The Nokia Asha series was a range of low-end feature phones and

smartphones A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

produced and marketed by

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

. The name "Asha" came from the

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

word meaning "hope". On 3 September 2013,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

announced its purchase of Nokia's mobile device business, with the deal closing on 25 April 2014. The company previously announced an intent to use Asha as an "on-ramp" to the

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...

platform, but in a company memo released in July 2014, it was announced that as part of cutbacks, Microsoft would end the Asha and Android-based Nokia X range entirely, in favor of solely producing Lumia Windows Phones and Nokia-branded "feature phone" products. On 11 January 2018,

HMD Global HMD Global Oy, branded as HMD and Nokia Mobile, is a Finnish mobile phone manufacturer. The company is made up of the mobile phone business that Nokia sold to Microsoft in 2014, then bought back in 2016. HMD began marketing Nokia-branded smar ...

acquired the Asha brand name.

List of devices

Below are the mobile phones in the Asha range. None of the Asha models have GPS functionality. All Asha phones included an

FM radio FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting using frequency modulation (FM). Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to provide high fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting is cap ...

. The Asha 305 and Asha 311 models are known as the first generation of Asha Full Touch phones; the second generation is the Asha 50''x'' line. All devices up to the Asha 50''x'' series run the Nokia domestic

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

with

Series 40 Series 40, often shortened as S40, is a software platform and application user interface (UI) software on Nokia's broad range of mid-tier feature phones, as well as on some of the Vertu line of luxury phones. It was one of the world's most wi ...

UI platform, also known as S40. The Asha 501 (released in May 2013), Asha 500, Asha 502, Asha 503 and Asha 230 (announced on 14 February 2014) are powered by the

Nokia Asha platform The Nokia Asha platform is a mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for low-end borderline smartphones, based on software from Smarterphone which was acquired by Nokia. The platform inherits UI similarities mostly from MeeGo ...

, which builds on S40 and

Smarterphone Smarterphone was a Norwegian company making software for mobile phones, founded in 1993 as Kvaleberg AS before being renamed in December 2010. In June 2007, venture capital investor Ferd invested €2 million in the company. By January 2010 ...

. ;Feature phones without the Asha name powered by S40 The Nokia 206, 207, 208, and 301 were not part of the Asha series as they do not carry the "Asha" branding, despite mistakenly being marketed as such by some carriers and retailers.

Asha on Linux project

According to ''

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media ...

'', Nokia had a project referred to as ''Asha on Linux'' and also as "MView"—a reference to Mountain View. The project used a fork of Android on a low-end handset to maximize margins. The project resulted in the Nokia X family of devices, unveiled at MWC 2014. It was one of two known Android projects at the company, the other was running the OS on high-end Lumia hardware.

References

External links

{{Nokia devices, 1000 series=yes, 2000 series=yes, 3000 series=yes, 5000 series=yes, 6000 series=yes, 7000 series=yes, 8000 series=yes, 9000 series=yes, 3-digit series=yes, asha=yes, cseries=yes, eseries=yes, nseries=yes, xseries=yes, 3-digit symbian=yes, lumia=yes, internet=yes, n-gage=yes, x family=yes, android=yes, originals=yes, c series=yes, g series=yes, x series=yes, miscellaneous=yes, below=yes Smartphones Nokia phones by series Asha series (Nokia ASeries) Mobile phones introduced in the 2010s

List of devices

Asha on Linux project

See also

References

External links