The Asha Platform is based on Smarterphone, an OS Nokia acquired in Jan ’12, & inherits UI design from S40, Symbian & MeeGo. It has been enhanced quite a bit to make it match to the features the smartphones has these days. There are a lot of new features in the UI but for look and feel even though functionally almost remains the same.
This is the second part of the Asha 501 series we are covering here. Make sure that you also read the Hardware and Design Review.
Lets start talking about it by selecting some of the areas, starting with the unique features. I have put up a detailed OS and App review of Asha 501 below, followed by details.
Video Review:
Watch on YouTube
Unique Features:
FastLane: You can call it your Phone Browsing History, I call it the quickest way to get access to to something I have done recently. Though at the end we are just talking about the same thing.
Swipe from left to right and all your details are listed right there. Played a Music ? Called Somebody? Launched the Twitter App? Alarms? Took Pictures? Its everything in one place and if you have calendar events, birthdays you get to see them when you pull that screen down.
This feature stands out in its own way when compared to any other phone. Though it’s a very convenient feature. many might not like anybody else to see what they did on the phone so there is a clear button to get rid of every activity.
Swipe Everywhere :
No matter where you are, you can swipe and you get to do something. Swipe from top to bottom and you get Android or iPhone like options to reach Mobile, Wi-Fi, Notifications etc. Swipe from bottom to top, it shows up the menu options, swipe the open application left and it closes and if you swipe from left to right, you get to see the Fast Lane.
Nokia Xpress Browser:
Mobile data is an important factor no matter which phone you pickup. Nokia has integrated their Xpress browser which lowers down the bandwidth consumption a lot. Its more like caching server so when you request an image which is already cached up, it servers directly from Nokia servers instead of getting it from the original source.
Browsing webpages was quick enough even on 2G or Edge network for me but the real speed comes in when you have browser for a while.
Supports Multiple Tabs
Metroish Start Page which gives you quick access to Favorites, Entertainment, Apps, News and many more.
Download Center
Web Apps
Settings.
Twist Music:
Its music for fun, give to a kid and he will dance around the house making new music. App which takes motion as feedback auto plays Piano, Violon, Guitar and Harp and keeps creating new music. Though the music is not recorded but can be used in some sort of game.
More Features:
Now done with the unique features, lets touch base some of the areas which many of you are keen to know about:
Phone Dialer:
Simple and straight forward. When you launch it, you get the number pad along with quick access to recent calls and contact book. If you typed in a number, you can either save it to contact or add it to an existing one.
Contacts:
The phone has the fastest scrolling experience till date. Listed alphabetically, the screen gives you quick access to recently dialed or favorite numbers on top in form of Colorful Tiles similar to what you see in Windows Phone but it’s not the same. Right on top of this, you have search option where you type and find who you are looking for. I imported around 1500 contacts over Bluetooth without a problem and it was quiet easy to find them either through scroll or search.
Social Integration:
Similar to Windows Phone, you can add your Twitter and Facebook and choose to sync all the contacts and link with them to the name in your contact book. If you choose to skip, you can also manually edit and link with their social profile separately. There is also a social central where you can configure your social accounts which is then used for sharing photos. Like post a picture on Facebook or Twitter.
Note: Both Facebook and Twitter support push notifications. You will have to enable it from the app and then also make sure its not blocked from Phone Settings.
Email:
I configured my main Gmail account here so I get to understand how it was working. The whole experience was average because it seems HTML support is missing here. Many of my Emails were not formatted properly when it comes to line breaks and paragraphs.
Apart from this, it was ok. You can quickly reply, forward, download attachments which you can save to downloads folder and access them later. This download section is available via File Explorer.
File Explorer: Luckily, It comes with an inbuilt file explorer to figure out where your files are on your phone. You can get access to both SD card and the Phone memory.
Backup and Reset: You can create a complete backup of your phone including data like. This is stored in Phone Memory and restored back. You can also save a copy of this on to your PC when you plug it.
Office:
There are inbuilt apps in Asha 501 which allows you to open Office documents from Memory Card or Email. To open word or PPT or excel file from Email, you will have to download them into phone memory first and then open it from there. They are good enough to at least help you read documents on the go. However, there is no edit option available with these apps.
Settings: This is simple and straight forward.
You have Flight Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Dual Sim Options.
Personalization: Sounds, VIbration, Wallpaper for Lock Screen ad Home Screen.
Control over Brightness, Glance Screen, Double Tap to Wake, Language, Writing Predictions and Spell Check.
Push Notification, Phone Update etc.
In the same place you can configure settings for the Apps, individually. As an example you can configure the individual mail account to sync over WiFi only or over Mobile Data.
Glance Screen & Double Tap need special mention. On one hand Glance Screen make sure you don’t have to unlock phone to check notifications and clock, on the other hand double tap to wake up phone is a great feature which is generally not found in this category of phones.
Applications:
Most of the basic applications like Twitter, Email, Facebook, Video Player, Games, etc. are available via the Nokia Store. The only deal breaker is Whatsapp which does not support the phone yet and many will take a U-turn because of that.
My experience with the applications was ok, nothing great but the biggest trouble was using them on such a small screen. Getting used to the keyboard will definitely take sometime because if you been using a type phone and switching here or using a big screen phone and bought this as second phone, you are bound to mistype 80% of the time.
Those are wondering how fast the application load, it’s actually good. The only trouble I had when on slow connection but that is obvious for every smartphone out there.
It took me like 3 days to get used to the screen and get rid of 70% of my typing error for a record. The keyboard supports auto complete and prediction as you type, so make best use of them to type in even faster. Also you will end up scrolling a lot but since scrolling is quiet fast, it will compensate a bit.
Summary:
If I prepare myself as a non smart phone user who been using the type phone for a long time and switch to Asha 501, the experience will be definitely good from Software point of view. The social integration, email, fast browsing and having apps for most of the apps except one will create a positive remark.
The OS still in its first version so its possible that you may face glitches here and there but overall it will be smooth. Nokia has done a good job by integration all the basic feature a user expects from a phone.
I have done my best to showcase every possible feature, but I am sure some are missed. So please let me know in comments and I will answer them for you.
The post Nokia Asha 501 : Stable OS with Full of Features and Social Integration appeared first on Wpxbox.
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