you about the way the phone feels. Every time I got a new case, I would leave it naked for a few hours, just -[fondling]-touching and admiring the damn thing.

sspiff 12y ago

Does anyone know if this will run J2ME software?

pavlov 12y ago
Apparently it doesn't, and this is surprising to me because Nokia's Series 30 platform did support Java apps since around 2003. But these new "Series 30+" phones are not based on the old Nokia OS any more. Instead they use a completely different feature phone platform licensed from MediaTek, and it doesn't seem to include Java ME at all (probably to save on license costs).
- mschuster91 12y ago
  Now that's news. Let's wait until it comes out and let's see if spFlashTool is compatible with it (or, at least, compatible enough for a ROM dump)...
- huttarl 12y ago
  Can you cite a reference for "apparently it doesn't", and for the point that the "new Series 30+ phones are not based on the old Nokia OS any more"? Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30) calls Series 30+ "a little version upgrade of Series 30 platform" but I have no idea if that's true. If so, it would suggest that Series 30+ would support J2ME: the contrary would be surprising, as you said. Thanks.
  - pavlov 12y ago
    Here are two discussion threads from the Nokia forums: http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Asha-and-other-Nokia-Series-30/Connecting-Nokia-220-to-PC/td-p/2560768 http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Asha-and-other-Nokia-Series-... http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Asha-and-other-Nokia-Series-30/Nokia-220-the-worst-s4o-phone/td-p/2814326 http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Asha-and-other-Nokia-Series-... This info comes from poster Abi99, who seems to be a highly regarded member with over 11,000 posts on the official forums: "The Nokia 220 is — after the Nokia 108 — the second phone from Nokia which uses MediaTek Feature Phone MAUI as operating system, called Nokia Series 30+." "The new Nokia Series 30+ platform (MediaTek) does not allow to add apps."

phireal 12y ago

What would be nice is a phone like this with GPS and 3G/4G (with tethering). That way I could ditch my smartphone and use my tablet for actual browsing with the feature phone serving as a router only (whilst still being usable as a phone the rest of the time). All the feature phones I've looked at don't have 3G/4G with tethering, which means they're unsuitable for my use case.

pavlov 12y ago
The Nokia 515 and 301 models have 3.5G, so they might fit the bill: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/515/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/515/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/301/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/301/ No 4G though -- I imagine that Series 40, Nokia's venerable in-house operating system, doesn't support it at all.
- fstephany 12y ago
  I used to tether the 3.5G connection with Bluetooth with my Nokia 515. It worked quite well.
  - carlob 12y ago
    In my experience tethering via bluetooth the bottleneck is BT not the cellular network. I get 4-5x the speed by using USB.
- carlob 12y ago
  The 208 has 3.5 g as well. I have owned both the 515 and the 208. While the 515 is better in terms of hardware (aluminum and gorilla glass throughout) it has some software issues and half the ram of the 208, which seems to me has a better software stack.
  - Aldo_MX 12y ago
    I thought both had 64Mb of RAM

furyg3 12y ago

Looks great, I think I've found my new extra phone. My backup travel phone is a dual-sim candybar, allowing me to leave my smartphone back at the hotel room while still taking my usual sim with me + a local sim of the country I'm visiting. This gives me a lot of freedom to really roam and still be reachable if I want to be, have some options if there's an emergency, to not really worry about my phone being lost or stolen, and not be tied to a power outlet. My telephone company let's me have two sim cards which makes this really easy (whichever phone is turned on most recently is the active phone). I leave my spare phone in my car when I'm not traveling.

keithpeter 12y ago

"Weighing 78.7 grams, the 215 has a VGA camera with space for a 32GB microSD card. ..." http://www.cnet.com/uk/products/nokia-215/ http://www.cnet.com/uk/products/nokia-215/ 'Europe' availability specified. 2G in UK for some years to come. Might get one on payg and I can listen to my music and take the odd low res pic of funny signs (what I mainly use the camera for).

