Gadgetory

this tiny phone makes a bold statement with its bright color choices hi I'm Sarah mitrik with CNET taking a first look at the Nokia Asha 501 let's get one thing straight this is a budget phone for emerging markets like Latin America and India the phone is only $99 so you shouldn't expect it to have any high-end specs the first thing you notice about the ash of 501 is its bright color the phone comes in six colors this neon red orange you see here or yellow green blue black and white as you can see the 501 is tiny it's small enough to rest even in my petite hands and it's easy to grip the polycarbonate back cover is soft to the touch and wraps around the edges of the phone giving it a sturdy feel one of my biggest gripes about the Ashi of 501 is that the back cover is a hassle to remove you have to push down on the small cutout and gently pry the cover away from the rest of the phone not an easy feat for anyone with large hands behind that cover you'll find a micro SD card slot removable battery and SIM card slot along the right side of the phone there's a slim volume rocker and power slash lock button at the top there's a headphone jack micro USB port and proprietary charging port on the front of the Asha 501 there is only one button if you press it once it goes back one step in an app or website if you hold it down it takes you back to the phone's home screen the Nokia Asha 501s 4 it's a 3 inch 320 by 240 resolution touchscreen display which looks dated even compared to today's low-end smartphones colors look muted and the screen looks dim even at full brightness moving around the phone is easy but some touch controls like swiping to unlock the phone aren't as responsive the Asha 501 is running Nokia's Asha operating system it comes pre-loaded with Facebook and Twitter plus a custom Nokia browser and several games there's also an app store with other well-known titles including LinkedIn and Foursquare but it's not as robust to Google Play or the Apple App Store there are two home screens on the Asch of 501 one with the list of every app on the phone and one called Fastlane Vaseline shows reminders notifications plus a list of recently opened apps if you swipe down from the top of the screen a notification bar appears with controls to toggle Wi-Fi data sound and Bluetooth the Asch of 501 has an unimpressive three megapixel camera on the back photos and video come out looking grainy and overexposed performance wise the ash of 501 is actually faster than I thought it would be even with only 64 megabytes of RAM the phone can only handle 2g data connections but in our test that loaded mobile optimized webpages quickly you can read my full review of the phone on cnn.com I'm Sarah Mishra and this has been a first take of the Nokia Asha 501