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Microsoft Cellphones

Microsoft Unveils Nokia 215, a $29 Phone With Internet Access 150

Posted by samzenpus from the lowering-the-price dept.
An anonymous reader sends word of the Nokia 215, Microsoft's $29 internet-ready phone. "Smartphones may be more affordable than ever, but, for quite a few people, they are still too expensive. And they offer short battery life, pretty much across the board. It is not a winning combination, especially for those living in developing markets, looking to be connected to the Internet while on the go. Enter Nokia 215, a dirt-cheap Internet-ready phone, which Microsoft announced earlier today. It packs some of the most-important features people want in a smartphone, but without any of the major drawbacks. The software giant calls it its "most affordable Internet-ready entry-level phone yet", costing just $29."
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Microsoft Unveils Nokia 215, a $29 Phone With Internet Access More

Microsoft Unveils Nokia 215, a $29 Phone With Internet Access

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  • It may not be for me... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @09:37AM (#48736091) Journal

    But I find this pretty awesome.

    • Re: It may not be for me... (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why can't we get this in the US? I'd be happy with one of those.... At least for my 12 year old. The phone selection is either a flip phone or a smart phone. I don't want to invest more than $50 for something that gets kid goo all over it.

      • You forgot to uncheck the "Goo" feature when you ordered your kid?

        Classic mistake.

      • There's not much 2G infrastructure left in the US, and the carriers are migrating people off it as fast as they can, so they can recycle the spectrum for 4G, which is a lot more spectrum-efficient as well as offering higher speeds. Otherwise, I'd be really happy to get one of these to be the spare phone that sits in my wife's car for emergencies. (The battery life is a big part of the appeal here.)

      • One reason you can't get that in the US: EDGE networks are being turned off in some places, a trend that will continue with time. HSDPA is the minimum point of entry to GSM-network data now.

    • Re:It may not be for me... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jhon ( 241832 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @09:59AM (#48736261) Homepage Journal

      I picked up a Nokia 520 (Windows Phone 8.0 -- upgradable to 8.1) brand new for ~$30 on Amazon. You can find it around at that price (for example. Fry's has it for $29 after their "promo code" takes off $10). It's a "prepaid go phone" but just drop an ATT sim in it and you are golden with any type of account.

      I picked it up as a spare in case my iphone 5 dies (son somehow talked me in to giving him my old 4s).

      It's actually a decent phone. Snappy, responsive, light and decent battery life. The interface takes some getting used to, but it's not terrible.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by psm321 ( 450181 )
        It's actually that price right now on Amazon for Prime members.

    • It's pretty much the same setup as the XBox, I suspect - sell the hardware at a loss, and hope to make it up in apps and API subscription fees. If that's indeed the case, it'll take years to recoup the costs, if at all (it took like what, 8 years before XBox even made a profit, and IIRC they still have yet to see a complete ROI?)

      I do wonder though if folks will treat this like an introductory phone, then save up for an Android...

      • Re:It may not be for me... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Gadget_Guy ( 627405 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @11:16AM (#48737009)

        It's pretty much the same setup as the XBox, I suspect - sell the hardware at a loss, and hope to make it up in apps and API subscription fees.

        If this was all about making money from downloaded apps then they would have included more than 8MB of memory on the thing. These are just basic feature phones that do a few simple things for a cheap price.

        There are a lot of people out there who don't want to carry a huge smart phone; they just want something small that can make calls and which doesn't run out of batteries at the end of each day. You tend not to hear about these people, because by definition they are not big on social media.

        They aren't "saving up for an Android phone", because you can pick up one of those for just $40 more. They are probably the ones who still buy diaries made from dead trees. It is a niche market that will never go away no matter how cheap smart phone become.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by marsu_k ( 701360 )
        Nokia has been doing these entry-level phones (before the MS acquisition) for years, and profitably. Very thin margins, naturally, but volume can make up for it [wikipedia.org]. I should hope MS has not managed to lose all that expertise in such a short time. In these kinds of devices, you don't really expect much (if anything) back from app sales.

    • But how fast can it run Cryptowall?

  • Got Root? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by McGruber ( 1417641 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @09:43AM (#48736133)

    Here is what else you should know about Nokia 215. It has a 2.4-inch display, 0.3 MP camera on the back (which can shoot video), 8 MB of RAM (that is not a typo)

    Well that's one way to keep Android from being ported to it...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      Oooooh, shots have been fired.

    • It should also keep WP8 out of the running(apparently does surprisingly well in only 512; but that's not going to be good enough). I'm assuming that this sucker runs something directly inherited from Nokia's dumbphone/feature-phone line. Has anybody managed to dig up an article that actually says what it does run?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sootman ( 158191 )

      Finally, a bold visionary at the head of MS who does not believe that 640k ought to be enough for anybody!

    • Windows 10 should run just fine, right?

  • Sweet (Score:4, Interesting)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday January 05, 2015 @09:45AM (#48736157) Homepage Journal

    I don't want one any more, but was a time when this would have been right up my alley. I use my phone for a lot of browsing these days, so it's right out. But a lot of people have been asking for a phone exactly like this; it has the uSD slot so it can be used as an MP3 player, which is where most cheap phones fail.

    • I have a similar phone but without internet access (I like it that way), it does take SD too but sadly this is rendered useless by the USB 1.1 support. I will not wait for gigabytes of stuff to copy at 900KB/s. So, check for USB 2.0 support before buying a phone with SD support.

      • You can pull the SD card out of the phone and plug it into any SD writer that supports high-speed USB. This will work so long as your SD card uses a well-known file system (FAT, NTFS, or UDF), and given the Microsoft branding it'll probably be FAT.

        • That is true, yet I don't have a SD reader on my PC nor everyone has one. I would need to buy and carry a tiny SD reader (and/or micro SD to SD adapter), which is a bit inconvenient. Then on this sort of phone, removing the battery to get at the SD slot means you lose date and time.

          With a USB cable, I booted my PC from the dumbphone! that's awesome, but the bandwith was too slow for running a desktop live CD and installer (after hitting enter in Grub I decided I had waited long enough at a blank screen and

    • I think the other interesting feature here is that it has Facebook Messenger app, which is actually capable of receiving messages in background and popping up notifications. Messenger seems to be extremely popular as IM platform in many countries, but this is the first time I see a non-smartphone supporting it.

  • Kin 2.0? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MachineShedFred ( 621896 )

    Looks like their last cheap phone for kids, with a layout change.

    • Looks like their last cheap phone for kids, with a layout change.

      In what way does it look like the Kin? It doesn't have the same form factor (QWERTY keyboard vs traditional Nokia-style). It doesn't use the same software user interface. It doesn't have the same features (eg. 8MP camera on the Kin vs 0.3MP on this new phone, 256MB RAM vs 8MB, etc). The Kin used a proprietary browser labelled IEMobile, while this phone uses Opera Mini. The operating system on the Kin was based on Windows CE, while this phone uses Nokia's System 30.

      The Kin was marketed specifically as a wank

  • without any of the major drawbacks? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It has WINDOWS!!! That's the biggest drawback!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Sorry, it doesn't... (It comes with 8mb of ram)

    • Re:without any of the major drawbacks? (Score:5, Informative)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @10:08AM (#48736347)
      It runs Series 30 software which isn't Windows and is limited in capability. So technically while it may have Internet, it may not have many apps. So it's not a replacement for a smartphone for many people.

      • But it does sound like a replacement for a smartphone for another group of many people. For instance, those who actually want to make voice calls and who don't really care about apps except to check email now and then. If it were for sale now I might consider it, except for the small display not going to work well with my eyes, and it being a byproduct of the dismantling of Nokia which discourages me as an ex-Nokia employee.

        The market for cheaper phones is actually one of the things leading to Nokia's dec

  • So, what's the news? I think it's a revamped Nokia 107 or Nokia phone using S30 operating system...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cdrudge ( 68377 )

      It's a Slashvertisement. A $30 phone isn't newsworthy, let alone a $30 "enhanced" feature phone.

