Nokia Asha 501 is a

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

from the budget

Nokia Asha series Nokia Asha is a discontinued series of feature phones and low-end smartphones produced and marketed by Nokia. It was marketed from late 2011 until 2014, by which time it was under Microsoft Mobile ownership. The range consisted of QWERTY keyb ...

, announced by

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

on 9 May 2013 in India, and released on 24 June 2013. The device was classified at the time by Nokia as a "Full Touch"

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

. The phone is available in either single- or

dual SIM Some mobile phones support use of two SIM cards, described as dual SIM operation. When a second SIM card is installed, the phone may allow users to switch between two separate mobile network services manually, have hardware support for keeping bo ...

configurations and its suggested price was US $99 before taxes and subsidies. The Asha 501 was the first device built on Nokia Asha platform, a new

software platform A computing platform, digital platform, or software platform is the infrastructure on which software is executed. While the individual components of a computing platform may be obfuscated under layers of abstraction, the ''summation of the requi ...

descended from

Series 40 Nokia Series 40 Platform, often shortened as S40, is a software platform and application user interface (UI) software that was previously used on Nokia's broad range of mid-tier feature phones from 2002 to 2014, as well as on some of the Vertu l ...

, with a user interface similar to

MeeGo MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin (produced by Intel) and Maemo (produced by Nokia). MeeGo was primarily targeted at mobile devices and information app ...

on Nokia N9. The Asha 501 includes Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but no 3G connectivity, relying on EDGE and GPRS (2.75G) for cellular networking. The phone has been noted for its user-friendliness and a battery with long talk and standby times. It has been called "tiny" by some due to its size, being one of the smallest Nokia ever produced.

Software

Nokia Asha 501 comes preloaded with the Nokia Xpress browser, which (according to Nokia) compresses data server-side by 90% to facilitate the least amount of transferable data with the phone. Nokia Xpress Now is a new app that offers location-based content. The device was announced to feature built-in social applications for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Other apps announced were Here Maps,

Bandai Namco (commonly known as and formerly Namco Bandai until 2015, also known as Bandai Namco Group,) is a Japanese mass media and entertainment Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 2005 by the merger of Namco and Bandai. The company specia ...

games, EA games,

eBuddy eBuddy is a privately held Dutch software company that offers instant messaging services. As of 2011, eBuddy reported 100 million downloads. The company's flagship service is XMS, a proprietary cross-platform instant messaging service. After som ...

, CNN, ESPN, and The Weather Channel. Here Maps beta for Asha 501 was released on 3 July in select countries.

Foursquare Four square is a ball game. Four square may also refer to: Internet and entertainment * Foursquare City Guide, a local search and discovery app * 4 Square (game show), ''4 Square'' (game show), a British game show * 4 Square (TV series), ''4 Squ ...

was released for the model on 25 July; the app won't require GPS and uses location data from the network connection. A

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...

app was released on 6 August for Asha 501 and other Asha full-touch phones. On 7 August 2013 the Line instant messaging app was made available for the device. Other instant messaging apps officially on offer are

WeChat WeChat or Weixin in Chinese ( zh, c=微信, p=Wēixìn , l=micro-message) is an instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment mobile app, app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile a ...

and eBuddy Mobile Messenger.

WhatsApp WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make vo ...

is made available for this phone in November 2013. Facebook messenger was made available for this device on March 18, 2014. The phone supports 12 languages native to the Indian subcontinent in the on-screen Swipe keyboard. Models sold in South Asia support at least eight languages: English,

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

, Gujarati,

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

, Telugu, and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

. The selection of included apps and user interface customisations may vary by availability and geographical region.

Features

Nokia Asha 501 has a Nokia Glance Screen and a Nokia Fastlane plus Screen Double-tap. A panorama camera and a voice guide on camera for self-portrait were introduced in a new update that rolled out in April 2014. This update also brought a paternal control for the apps installed on the phone.

Reception

Nokia Asha 501 has been noted for its battery, which offers long standby and talk times — 52 days and 17 hours, respectively — that in turn allows the phone to be used in places with inefficient or nonexistent electricity supply. The Asha 501 was followed by the Nokia Asha 500,

502 502 may refer to: *502 (number), a number *AD 502 __NOTOC__ Year 502 (Roman numerals, DII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rufius Magnus Faustus Av ...

, 503, and

230 Year 230 ( CCXXX) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Agricola and Clementinus (or, less frequently, year 983 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 230 for th ...

, all based on the design of the 501.

Model variants

Gallery

File:Asha501-1.jpg, Camera app

References

External links

Nokia Developer device page for Asha 501

{{Authority control Nokia smartphones