Microsoft has unveiled the Nokia 216; a feature phone which could be the company’s last mobile phone ahead of the release of a Surface Phone in the future.
Microsoft has a thing for going full circle; the company began fielding mobile phones after its purchase of Nokia at the budget end of the market with the Lumia 535, and now the company has revealed what could possibly be its last device under the Nokia badge; the Nokia 216 feature phone.
It’s perhaps an underwhelming last hurrah, but that doesn’t mean to imply that Microsoft’s endeavours in the mobile market have been nothing short of saddening to begin with.
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The Nokia 216 is likely Microsoft’s last Nokia-branded phone; the company elected to sell its feature phone business to FIH Mobile – a Foxconn subsidiary – for a figure of $350 million USD earlier this year. The device is slated to go on sale in India, where it will retail for $37 USD.
True to its feature phone form, the Nokia 216 won’t bring anything new to the market. Users can expect a 2.4″ QVGA display, primary and secondary cameras with 0.3-megapixel sensors, all running on Series 30 OS with the Opera Mini browser in tow.
It even has a headphone jack. Take that, Apple.
The only hope for Microsoft’s mobile business has been the long-rumoured Surface Phone; a Windows 10 Mobile device which would bear the badge reserved for the company’s line of ultraportable hybrid laptops. After multiple delays have apparently pushed the Surface Phone further down the pipeline, it’s difficult not to loose hope.
Still, the Nokia 216 is actually a fitting swansong; it marks the one thing Microsoft did well in its brief tenure in the mobile market, and that was to secure its bottom end. Effective budget smartphones and feature phones that launched under the Microsoft or Nokia badge were plentiful, and it’s the one good reminder we have of Microsoft’s mobile misadventures.
Read: Microsoft reportedly delays the release of its “˜Surface Phone‘ by a year
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Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA
