Review:-
Introduction
Nokia had two big announcements to make a few months ago. And yes, it’s a matter of perspective but, on certain markets, the S40-powered Asha series can be as big as Windows Phone. Anyway, now that the Lumia smartphones have had their deserved hype, it’s time for the Asha handsets to step forward.
The S40 platform got recently treated to lots of visual updates and the latest feature phones have joined the 1GHz league. The new Asha 303 seem to be sparing no effort to bring the complete user experience to traditionally loyal Nokia markets.
At first, it felt strange, but a few minutes into it, we knew we were with a friend. The Asha 303 offers the familiar convenience of Touch and Type phones, but comes with a slightly bigger screen and – most importantly – a full QWERTY keyboard. With a connectivity set that borders on premium and a powerful 1GHz processor, the Asha 303 is ready to lead a Nokia return to markets the Finns like to call their own.
Key features
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
Penta-band 3G with 10Mbps HSDPA and 2Mbps HSUPA
Asha S40 Touch and Type platform
Four-row hardware QWERTY keyborad
2.6" QVGA 256K-color capacitive TFT touchscreen
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
Angry Birds for S40 exclusive
Main disadvantages
No multitasking
Fixed-focus camera
No smart dialing
No video-call camera
No document viewer
Non-hot-swappable memory card
The Asha 303 is in charge of a lineup that tries to cover the entire range of the low end. From a basic Dual SIM solution to different combinations of touchscreen and QWERTY and cameras ranging from 2 to 5 megapixel – there should be a phone for every use and budget.
Save for the 3.2 megapixel camera (it’s fixed-focus across the range), the Asha 303 is the best equipped handset of the lineup. Not only is it the first QWERTY/touchscreen S40 phone, the capacitive display is a debut for the platform. The penta-band 3G support along with Wi-Fi and USB-on-the-go are worthy of a smartphone.
The Asha 303 is not a smartphone of course and the biggest omission is multitasking. Nokia’s S40 have never had that and it seems a shame that the 1GHz processor will never be really tested. Smart dialing is another No on the list – would’ve been a nice thing to have on a QWERTY phone.
Other than that, the Asha 303 is more than adequately equipped to be an excellent competitor in its class. Let’s see if this messenger delivers on time – and on price. Coming up next is our traditional tour of the exterior.
Design and build quality
The Asha 303 has the body shape and styling of the Nokia X2-01 – adding a prominent accent in the brushed metal battery cover. Surprisingly, the Asha is a bit more compact and weighs less than its all-plastic predecessor. It is a simple yet stylish handset even though the messenger form factor doesn’t allow too much creative freedom.
Budget or not, the phone doesn’t feel and look cheap. The finish is simple but quality and the whole thing feels solid and well-built. Resistance to fingerprints is a point in favor too. There’s a touch of metal on the rear, which doesn’t add too much weight.
Touch and Type S40 UI
The Nokia Asha 303 runs on the touch-enabled iteration of the Series 40 software. We already met with this version while reviewing the C2-02 and C2-03, so if you too have met with one of them, you probably know pretty much anything about the S40 ticking inside the new Asha 303.
The touch-enabled version of the S40 platform brings only skin-deep changes like the refreshed icons, a la Symbian-Anna. And a few usability improvements, like the homescreen swipes.
Here is a Sample video on its OS:
Active standby mode (or Home screen mode, as Nokia call it here) is available as usual. It divides the screen into four sections, each of which is effectively a widget. The top row of the screen is reserved for status indicators (time, signal, etc.).
By default, the clock is on top, followed by Social (Facebook, Twitter and Flickr integration) and two Shortcut bars at the bottom, each of which grants instant access to four favorite functions or apps.
There are two swipe gestures available on the homescreen. A left or right swipe can be set to launch an app (both native and Java) or change the phone profile. By default, a left swipe opens the message composer and a right swipe opens the Java apps and games folder.
There‘s no D-pad on the Nokia Asha 303 but the soft keys are there. Only virtual this time – they’re at the bottom of the screen, and there’s a virtual Menu key between them. The soft keys are user-configurable – you can assign a shortcut of choice to each of them.
The main menu has only two views – Grid and List. The grid layout is handy for offering numpad shortcuts.
The familiar Go To shortcut is available and it's yet another way to add shortcuts to the homescreen. It’s the kind of quick menu we’ve seen on many S40 handsets but touchscreen makes so much difference. It offers quick access to nine shortcuts.
The lockscreen on the Nokia Asha 303 pretty standard – a clock and a tap-to-unlock key.