MistahKoala 12y ago
But being 2G-only, it's not going to work on Three (UK). All the other networks have 2G capabilities still, don't they?
- keithpeter 12y ago
  Yes, the mobile operators all do 2G except as you say Three. There are no definite plans to phase out 2G in UK because of rural coverage.

kamaal 12y ago

So here is the deal. If the phone has WiFi and Skype installed, nearly every single household in India will buy this in a heart beat. Plus they can get all those customers on Skype, for free. I'm currently shopping around for a phone for my father, he doesn't want a smartphone. He needs a simple phone, through which he can make VOIP calls(Skype/Viber etc). Its perfectly alright if the phone doesn't have a camera, or GPS. But for sure it needs to have WiFi connectivity, you should be able to tether, should be rugged and durable and should be cheap. Internet is taking off big time in India. And people want to make free calls over VOIP all the time. Smartphones are expensive, and aren't exactly very durable and rugged. Plus they get out of fashion very soon. A simple phone, Nokia standard, which you could use as a internet phone over WiFi with apps like Skype, Viber would sell like hotcakes here.

gambiting 12y ago
Nope, it doesn't have Wi-Fi, and with 8MB of ram Skype is out of the question. The device with the least amount of ram which ran Skype natively was the PlayStation Portable(and only the Slim model, which came with 64MB of ram instead of 32MB).

kmfrk 12y ago

Been trying to buy a 3210 as a back-up phone for many years, but even now, I find the form factor to be pretty weird. Just go with the 3210 design, and I'm down for one.

pdknsk 12y ago

http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ > RAM: 8 MB That's not much, considering what it can do. Decode H.264, run Opera Mini, and more.

gsnedders 12y ago
Compared with a lot of devices that Opera Mini ran on a decade ago, that's a lot of RAM!
- aplummer 12y ago
  Compared to the websites those phones had to try and consume, there is a lot of HTML!
  - rtpg 12y ago
    opera mini does a bunch of magic to strip websites down a lot.
  - gsnedders 12y ago
    Opera Mini doesn't render HTML, it renders OBML — essentially a binary serialisation of a device-specific render-tree. The HTML->OBML conversion is done in the cloud.
    - aplummer 12y ago
      Ha neat i did not know that neat. But i suppose there is still just more OBML to hold in RAM (even if it is more efficient).
  - aceperry 12y ago
    You mean javascript right? :-)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

razzaj 12y ago

"Plus, a built-in torchlight provides convenience, whether it’s late at night or after you’ve turned off the lights. Or, for those who have no access to electricity (in 2014, that’s still almost 20% of the world’s population), the torch is a necessity!" So how exactly is the Nokia 215 supposed to be charged in the first place?

Fuxy 12y ago
That's probably poorly worded but their obviously referring to places where the power goes out for prolonged periods of time. Especially during peak times.
teh_klev 12y ago
Applying some imagination, I guess you head to your local internet/phone cafe and charge the thing before heading home, or you or your village have something like this: http://amzn.com/B00CTDW5TA http://amzn.com/B00CTDW5TA
- razzaj 12y ago
  some imagination is expected from MS not the poor people without electricity, and without the luxury of imagination. This is a typical example of senseless marketing. If you are targeting the 20% mentioned, i would expect a Solar panel based charger that would charge a battery during the day, and then transfer the stored energy to the phone during the night. Now that's the imagination i would love to see.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Poor people don't have imagination? What? Besides, MS doesn't have to do everything. There are plenty of providers of solar charging equipment that no doubt will work with this phone. In fact, here's a random search result: http://www.amazon.in/10000mAh-Portable-Direct-Powered-Battery/dp/B00NFC0EBA http://www.amazon.in/10000mAh-Portable-Direct-Powered-Batter...
    - 12y ago

capdiz 12y ago

This phone will come in handy for some of us in Africa. The African phone market is flooded with cheap dual sim chinese phones that "can perform more tasks" than what microsoft hopes to achieve with its phone. But for 29$ they are [the chinese phones] still a rip-off for many. Buggy software applications, short lifespan (3-6 months) and spread viruses like crazy.

yogrish 12y ago

It certainly is targeting Indian market. Names and places in the Ad is Indian. Nokia still resonates with many Indians for its durability and Reliability. With Internet ready, it will for sure strike a chord with indians in low price segment and as back up phone.