      • Slashvertisements are articles that may actually target slashdot's userbase. How would this phone do that on anything more than a marginal level?

      • Exactly. The $10 Samsung that I got as a temporary phone at Best Buy has a built in browser and runs the old Java apps. Whoopdeedoo, welcome to 2004. The extra $19 does appear to buy you a crappy camera and external storage - so I guess there is that.

  • I don't get "smartphones are too expensive" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @09:56AM (#48736243)

    I don't get "smartphones are too expensive." Fifteen years ago people paid $1,000 or more out of pocket just to connect a desktop to the Internet. Today, you can buy a new Android smartphone for $50-60 or 8" Android tablet for the same money. Even if you pay the Apple tax, you're still paying just half what you had to ten years ago to get an ultra-portable, Internet-enabled device.

    Furthermore, phone plans with plenty of (non-video, non-streaming) Internet access can be found for something like $25/month from places like Virgin Mobile. (I just moved my wife and kids to one of their shared plans...still only pay about $40 a month for all of them.) If you want more, you still can probably get all the bandwidth you need for less than $100/month. (Again, cheap for those of us who remember agonizing over corporate T1 lines.)

    Unless the Nokia 215 is aiming to be the next Obamaphone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio)...what exactly is the point of this?

    • Re:I don't get "smartphones are too expensive" (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 ) on Monday January 05, 2015 @10:09AM (#48736353) Homepage

      what exactly is the point of this?

      In some countries, people only earn a couple of dollars a day. They still want access to the internet, but paying hundreds of dollars (hell, even a hundred dollars) to do it on their phone is madness. A $29 phone is precisely what they want (and even at this price, I imagine a few people might have to give this investment some serious thought first).

      Both Microsoft and Google (read: Android phone manufacturers) have moved to the emerging markets as they can see its potential. I have no idea why Apple aren't tapping into this, maybe they know their customers will blindly buy their next phone regardless of its features or price.

      • >> paying hundreds of dollars (hell, even a hundred dollars) to do it on their phone is madness

        You're repeating the "expensive" meme I don't understand. If you want to get on the Internet, brand new devices with 4-8 inch touch screens are available brand new for $50-60 today.

        • Those phones are subsidized by the carriers. If you had to pay full price for them they'd be hundreds of dollars.

          The unsubsidized full price for this phone is $29, which is less than 10% of the price of the latest Android/iPhone.

          • >> If you had to pay full price for them they'd be hundreds of dollars ($29, which is less than 10% of the price of the latest Android)

            Again, not if I just want Internet access.

            Today, I can walk into a Walmart, buy a $50-60 Android phone (not $290+) from the pay-as-you-go section, or $50-60 Android tablet, NEVER activate my device with any carrier, and get out to the Internet through any Wifi connection.

            • That's still double the price of this phone.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jp10558 ( 748604 )

              But good luck activating it *on* a carrier other than the one who branded it (In the US anyway). Those phones are still subsidized (I have no idea why - I imagine it's an imaginary subsidy, but the flip phone I bought for $20 wouldn't re-activate eventually on a pre-paid carrier because I bought it at Wal-Mart and had let it lapse. The same phone for $50 on e-bay which was "unsubsidized" worked fine).

              Anyway, in "developing countries" I guess there may not be wi-fi to use, hence wanting to use *phones* to ge

      • They still want access to the internet,

        This phone doesn't provide "access to the internet". It has a number of apps that allow you to interact with a small number of specific Internet services.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          This phone includes Opera Mini, which is a general-purpose web browser.

        • They still want access to the internet,

          This phone doesn't provide "access to the internet". It has a number of apps that allow you to interact with a small number of specific Internet services.

          You're right, it probably doesn't have a Gopher or Usenet client, so it's not True Internet Access.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You _really_ don't know what it's like to not have money do you?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jp10558 ( 748604 )

        I think most of us don't. I *feel* like I don't have money, but that's because I can't just purchase a $1200 drone, or pay my sisters rent for her if she needs it; not because I can't spend $100 without worrying.

