Nokia kicked off the first day of Mobile World Congress by launching 4 new devices. It introduced two feature phones, the Nokia 105 and Nokia 301, and extended its Lumia range with the Nokia Lumia 520 & 720.
The Nokia 301 will come in a range of colors with both a single SIM and double SIM options. It will have HD voice to reduce background noise. It will come with Mail for Exchange and pre-caching access to Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia.Twitter, eBuddy, and WhatsApp will all be available on the Nokia 301. This budget phone will be able to take panorama shots. It will be available in over 120 markets, in Q2 of 2013.
The Nokia 105 is the entry point to the Nokia brand and will retail at just 15 euros. It will be available in both black and cyan. It will come pre-loaded with games and FM radio and a dust proof keypad. Nokia claims that the battery life is more than 2 weeks. The phone will go on sale in Q1, 2013.
The Lumia 520 will be the most affordable Windows Phone 8 phone at 139 euros. The phone’s 4-inch display will have super sensitive features so you can use your gloves. It comes with a 5-megapixel autofocus camera and no front facing camera. The phone will be powered by a dual-core 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU, 512MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage and will come with a 1430mAh internal battery. It comes in yellow, red, cyan, white and black colors. The phone is expected to start shipping in March – arriving first in Hong Kong and Vietnam, but it will quickly start to reach more markets around Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America in the beginning of Q2.
The Lumia 720 will feature innovations that debuted on the Lumia 920 like enhanced sunlight readability and super sensitive touch. It will have a 4.3-inch display with curved glass and wireless charging with a snap on cover. One of the biggest features of 720 is that it has an incredible f/1.9 aperture, which is bigger than most high-end smartphones. The Lumia 720 will be available from about 249 euros before taxes and will be available in red, white, cyan, black and yellow.
Nokia also made a couple of announcements regarding its apps. It is rebranding all its location apps to fit its new mapping brand. So we now have HERE Maps, HERE Drive and HERE Transit.Nokia also launched Place Tag, an app to tag photos and turn them into postcards, for its Lumia phones.