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_nedR 12y ago
I don't know whether the 29$ price tag (even when compared to other similar Nokias already in the market) is all that revolutionary but they certainly have pitched their product perfectly: "or as a secondary phone for just about anyone... has the same durable build quality you’ve learned to rely on over the years... stand-by time of up to 29 days" After Microsoft claimed to have banished the 'Nokia' name forever, they now evoking imaging from Nokia's days of glory. Of course, the question now on every Indian's mind is - Can the Nokia 215 hold a candle to the legendary 1100?

gojomo 12y ago

Note that on January 1, 2016, old-Nokia in Finland can use the 'Nokia' name on new phones again: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2013/09/05/could-we-see-a-finnish-smartphone-from-nokia-in-2016-jolla-sailfish-android/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2013/09/05/could-we-s... There may be some strange brand contortions coming next year!

hyp0 12y ago

Like a smartwatch + keypad. 2G connectivity is slow... but I would love super-lite webpages. Like m.mobile; maybe w.watch? This could also use them. Needs less bandwidth, data, CPU, RAM, battery - and clearer because just the text. If it has an x86 CPU (specs don't say), it could be the world's smallest DOSbox. 8MB RAM is plenty for DOS.

pjc50 12y ago
Those who don't remember WAP are doomed to reinvent it, it seems.
codeulike 12y ago
There's no way its x86. This is a classic Nokia phone as from the pre-smartphone era, it must be running a small ARM chip or something. The OS is called "Series 30+"

ulfw 12y ago

A 2G phone touted as "our most affordable Internet-ready entry-level phone yet". Has Microsoft's "Nokia"/Windows Phone division lost it's mind completely? I know it's a cheap phone, but then don't market it as an internet device. It's 2015. 3G even in a cheap phone should be standard if you call it an internet-ready device.

johnchristopher 12y ago

I would replace my old and trusty SonyErricson Naite and SO's cedar with this if only it'd come with WiFi and/or 3G connectivity and that weird but reliable google maps app. (Opera mini is also a requirement.)

kimb 12y ago

Great

JonnieCache 12y ago

No GPS, but will opera mini run maps at all do we think? Perhaps openstreetmap? I generally know where I am, it's going the right way I have trouble with...

maxerickson 12y ago
Previous S30 phones supported offline maps in the manner you describe. (The OS is listed on the product page: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ )

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skibz 12y ago

Anyone know if this phone will be able to run WhatsApp?

jlink 12y ago
Not for the moment. Maybe later in an update.. They really should add it otherwise it's lame!

rplnt 12y ago

> Nokia 215 and Nokia 215 Dual-SIM will be available in select markets This is not the first modern and cheap phone they have. Yet they are not available to purchase. So yeah, nice news, but not really relevant unless you live in Africa. (Yes, I know they say Europe this time, but I don't really believe them)

edpichler 12y ago

I don't know if it's possible without touch screen hardware, but I would really like if I could write WP8 apps to run on this device.

icebraining 12y ago
It doesn't run WP at all; it only has 8MB of RAM, after all.

zodiac 12y ago

I find it odd that it's the same price as the cheapest lumia phone... http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/AT-T---Nokia-Lumia-520---No-Contract/productID.283842800 http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/AT-T---N...

v0lta 12y ago
The 520 is a great phone. It's snappy and definitly feels smoother than low or mid-end android phones. WP8.1 is pretty awesome on weaker hardware.
sliverstorm 12y ago
That's an on-contract price. Isn't this one, the 215, off-contract?
- chiph 12y ago
  They did say it was before subsidies, so appears so. At that price, buy a second one for a spare. Or a fashion accessory.

finishingmove 12y ago

Budget people are not on postpaid, and this phone has no Wi-Fi. Big mishit there.

icebraining 12y ago
So what? No prepaid 3G where you live?
- finishingmove 12y ago
  Prepaid cellular data calculates as much more expensive (at least in my country and similar countries).

davidgerard 12y ago

Have they just recreated the Kin?

Aoyagi 12y ago

A phone with physical buttons that's not targeted at senior customers? Amazing.

TheMagicHorsey 12y ago

http://m.gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/seven-firefox-os-powered-devices-announced-mozilla-aims-to-power-25-smartphone-487300 http://m.gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/seven-firefox-os-powe... Firefox Smartphone is a better choice for India. Same price tag and a much more open compute platform. There are also several Chinese made Android smartphones around INR2000 which are attractive to budget conscious purchasers. Remember that in India the phone is often the only compute platform a user has, and it is an aspirational purchase.

h43k3r 12y ago

I seriously doubt the fact that this phone will be able to make a dent in the Indian market. Just look at its price tag, it costs you around Rs. 2000($30) The basic internet pack charges (2g) is around Rs 130($2) per month. A person who is ready to take a subscription of $2 per month, will be able to afford a better phone with Android which won't cost him more than 3k. One thing that I want to see in such type of phones is whatsapp support with an extremely good battery life. If such a phone comes up, it will be second phone for every person who is suffering from the battery problem of android ecosystem.