        I guess when a $70 meal out is possible even though "I feel broke", I don't really know what not having money is like.

        I suppose this is also what is "wrong" with "rich" people (define those words how you like) - you probably never feel comfortable because there is always some expense or some expensi

    • I don't get "smartphones are too expensive."

      What about it is confusing? They ARE expensive, at least to anyone with some appreciation of the value of a dollar.

      Fifteen years ago people paid $1,000 or more out of pocket just to connect a desktop to the Internet.

      Just because things are cheaper than they used to be doesn't mean everyone can afford them. Nor does it mean that you are necessarily getting good value for money.

      Furthermore, phone plans with plenty of (non-video, non-streaming) Internet access can be found for something like $25/month from places like Virgin Mobile.

      $25/month to a lot of people can mean the difference between being able to pay rent or not. I think you have very little idea what it actually means to be poor.

    • Unless the Nokia 215 is aiming to be the next Obamaphone

      You mean Reaganphone, since it was Reagan that signed the law creating "Lifeline service" not President Obama.

      http://www.snopes.com/politics... [snopes.com]

    • Fifteen years ago people paid $1,000 or more out of pocket just to connect a desktop to the Internet.

      Wait, what??? 15 years ago is 2000 - where did you live (and what service did you get) that you actually paid $1,000 to get online? Even if you wanted to buy a new network card, pay someone to install it, buy the modem/cable modem/etc and pay someone to install that I still can't believe it would cost $1,000.

      (Are you including the cost of the desktop itself in that price? That would make a lot more sense....)

      • (Are you including the cost of the desktop itself in that price? That would make a lot more sense....)

        I've just witnessed someone literally type out an example of watching the penny drop.

    • Cheap phones or tablets do not provide an equivalent user experience to that old desktop.

      An iPad, maybe up to a point. A 7 inch $50 Chinese Android tablet? I doubt it..

  • Near as I can determine, the only thing about this that I'd consider "news" here is that Microsoft is pushing a Yet Another Feature Phone rather than building a cheap Windows-based smartphone.

    I feel like there should be more to the story. Is there some background, or just a press release and some specs?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • It will, but you'll need to wait 24 hours for the fruit to refresh, or you can buy more pieces as follows:

      1 piece - 99c
      5 pieces - $1.99
      20 pieces - $2.99
      100 pieces - $9.99 (Best deal!)
      500 pieces - $24.99
      2500 pieces - $99.99

      • True, inflation has happened since 1977 when Hustle [arcade-museum.com], the first implementation of Snake that I'm aware of, was released, and $.25 per play has become $1 per play (source [bls.gov]). But Hustle at least offered more than 1 target per credit.

  • I don't get it. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jetkust ( 596906 )
    So what if it's $29. It's worthless without a data plan, which I haven't seen any mention of. The price and quality of the data plan is more important. And hearing it's likely 2g makes it nearly useless for most people.

    • It's worthless without a data plan, which I haven't seen any mention of.

      Why would it be worthless? It would still work as a phone, camera and MP3 player. Obviously, the web browser wouldn't work. If you don't have a data plan you could save money by buying a phone without a web browser at all - except that you really aren't going to find one much cheaper than $29.

      And hearing it's likely 2g makes it nearly useless for most people.

      Well, yes. This is a phone made for countries that still use 2G. There are still some countries where 2G is the only choice. Just because it is not the choice for your neck-of-the-woods doesn't mean that they should no

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jetkust ( 596906 )
        What? There's already cheap 2g phones you can buy that have those things. This thing is advertised for it's data. If you read the article it says nothing about being "made for countries that still use 2g". The whole emphasis is the price and affordability of the phone. This would indicate this is made for a market where there are more expensive higher quality options.

        • There's already cheap 2g phones you can buy that have those things.

          You are correct that there are already cheap 2G phones. But now in Nokia's line their cheap phone can do web browsing too. If you don't have a data plan then you simply don't use that feature, but it is not like the phone becomes worthless simply because you haven't had to pay extra for the facility. You are at no disadvantage if you cannot access data on your plan.

