Nokia Asha 205 with Facebook hot key at Rs. 3,499

BANGALORE, INDIA: Here comes the first Nokia model with a dedicated Facebook hot key. It was launched here on Tuesday, clearly targeting the cost-conscious consumer, who desires certain high-end features in their mobile phones.

The new model, Nokia Asha 205, is priced at a highly-competitive Rs. 3,499, which should impress a lot many still owning a basic phone model but covet a smartphone, though the latest from the Nokia stables can't exactly be termed a smart device.

Nevertheless, it has its own smart features. There is an innovative content-sharing application, named Slam, which would help users share content from and to Bluetooth-enabled devices, without having to search, pair and then, transfer a file. One just has to literally slam their device against the other phone, after selecting a file that needs to be transferred through Slam.

The Nokia Asha 205 will be available in India from December 24. These features aside, it has a QWERTY keypad, dual SIM option, Nokia Xpress Browser, E-buddy, Twitter, Gmail, Nokia Nearby, which is a location-based search application and 40 free games from EA. Also, Idea Cellular users, who buy this device, can avail Facebook free for three months.

During the launch, Viral Oza, director, Marketing, Nokia India, said that it made sense to go for the Facebook (FB) hot key feature, as the mobile Internet traffic surpassed that of the desktop in May 2012 and about 469,000 TB of data is expected to be shared annually by 2016. "We would like to connect the next billion people (through this)."

Nokia India expects to woo the increasing number of youngsters with average buying power and high social presence.

"We are seeing a huge shift in the number of people using FB on mobile. Currently, we have about 600 million global mobile users accessing facebook from their devices," said Kevin D'Souza, Country Growth Manager, Facebook India.

When CIOL asked him whether FB has woken up to the fact that users are shifting majorly towards the mobile space, D'Souza denied it, reiterating their numbers. He, however, declined comment on whether Facebook wanted to counter messaging apps like WhatsApp, which was recently rumored to be set for an acquisition bid from the social media giant.