pacofvf 12y ago
> Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe MS needs to preinstall whatsapp , otherwise a lot of people will prefer a phone with whatsapp pre-installed, I know that most of us would laugh about it, but believe me, In my country people buy phones just because the box has these logos: whatsapp, FB, twitter.
- deleted 12y ago
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- MichaelMoser123 12y ago
  whatsapp expires every now and then and requires an update, on android/iphone i need to go to google play/appstore in order to do that; Has this phone an equivalent mechanism for software updates ? (Symbian or Nokia OS/Asha were mentioned as possible OS choices)
pmelendez 12y ago
>"will be able to afford a better phone with Android which won't cost him more than 3k." You are assuming that a cheap Android would offer a good experience. I won't have another Android precisely because I had a poor experience with 2 cheap Android phones.
pearjuice 12y ago
I don't know which OS this phone runs, but the Series 40 platform which used to ship on Nokia devices in this segment was able to run WhatsApp. The thing is, S40 never really felt "finished". It had these tiny little things which just made you drive nuts because there wasn't a way to fix it. Over time I thought it would be amazing if S40 would get open sourced for people to flash modified versions.

Chirag 12y ago

This or similar phones from MS, won't change anything. People will still go for android with a similar price range and more screen size. We got two such phones for our office to use on travel sometime back, but they just lie there with no takers. People still use their regular phones with the power backup on the go.

hugozap 12y ago
For some people, battery life is more important than features. Other just don't like android

t0mislav 12y ago

Nokia has many phones like this, I'm not sure why this is so special?

kyberias 12y ago
Who said it is "special"?
- nmeofthestate 12y ago
  Being in the top 3 HN links rather implies that it is somehow special.

whizzkid 12y ago

Sorry Microsoft, but that era has passed and pie was eaten by Nokia. (Well deserved by Nokia) Building an affordable phone with Internet access capability is not biggest demand currently. 10 years ago, Nokia discovered what was missing in communication market. A cheap, good looking and everlasting phone. They sold it to literally everywhere in the world. It was like buy one and use forever. I am not really sure what is the biggest gap in communication market but it is definitely not this. Here are the things i can list which i think the most important ones to focus on. - Battery life - Unique and beautiful designs (Phones are getting too similar to each other) - Durability - Making phones use cases wider to interact real life scenarios. Lets see if we are gonna see something original in 2015 otherwise people will as usual wait for iPhone 7, Galaxy S6, and Nexus 10.

freehunter 12y ago
Do you really believe this phone is designed for you? Hint: it's not.

perseusprime 12y ago

I would buy it for my mom and dad.

schmiddy 12y ago

"Meet <insert product name here>".... "introducing <insert product name here>", cue artsy and friendly music and lots of people having fun. I get that all this stuff works really well in marketing products, but its getting really stale.

Zigurd 12y ago

Neither fish nor fowl. Maybe somebody could make a product and make money in this segment but the odds of that somebody being Microsoft are nil. The only context in which this makes sense is keeping this part of the former Nokia alive long enough to sell it.

Pxtl 12y ago

So it's a modern stick-phone. I'm actually flabbergasted that MS/Nokia made a non-windows-phone device. To me, the big question is whether I can tether a tablet to it. A lightweight, convenient dumbphone with a tethered tablet in my backpack might be a nice form-factor.

eli 12y ago
Ya know it's funny. I used to write about the cell phone industry in the previous decade and this was exactly the vision at one point: a feature phone in your pocket creates a "Personal Area Network" over Bluetooth or similar that provides connectivity to your your watch, computer, etc.
threeseed 12y ago
> I'm actually flabbergasted that MS/Nokia made a non-windows-phone device Why ? Microsoft has made it crystal clear that they want to be an internet services company. Which means that whatever OS they use isn't that relevant if it means more users of their services.

brickmort 12y ago

the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe The phones that I really like seem to never be available in the US. Admittedly, I have a unique taste in phones. I love the idea of a minimal phone OS with a qwerty keypad (or number pad). The new Blackberry Classic looks really nice too, but it's not available in the US and Blackberry has all but abandoned ship in the US market. Nokia is getting so close to scratching that itch with this phone. I really hope there's a US version with similar specs somewhere up the pipe.

