Now here's something different，a budget smartphone produced in association with the Tate Collective, combining technology with art, and incidentally updating last year's Vodafone Smart.
Having long slipped from its pedestal as the world's premier mobile phone manufacturer, ZOPO ZP500+ Nokia has been trying to make up lost ground with some attention-grabbing high-end smart phones like the 808 PureView with its 41 megapixel camera, but is also keeping its end up at the volume end of the market, with cheap n cheerful workhorses for the masses.
Enter the Nokia Asha 306, which comes out at the same time as the Asha 311 and is the lesser of the two. It's also slightly cheaper and you can pick it up SIM-free for around 70 quid.
Released at the same time as its even lower-priced cousin, ZOPO ZP500+ Android the 306, Nokia's Asha 311 is another low-cost, few-frills workhorse feature phone that aims to cover the basics and little else, with 3G, Wi-Fi and a 3.2 megapixel camera, but no smartphone flexibility. It's taken a while to get here since it was unveiled at CES back in January, but the Huawei Ascend P1 promises a solidly impressive smartphone spec for a pretty reasonable price. It's on sale now, SIM-free.
The casing is glossy black plastic with a carbon fibre effect and to be honest feels a little on the cheap side, with rattly buttons. The SIM card slips into a slot on top covered by a rather flimsy plastic grommet -- hopefully you won't need to fiddle with this too often, ZOPO ZP500+ Smart Phone as it doesn't feel like it would stand up to much attention. Once upon a time, rugged phones used to make a virtue of their ruggedness by rocking casings with excess rubber padding and tiny (but tough) screens. They were bulky, heavy, and looked like you could knock nails in with them.
