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Microsoft Unveils $37 Nokia 216 Feature Phone (theverge.com) 57

Posted by BeauHD from the back-from-the-dead dept.
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it had sold Nokia's remaining feature phone business to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn, for $350 million. Today, Microsoft unveiled the Nokia 216 feature phone, dispelling rumors that it would stop making Nokia phones. The Verge reports: The new Nokia 216 is one of the most basic phones that Microsoft manufactures, and it will be available in India next month for around $37. It includes a 2.4-inch QVGA display, with 0.3-megapixel cameras at the front and rear, running on the Series 30 OS with the Opera mini browser. It even has a headphone jack. It's easy to understand why Microsoft continues to create feature phones, as the company still sells millions of them every month. Microsoft previously hoped that feature phone users would create a Microsoft account and become part of the Microsoft ecosystem, but it's not clear whether the millions of feature phone users ever actually did that. Microsoft hinted earlier this year that it's planning to kill off its Lumia smartphones, and recent rumors have suggested that the Lumia brand will die off toward the end of the year.
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Microsoft Unveils $37 Nokia 216 Feature Phone More

Microsoft Unveils $37 Nokia 216 Feature Phone

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  • It even has a headphone jack

    Really?? Hasn't this joke run its course yet?

  • Amazing that the photo on the phone's web page shows someone with the phone up to their ear actually talking with it. Having a conversation on a phone? What a concept.
    • Looking at the specs, this phone would support 2000 phone#, which is far better than most phones of that genre did. On the downside, only 1 phonebook, unlike in smartphones

  • I keep reading here and there that they're stopping Nokia and Windows Phone, and what do you know... The entirety of the 12 people using Windows phone will be thrilled. That's for sure. As for the rest...

    • I keep reading here and there that they're stopping Nokia and Windows Phone, and what do you know... The entirety of the 12 people using Windows phone will be thrilled. That's for sure. As for the rest...

      It's not Windows. Looks like it might be running S30+, which is either a stripped down version of Series 30 without J2ME support, or something different and strange.

  • Obviously a phone that is only going to be sold in developing markets.

    They boast Internet connectivity with the Opera web browser but the phone has no wi-fi or even 3G connectivity, let alone 4G/LTE.
    Specs page here [microsoft.com], only shows GSM 900 and 1800 mhz band. Does not support AT&T legacy 850 or T-Mobile 1900 and isn't even reaching over a quarter megabit on EGPRS data rate.

  • One can buy used 4 year old used phone for less that is *full* featured phone with normal camera, etc. What is next? A phone with a rotary dial (aka. semi-feature)?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yvan256 ( 722131 )

      Apple [appleinsidercdn.com] did it first.

    • Who gives a crap? It's a phone, and it doesn't require a special charger anymore (uses USB), making it a good upgrade over a previous phone.
      Perhaps bluetooth audio works (for real speaker(s), not a headset).
      It evens has a jack, instead of only accepting proprietary headphones like old phones from the 00s.

      • It also has a replaceable battery and an SD card slot.

        Obv. not a smart phone replacement, but honestly, it seems like a pretty good phone otherwise.
    • I like that idea. A rotary dial cell phone. Hipsters would buy it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mccalli ( 323026 )
        Behold, the Nokia 3650 [wikipedia.org]. Not strictly rotary as the dial doesn't move, but the layout is obvious. I had one of these for a while, was quite nice but too many of the applications expected a particular keyboard layout so wasn't that useful past standard functionality.

  • I'm actually about to buy a feature\flip phone (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wjcofkc ( 964165 ) on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @05:22PM (#52927383)
    I am business customer with T-Mobile. Like most carriers they no longer advertise feature\flip phones on their website, but they still have them. Beginning soon and through Easter or so, I will be needing a single phone for CS calls. I need voice and voice only and only for a few hours a day. Sure, I could resurrect a no longer used smartphone or BlackBerry, but why pay for a full plan when I need just a few hours of voice a day? This type of phone is just what I need and the dirt cheap plan is just what I need.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chihowa ( 366380 )

      Check the specs first. It only supports GSM network: 900 MHz, 1800 MHz [microsoft.com], which neither AT&T nor T-Mobile currently use in the US.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wjcofkc ( 964165 )
        Dude. I did not mean that exact phone. My comment was one universal reply to all the "people still talk on phones" comments and how and why a feature phone has a use for me.

        • Re:I'm actually about to buy a feature\flip phone (Score:5, Funny)

          by chihowa ( 366380 ) on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @08:24PM (#52928303)

          Dude. I did not mean that exact phone.

          Good, because that chick holding it is in the middle of a call and probably doesn't want to give it up. Plus, she's over in India, which complicates things...

          • I noticed on the shot of the phone screen that it has icons for Bing, Facebook, email... Isn't that really painful to do on a phone w/ a physical numeric keypad, as opposed to a smartphone? Granted, this is for India and at what - Rs 2500, but still, there are plenty of affordable smartphones even there where one can play w/ Facebook, WhatsApp, WeChat, Twitter, and so on
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Actually, GSM *is* what AT&T and T-Mobile support in the US. Sprint, Verizon and U.S. Cellular use CDMA.