burger_moon 12y ago
I really want to switch back to a "dumb" phone once my contract is up on my iPhone 5. Im always at a computer or can have my iPad (which I never use anymore) with me in wifi everywhere I go except my car. The only reason to need internet in the car is for gps which convieniently they sell those too and I have one. I just don't see the need to own a smart phone anymore for myself. If I wasn't at a computer all the time I could justify it but it no long serves a purpose. I really hope they sell this in the us eventually. I suppose you can still buy an unlocked one and use that however. Just make sure it has the right keyboard and language.
- pkorzeniewski 12y ago
  I second that. I use my phone for two things - calling and texting - and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. I'm switching to a small, lightweight "dumbphone" (we got so used to the brick-sized smartphones we forgot how handy the old phones were), that can last a week without charging and has a physical keyboard which - in my opinion - is so much better than a virtual one.
- kregasaurusrex 12y ago
  I've recently bought an old Blackberry from eBay, and it's a refreshing change to not have the need to check multiple applications on your phone while having idle time and value actual conversation. The physical keyboard is also nice, having come from a fullscreen android phone.
- sliverstorm 12y ago

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higherpurpose 12y ago

The "1 month of battery life" is such bullshit, and I'm surprised so many people, especially on Reddit, believe it without question. Nokia announced a phone like this a year ago, too, and the same happened. The "2 weeks" of battery life or even 4 weeks thing is at least a decade old. It's nothing new. Old Nokias and Sony Ericsson's used to promise that all the time. The thing is that's just idle time. You're not going to keep your phone in idle that much. This type of marketing definitely came from the Nokia guys themselves - this "old type of thinking". It reminds me of when laptop makers used to promise "8h of battery life" on their laptops 5 years ago, when their laptops only lasted 2-3h with normal use. They were also thinking idle/almost no usage-time, and being misleading about it in their marketing campaigns. For most people here, I imagine that phone will last them 3-4 days, which is nothing to scoff at, but it's also not nearly as much as "1 month" of battery life as they imply, and you also lose so much more compared to a smartphone. Yes you get "Internet", but it will also be a pain to use it on that non-touch tiny screen. The price is also not that special. There have been feature phones costing that much for years. The only difference is now some components have become cheap enough that they can also add some that make having Internet on it a little more usable than before. People here are aware Firefox launched a $25 Firefox OS smartphone right?

PyErr_SetString 12y ago
"The "1 month of battery life" is such bullshit" Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and call BS on that too. Here's the info about standby time you can find for iPhone6:" "Up to 16 days (384 hours)" I'm interested in knowing if anyone even got half of that. And if you actually start using your phone it'd go down a lot more (which you probably would want to, since you know... you bought it to have as a phone)

pmelendez 12y ago

Are they allowed to continue using Nokia band? I thought they had to ditch it a few months ago

notatoad 12y ago
They chose to ditch it a few months ago in favour of lumia for their windows phones. They still have the rights to use it though, for a couple years i think.
abrowne 12y ago
MS has a license for use with non-smartphones for several more years.

vamur 12y ago

Right now in Russia you can buy an Android 4.4 smartphone (Beeline Smart 3) with Wifi, GPS and 4 inch screen for $30. Not sure how Microsoft's phone can compete with similarly priced Chinese or Indian smartphones.

jastanton 12y ago

Nokia 105 - $20 Nokia 130 - $25 Nokia 215 $29 Not sure why Nokia keeps coming out with new phones but I like it. Yeah it may be expensive in 2nd / 3rd world countries still but I personally like the no distractions of a dumb phone. If they called a cellphone a tether when they first came out, they are handcuffs now and I like the feeling of breaking free from it all and focusing on other things in life like the people in my life, or self improvement etc...

abhididdigi 12y ago

I don't believe this to be something new. My mom had been using this ( very very similar - the OS) from Nokia since 2009. Nokia released many such cellphones in India.

MisterBastahrd 12y ago

There are plenty in the 60 and up crowd for whom smartphones are confusing things because they obfuscate the entire purpose of owning a cell phone: making calls. My parents both still have clamshell style flip phones because they don't use their phones primarily as an entertainment or computing device, but as actual phones. This kind of phone would be a great halfway point for them: give them the functionality of a smart phone without making their phone confusing.

IgorPartola 12y ago

I like how this phone includes that it's built to be durable as one of its major features. Phones should be tough. Waterproofing them should be standard. They should not break when dropped from 10+ feet. Their screens should not crack. On top of this, either optional or built-in warranty should include coverage for accidental damage. A phone like that would be worth quite a bit of money. Another thing about the current generation of smartphones: unlike this Nokia offering, they are not yet "good enough". Chances are, you will replace your phone in 1-2 years, or at least you'll want to. Their speed is still growing very fast, and the demand on the CPU/GPU/RAM is growing very fast too. I can see buying this phone and keeping it for 5+ years: nothing in what it can do will see substantial improvements over that time period. Contrast this with the top of the line smartphones where simple things in 2017 will take 2x the processing power that they do now, because of the improved UI, etc. Eventually, I think smartphones will settle down. I remember when PC's were getting faster and faster in the late 1990's, early 2000's. It seemed that you could upgrade every year and still not keep up. Eventually they got "good enough" where you can keep the same PC for 5-10 years (except power-users such as programmers, gamers, etc.) I look forward to a day when iPhones and such are a commodity such as this Nokia.

carlob 12y ago
> They should not break when dropped from 10+ feet. I dropped my 515 from 12 m (40 ft) and it kept working…
- freehunter 12y ago
  I had a Lumia 920 that I dropped down three flights of stairs and it still worked with only minor scratches on the plastic and one scratch on the screen. I'm not sure you can do that with any of the Lumia flagships that followed that one though. They caved to the "thinner is better" market, even though the 920 was thinner and lighter than an iPhone with an Otterbox or Lifeproof that a lot of people have.
Joky 12y ago
"It should be XXX, YYY, ZZZ". Not everyone shares your need. Some people a careful and want a pretty phone, light, and just awesome to use. Why would they need a heavier phone, with constrained design, and pay extra for an accidental damage coverage (you mentioned that it could be builtin)? Moreover over these kind of phones exists, it is just that we have choice not to buy them.

desireco42 12y ago

I've been looking at those nokia asha's with keyboard. I think I would enjoy using something like that. I am a fan for sure, however, it is not likely I will abandon my OnePlus soon which also solves my main complaint, that battery dies quickly on 'modern' phones.

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bpatel576 12y ago

How can they make a phone for only $30 and still make money. I'm curious, does anyone on this thread happen to have a tear down report.

fosk 12y ago
Commoditized cheap components, and economy of scale. This phone has 8MB of RAM for example, which not only is a very cheap component to buy, but given the amount of phones Nokia will be producing, it will cost them even less. Same for camera, and every other component. In 2015 some things that used to be very expensive, like multi megapixel cameras, are worth less or more like a few peanuts nowadays if bought in large amounts.

stove 12y ago

Let's ask the important question: will it have snake?

swengw 12y ago

This brings back fond memories of the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic [1] that I used for two years. The battery lasted a week, and using T9 on that phone was the fastest I've ever typed on a mobile device. It's nice to know that the 215 exists if I ever want to return to those days. 1. http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5310_xpressmusic-2087.php

swengw 12y ago

yalogin 12y ago

So I need to pay for data on a severely restricted phone? Why would I do that? I understand the allure of a cheap phone but why should it have internet access? I understand if I can get a data plan specifically tailored for this (as in cheap).

maxmouchet 12y ago
In France there's subscriptions for as low as 2€ a month for 2h of voice and 50MB data (5cents/MB above), this would be perfect for those phones. Edit: Internet is useful for chat apps like messenger, they mostly replaced text messaging for me.

okasaki 12y ago

You can get a no-name Android phone for not much more (if at all)

teekert 12y ago

Just give me the titanium Nokia 8850 [1] with color screen, whatsapp (preferably also telegram), imap and calendar sync. 1 http://www.retromobile.nl/images/productimages/big/8850zilver3.jpg http://www.retromobile.nl/images/productimages/big/8850zilve...

vdfs 12y ago

You can get Nokia Lumia 520 for the same price, at least for now: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E45043A http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E45043A

toothbrush 12y ago

Hm, this is a bit too full-featured for my tastes. I'm currently on a Nokia 101, and my gripes are few: if only the battery cover would stay on better (current solution: tape), and the build quality was $60 as opposed to the $10-20 currently, it'd be ideal. Other than that, it is perfection. I'm glad this type of thing is still being made, even if the trade-off between the triad [features, price, build quality] isn't exactly where i'd have liked it.

Kluny 12y ago

Wow, at $29 I'm going to get one for sheer curiosity.

balladeer 12y ago

They should be talking about battery life; and battery life with 3G on. They left it at "Exceptional battery life" and "Battery capacity: 1100 mAh"[1], the latter definitely didn't do anything to boost confidence. This is too much to ask, I agree. But then if I just want a phone to make calls and text then I would buy something even cheaper than this phone. [1] http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/ http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/215/specifications/