One thing missing is an accelerometer. Unlike some of its S40 non-touch siblings, the Nokia Asha 303 leaves out features like tap-for-time and turn-to-mute. As for screen auto rotation, it’s not badly missed we think, given the screen size. Some might still find it a nuisance though – having to manually set display orientation where it matters: in the image gallery and the video player.
The biggest omission as usual is multitasking - we gave up hope that Nokia will add that a long time ago. This leads to bottlenecks though they are rare.
You can't leave it running in the background. You have to go through that every time you want to do something with the app, except check the latest notification (notifications do come in the background and only the last one is displayed).
Social networking
In the Nokia Asha 303 the Social app is in charge of SNS. It handles Facebook, Twitter, Orkut and Flickr accounts, including several accounts of each type (though only one Facebook and one Twitter account can be connected at a time).
The Facebook section supports most of the communication capabilities of the service. You can view messages and events, friend requests and event invitations. Write on people’s wall and browse their profiles, post photos (either from the Gallery or you can snap a new one on the spot), post status updates, read news feeds and follow groups.
Twitter is an inherently simpler service but the app has plenty of features too. You can update your status, check your @mentions, send direct messages and reply to tweets too. We missed automatic upload of photos though.
The default account is what you see first when you start the app (so if you only have a Facebook account, you don’t have to tap the Facebook tab every time). Also, only the updates from the main account will be visible on the homescreen. You can also set the time to receive new updates – say, from 8:00 to 22:00.
Uninspiring 3MP snapper
The Nokia Asha 303 has a 3MP fixed-focus snapper that produces photos with maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536. The camera interface has been updated so it's a lot more like Symbian.
On the screen you get a column on the bottom with the virtual shutter key in the center and the back and options keys besides it. You can use the camera in portrait mode only, there is no option for landscape orientation.
A tap on the screen reveals more controls - indicators (photos remaining, resolution and white balance), digital zoom controls, and three shortcuts for video camera mode, gallery and self-timer. All these auto-hide so they don't take up space on the screen.
Going into the Options menu, you get a popup that looks like the one on Symbian. There are controls here for effects (greyscale, sepia, negative), white balance, a viewfinder grid and extended settings. The shortcuts in this popup can be re-arranged but you can't pull any of them out onto the viewfinder. This popup also features animations, but they are rather slow.
The image quality is good for a fixed-focus 3MP unit. Photos are quite noisy but the post processing manages to mask a lot of it, at least in bright areas. Shadows however have tons of noise. Contrast and color rendering are good and the amount of captured detail is as much as you would expect from such a camera.
Excellent connectivity
The Nokia Asha 303 offers quad-band GSM and UMTS support. There is also HSPA support, download speed potentially reaching 10.2 Mbps, and up speed as good as 2 Mbps.
Bluetooth is version 2.1 and A2DP is, of course, enabled. The Nokia Asha 303 uses a microUSB port for both data connections and charging.
The bigger treat though is USB On-the-go. The Nokia Asha 303 can access USB flash drives and even other phones (card readers don’t work). Non-Nokia-made handsets generally refused to share their memory.
If you happen to connect two USB on-the-go devices – the master and slave in this connection is determined by the end each of the devioces is connected to. By the way, a special USB-OTG-enabled cable like the one that came with the Nokia N8, is not included in the Asha 303 box. You’ll have to buy one separately.
Wi-Fi connectivity is also at hand. In fact, the Wi-Fi is one of the key features of the Nokia Asha 303 – it is one of the cheaper Wi-Fi enabled phones on the market.
The Nokia Asha 303 also comes complete with a memory card slot. Coupled with a card reader it can usually give you the fastest data transfer rates.
And finally, there's the standard 3.5mm audio jack, which allows you to use your own headphones, but doesn't have TV-out functionality.
Final words
The Nokia 303 Asha is not a particularly hard one to recommend. In fact, if you want a full-featured messenger without the complications of a smartphone, the Asha 303 should be among the first things on you list to check out.
Entry level messengers go all the way back to the likes of the LG GW300 and the Samsung Ch@t. Nokia have a couple of prime examples of their own in the C3 and the X2-01.
The Asha 303 is the first S40 phone to combine a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard. It’s the first capacitive screen for the platform too. Of course, the resolution is nothing to be excited about – S40 have been stuck at the QVGA notch for ever. But the Asha 303 is trying hard to make up for that with plenty of new skill.
So much of it that the Nokia Asha 303 isn’t quite the entry-level phone that we make it out to be. It’s actually way ahead of the cheap alternatives in the Asha series. The Asha 201 and the dual-SIM Asha 200 are the most basic of QWERTY messengers with regular non-touch displays and just the simplest of features.
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