Nokia Asha 206

Overview

Very Attractive

Nokia Asha 206 Design and Build Quality

The most attractive design feature of Nokia Asha 206 is its colours. It is available in bright blue, yellow, and magenta colours aside from the standard black and white colours. The phone is bar shaped and weighs 91 grams, which is equal to some smartphones in the market. The dimensions of the phone are 116 x 49.4 x 12.4 mm. As it has been with Nokia, the build quality of the phone is superb and there are no light leaks noticeable. The battery of the phone will last you for 4-5 days comfortably. The phone feels comfortable to hold in hand and does not slip from the grip.

User Interface and Comfort to Use Nokia Asha 206

Asha 206 runs on Nokia Symbian OS 40. The OS does not allow multitasking but music in background feature is included in the phone. Navigation is done using the 5 way navigation key. Screen menu can be easily navigated with the help of the keyboard buttons. The screen size is 2.4 inch LCD and the resolution is 320x240 pixels. The screen quality is decent but not optimal for video viewing. The keyboard keys are plastic but very comfortable and easy to use. The internal memory of the phone is 64MB and can be expanded to 32GB using a memory card.

Telephony and Phonebook

The phone supports dual SIM GSM+GSM operation. There is an external SIM card slot, which makes it super easy to change SIMs. Micro SIM feature is also available on the phone. The phonebook of the phone can store up to 1000 entries comfortably. Social network contacts can be easily added on the phonebook. The call quality is very good and switching between SIMs is a breeze.

Messaging and Emails

The phone supports SMS, MMS, Email, Push Mail, and IM on it. SNS services can be easily used. The only thing we did not like it the lack of SMS navigation on the phone. You have to keep going back to inbox for viewing next in line messages.

Gallery, Photo Viewer and Video Player

The photo viewer is simple with zoom and scroll options. The video player of the phone supports only low rate 3GP and MP4, which is a disappointment, but seeing its screen resolution it makes sense.

Nokia Asha 206 Music Player and FM Radio

The music quality on the phone is quite good but not very good. FM radio comes with a recording facility. But you have to connect the earphones to record FM, which is a very out-dated principle.

Nokia Asha 206 Camera and Image Quality

The phone has a 1.3MP camera, which is a very basic camera with absolutely no frills such as autofocus, flash, or geo tagging attached. The pictures come out grainy and unusable. There is not front camera in the phone. Zoom is decent but we would not recommend you using it. Some interesting features have been added to the phone including Auto and Manual White Balance, Full Screen Viewfinder, Self-Timer, Landscape Orientation, and Image Editor but the picture quality does not inspire us to use the same for taking pictures.

Video Camera and Video Quality

The phone can record videos at 15fps, which is very low quality recording. Playback options are very simple.

Nokia Asha 206 Connectivity Options

Basic connectivity options include Bluetooth, USB, GPRS, and EDGE. The most interesting feature, which has been introduced by Nokia, is Slam, which allows the user to transfer multimedia data without paring the phones. But this feature does not work well with android phones.

Organiser and other Utility Tools

Games, Video Ringtones, Video Streaming, Audio Recorder, Calculator, World Clock, Calendar, Converter, Fixed Dialling Number, and Reminder are some of the tools available on the phone.

Web Browser and Applications

The browser is Nokia Xpress browser, which is supposed to reduce the browsing costs as it compresses data for up to almost 90%. The browser is easy to use and loads faster. Apps include Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Google Talk, Direct Email, Twitter, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, Nokia Chat, eBuddy, Direct Chat, Weather Updation, and YouTube. You can download more apps from the Nokia Store.

Distinctive Features of Nokia Asha 206

Two most distinctive feature of the phone are the Slam and Nokia Xpress browser designed to save browsing and sharing time.

Value for Money

The phone is priced at INR 3510 (approx., may vary) in the Indian Market. We feel that the price of the phone is quite justified in terms of its features and the Nokia brand.

Verdict

We wish the phone had a better camera and was a tad bit faster to enable us to use the features more comfortably. We would rate the phone 4 stars out of 5.