News: Is Nokia new Asha phones for rappers?

Global mobile device maker, Nokia at the weekend got behind Nigerian rap musicians in what it called Don’t Break Da Beat campaign, apparently to popularise its two latest Asha range of smartphones in the country.


The two new entry level smartphones and the rap competition were unveiled simultaneously, Friday night, with thousands of Nigerian youths turning the Grandeur Events centre, Ikeja, venue of the launch into beehive of activity from midnight Friday to Saturday morning.

Popular Rap stars, Modenine, Eva, phenone as well as a growing number of other upcoming rap artistes did their thing and thrilled scores of youths who took delight in Rap genre of music.

Shortly before the event became more of entertainment than technology,Nokia’s MD, West and Central Africa, Mr Nick Imudia, introduced the two devices, Nokia Asha 501 and 210. He described Asha 501 as the first of its kind in the next generation of Nokia Asha devices, using the new Asha operating system. He dubbed it perfectly suited to consumers in emerging markets looking to buy their first smartphone. The device features two main screens; ‘Home’ and ‘Fastlane’, for launching software and taking action on new notifications.

Both smartphones come with the Nokia Xpress browser which enables up to 85% data compression making it faster and cheaper for consumers to access the internet, browse, use web apps and update social networks.

He also described Asha 210 as an affordable all-in-one smartphone built to satisfy users’ need to be socially connected. It is a dual SIM smartphone with a 2.4 inch LCD display, fast and responsive QWERTY keypad and WiFi. It also comes with two dedicated buttons on the keyboard for users to access camera and social networks. The device offers a range of smart features such as voice guidance for taking perfect self-portraits, fast editing of images directly from the camera app and Nokia’s innovative Slam feature for transfer of content such as images or videos to another Bluetooth-enabled phone without the need to pair devices.