          These phones also support multiple languages, but nobody complains that this is useless unless the user attends night school to learn all those

  • Seriously? This is a device not unlike the Nokia 108 RM-945, both of which seem designed to suck payments at the teets of the GSM-provider/subsidizer. You can transfer your data using SD-cards or GSM; that's it. Neither of which offer wifi. If you're not including wifi on the device, who is paying for/subsidizing the 'internet', really? And how?

    Does anyone remember WAP? This is like Facebook (etc.) subsidized WAP for developing nations, in modern times. Thank you %$#@! rich bastard Zuck & Co. This not e

    • This is a device not unlike the Nokia 108 RM-945, both of which seem designed to suck payments at the teets of the GSM-provider/subsidizer. You can transfer your data using SD-cards or GSM; that's it.

      Or plug the phone in to your USB port on the computer and it acts like an external drive - just like you would do if it was a camera or MP3 player. That's the easiest solution.

      If you are referring to not being able to browse the Internet using WiFi, then that is not really what this phone is about. Nobody is going to use a device that is so slow and has such a tiny screen for doing lots of web browsing. This is a device for making phone calls, but can do the occasional look up of a website. In fact I would

  • Perhaps this is amazing in the US, but cheap phones have been on sale for a long time. A Nokia 220 (presumably a step up from the 215) retails for £25 in the UK. A tenner more and you can have an Android handset.

    • £25 is a lot more than $30. But I can walk into any grocery store and see an array of $30 android smartphones that can do everything this nokia can do.

    • You are comparing the street price of one product with manufacturer's recommended price of another product. I imagine that the 215 will sell for about 5-10 pounds less than the 220. The Nokia 220 is about a year old, so it is possible that the 215 will replace it. The camera is much better in the 220, but the USB is only version 1.1 in the old phone. Other than that they seem identical, but there may be software differences.

  • At the risk of posting the obvious, this is not a Windows phone, it's just a slightly different price point in Nokia's previously existing line of low end feature phones. Probably running Series 40. (TFM says "Series 30+" whatever that means.)

    ...according to TFM it does contain a browser (opera) but if running Series 40 it accesses the web through the service provider's html portal. Data is Edge speed.

    In other words, it has roughly the capabilities of 2003 smartphones, where you could go out and buy a p

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by johanw ( 1001493 )

      Looking from the icons it's just a series 40 phone. If I want something like that I'm better off with a second hand Symbian device for a price even below $29. My old Nokia E51 and E72 still function well if I would need such a device.

  • It figures, not an android, and not a winphone...so back to Asha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Asha_platform)?

    The phones with mini browsers (WAP) and email clients were available for many years...so this is not really a "smart" phone (as in a phone with 1000s of apps).

    BTW, since "Nokia Lumia" is now "Microsoft Lumia", the low end phones are now "Nokia" do they gettinh ready to span "Nokia" out of M$?

    • That's what I was wondering as well - how does Microsoft get to use the name Nokia, when they are branding the Lumia as 'Microsoft Lumia'?

      Methinks they could start w/ a Lumia 520, strip it down a bit, put WP 8.0 (not 8.1) on it, and aim it at the market in question.

  • It's great to hear iOS and Android fan club members deciding for me what market I'm in. There will always be a market segment with highly skilled techies / hackers who prefer to carry around a phone that has superior battery life and superior quality calls as opposed to one that is running a platform highly targeted by malicious parties for its ease of hackability. All that ram and storage is a great place to hide things. It's a much more difficult proposition to carry out the types of attacks seen today
    • Microsoft is also not the only manufacturer that continues to produce basic & feature phones. Samsung has continued to produce them as well.
  • Has been around for at least a year. I can get an Android 4.1 phone on dhgate for $25, I just have to buy ten of them.
  • There is a hidden price for using a MS Phone: your friends will laugh at you for using Windows Phone.
  • Buying a phone is not the burden, paying excessive amounts of money each month for a data plan is the big hindrance to expanding mobile everywhere. Drop the price for data plans and many more will consider a smartphone.

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