MNB RG: Dual Shot Nokia Asha 503 Unboxing (Yellow)

Janne delivers an unboxing of the new dual shot Nokia Asha 503:

Yesterday December 4th was the tax-returns day and also a major Nokia launch day in Finland. Nokia Asha 503, Lumia 1520 and Lumia 2520 went on sale here, with apparently fairly good availability all around (you could buy devices without pre-orders, even though pre-orders I hear were excellent too). Initial colors the phones in black, white and yellow, and the tablet in black and red – although I hear the red tablet deliveries were delayed by a few days. Also available are Lumia 1520 covers Nokia CP-623 in black, white, red and yellow up-coming. Unfortunately the Nokia Power Keyboard seems to be delayed until early next year, it will come in black and red then.

My last hands-on thoughts on these devices came from the DigiExpo 2013 fair (my report on MNB:http://mynokiablog.com/2013/11/02/mnb-rg-lumia-1520-2520-and-asha-503-hands-on-report/) and last closer experience with a “basic” Nokia, the Nokia 301 a while back (my report on MNB: http://mynokiablog.com/2013/06/17/mnb-rg-nokia-301-pics-and-hands-on-thoughts/). As I’ve had plenty of time with Lumias and Windows 8.X devices, I was surprisingly most curious about the “baby” of the new launch group, the Nokia Asha 503 – the mini-N9 of sorts. The cheap(ish) price of less than a hundred euros also playing into it, I went and bought one as an impulse buy.

What follows are unboxing photos. Initial feel is that both the box and the phone itself are absolutely tiny, like all recent Asha/basic Nokia phones and their boxes of course. You could literally fit six Asha 503 retail boxes in the space a Nokia mobile phone box from 15 years ago took. While Asha 503 as a device isn’t the thinnest of them all, with all the big-screen smartphone madness going on, it is still very diminutive even inside its fairly thick shell. What’s really new about it is of course those half-transparent dual-shot covers, which seem quite like a scratch magnet though, judging by my DigiExpo experiences, but of course look stunning and very new otherwise. Anyway, the 3″ screen is supposed to be covered by Corning Gorilla Glass (some Nokia pages say version 2, some without a number) and the body itself, of course, wholly removable and easily replaceable, so those bases should be covered.

The sales package (single-SIM here in Finland) contains the phone, a 1200 mAh battery, a 4 GB microSD memory card (pre-installed inside the phone), AC-20 charger and WH-108 stereo headphones – in bright red, for whatever reason, in this yellow phone package.

I will try to post some further experiences in the comments below as I get them. The big deal here, of course, is the upgraded Asha operating experience with swipe. The phone’s swipe to camera feature and 5 MP snapper have actually earned the moniker “Nokia Asha 503 camera phone” in some Finnish retail advertising, which I thought maybe pushing it a little. Then again, 5 MP at this range is perfeclty respectable of course. Although, the QVGA 15 fps video shooting makes it certainly no video camera. Maybe a potato video camera. Well, haven’t tried the camera yet…

Category: Nokia