  • ah well (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @05:27PM (#52927415) Homepage
    I had a Windows phone and the OS was head and shoulders above its mobile OS competitors. Intuitive and fast interface, and amazing performance for the hardware. Unfortunately there was an astonishing lack of apps, so I had to switch back to android. It was kind of 1995 in reverse: I gave up a better Windows-based OS for an inferior Linux-based one because the Linux-based one had better commercial software support.

    • I have a Windows 10 Mobile Phone - the Lumia 550. It has some basic support apps - like Yelp!, Fandango and so on. If it had a few VOIP apps like Vonage or 8x8, as well as something like FaceTime/Duo (no, not Skype), it would be complete for my needs. It supports Xbox games, so it's fine there.

    • You had to switch back because the Windows phone OS is not "head and shoulders above", you had to switch back because the OS sucks. The APIs are a moving target, the OS had 3 major rewrites in 5 years that broke virtually every app each time and that's why there is poor developer adoption. Even base OS features are far, far behind - notifications weren't even supported until 18 months ago. Windows phone OS' is more at crotch-level, versus "head and shoulders above", when compared to competitors.

      • Uh, a lot of the apps in the store were written for Windows Phone 8, but still run just fine under Windows 10 Mobile. There was a major overhaul b/w Windows Phone 7 & 8, but b/w 8 and 10, the changes have been incremental. 10 looks and feels like a step up from 8, while having a greater look & feel similarity w/ the desktop Windows 10.

        • If the app targeted 8.1 the port to 10 isn't bad, if it targeted 8 then it can be a pain. It's still 3 fairly substantial API changes in a short period of time. Not a great way to gain developers to a platform that really needed quick traction to survive. It's painfully clear that MS bet the farm on an Intel-based phone only to have Intel pull out of the handset market for now. This leaves MS stuck developing on ARM, something that they clearly wanted to move away from and had all but pulled out of. Th

          • It's a pity. B'cos in case of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft did have its base OS Windows CE on the MIPS at one time, and in case of 8, the base OS - NT - too once lived on MIPS. So Microsoft could have built a mobile ecosystem around the MIPS platform instead of the ARM, and it would have done just fine.

  • Okay, I'm lost now... (Score:3)

    by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @05:44PM (#52927501) Homepage
    Am I the only person who's starting to lose track of who owns the rights to what after Nokia sold off its phone business to Microsoft?

    I was under the impression that the right to use the "Nokia" name (which MS got the right to after buying the phone division) was due to expire after some time (#) and that was why MS were phasing it out.

    The previous story linked in the summary [slashdot.org] seems to imply that MS sold off the ex-Nokia feature phone business to FIH, but they're still apparently making feature phones as "new Nokia phones" [my emphasis] [theverge.com]

    Yet Nokia itself announced it was licensing its name to a (different) manufactuer- HMD Global [nokia.com] for similar purposes.

    So what's going on? Does MS still own the name- or have a license to it- for smartphone and tablet use. Or has Nokia got it back? I can't see either party signing an agreement that would let them both use it for competing products in the same field (i.e. phones and tablets) at the same time; that sounds unworkable.

    (#) This seems to be fairly typical when another company Y buys out X's widget division; they get the right to use X's name for a while (and presumably a non-compete from X, not that X is usually concerned with re-entering the field they've just left). I assume (for example) this is why the "Samsung" M3 external USB hard drives have been rebranded as "Maxtor" but remained otherwise identical- Seagate (who have long owned the Maxtor brand) bought out Samsung's HDD business a while back.
    • I have a Lumia 550, and it's branded the Microsoft Lumia. No sign of Nokia when that phone is running: when I turn it on, I see 'Microsoft' logo, instead of Nokia's. It's actually a good phone outside the US, where the app support for it is better

  • At that price, I'll buy one and install Android on it instead

  • If you wanted a cheap phone in India, why not get something like http://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech... [gadgetsnow.com] for less than $14?
    Or this [gadgetsnow.com] for less than $4?

    There's no shortage of cheap and/or government subsidised phones in India.

  • Nokia 130 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xororand ( 860319 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @03:50AM (#52929643)

    I use a Nokia 130 Dual SIM for work.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    * microUSB charging port, which is great. Not many feature phones have that.
    * lasts for 1-2 weeks
    * cheap but reasonably solid construction
    * fluid UI
    * only about $30

    8/10, would recommend.

  • It has Cortana installed and can't be turned of. Also, you can't make calls unless you're logged in with a Microsoft account.
  • Just when smartphones at that price are popping up. For a market expected to be dead and buried in three years time. Consider yourself middle-fingered, Microsoft.
  • But can it play Clash of Clans? Ironically besides text, and phone calls, that is the only other item that would be useful for this phone from an app level. Not bad for a nostalgic remake. Outside of this 2003 will want it's phone back.

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