Verdict
Key Specifications
- Review Price: £40.00
- 2.8-inch 240 x 320 pixel screen
- Nokia Asha platform
Life on the small screen
The Nokia Asha 230 is a small, low-cost phone that runs the Asha platform – which powers Nokia’s cheaper mobiles. Asha phones are often geared towards developing markets, but a £40-odd price and touch interface could well see it win a few fans in the UK.
We took as closer look at MWC 2014 to see what it’s about.
Nokia Asha 230 – Design and Features
The Nokia Asha 230 is a tiny, stubby phone. It’s chunky, and comes in several of the Lumia series-favourite colours – including green, yellow, blue and red as well as the less ambitious black and white.
It is, predictably, a plastic phone. Build quality is better than many ultra-budget phones, but you’re not going to be impressing anyone down the pub with this mobile. It is pretty cute, though, in a sort of chubby runt-of-the-litter way.
Little extras like matching the colour of the volume and power buttons to the body show that this is a Nokia phone – not a budget phone from some brand no-one has ever heard of. Like the Nokia X Android phone, there’s just the one front control button – a little arrow that acts as a back/home button.
In-hand, the Asha 230 feels oddly small. It’s not often we see touchscreen mobiles with tiny screens these days.
Nokia Asha 230 – Screen and Software
The screen is perhaps the part hardest-hit by the phone’s low budget. It’s a 2.8-inch, 240 x 320 pixel screen. These sorts of specs used to be common 8-10 years ago, but now seem positively antiquated.
They leave the Nokia Asha 230 with a very blocky-looking display. It’s really this, rather than the immediate look of the Asha system, that betrays this as a ‘feature phone’ grade device, rather than a smartphone. The software is also a bit sluggish.
The Asha 230 also misses out on some smartphone-essential features. There’s no 3G – just EDGE/GPRS – and no Wi-Fi. However, it does let you get on-board with many things you’d want to do with a smartphone. There’s WhatsApp support, Facebook and Twitter. The phone has 4GB of internal storage and a microSD socket, making it a potential little music player.
Other specs are very basic, though. The rear camera has a 1.3-megapixel sensor with a fixed focus – incapable of producing remotely good photos. And the 64MB of RAM shows you how intensive the Asha system really is.
If you value flexibility, you’ll be able to do a good deal more with a low-cost Android. They’re already available for under £50.
First Impressions
The Nokia Asha 230 is a cute phone that looks and feels better than many £40 phones. However, the poor screen and limited hardware/software mean it’ll be of limited appeal to UK buyers.
Next, read our review of the bargain-tastic Motorola Moto G
Trusted Score
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
