Feature phones are far from dead, or at least that's how it looks like right now as Microsoft gears up to launch the new Nokia 216 feature phone.
Not too long ago, the Redmond based tech giant announced its decision to sell its feature phone business to FIH Mobile (subsidiary of Foxconn) for a whopping $350 million, TheVerge reported.
But judging by recent reports, it looks like the company has not ceased launching new Nokia phones.
Nokia 216 Specs, Features & Price
The new Nokia 216 does not boast high-end specs or features; in fact, it is one of Microsoft's most basic phones that is slated to hit the store shelves in India for around $37.
The upcoming feature phone sports a 2.4-inch QVGA display, and runs on the Series 30 OS with the Opera mini browser. In addition to a headphone jack, the Nokia 216 sports 0.3MP rear camera with LED flash and a 0.3MP front snapper with selfie flash. Both the cameras have fixed focus and supports video recording at 320x240 resolution. The primary camera also supports 2X digital zoom.
Moreover, the Nokia 216 is backed by 16MB of RAM. In terms of storage capacity, the phone supports storage up to 32GB via microSD card, IndiaToday reported.
The feature phone boasts a Dual-SIM support aside from offering a slew of connectivity options such as HSP/HFP profile, Bluetooth 3.0 with SLAM, FM radio, 3.5mm audio jack and microUSB. Microsoft's new feature phone packs in a robust 1020mAh battery that guarantees up to 18 hours of talk time and up to 19 days on standby.
The device supports various music formats in the default music player including MP3, MIDI, AMR, and AAC. It also supports several video formats such as MPEG-4, M-JPEG, H.264/AVC, and H.263.
The phone will be up for grabs in black, grey and blue colors.
Why Microsoft Continues To Create Feature Phones?
Its not really hard to understand why Microsoft continues to manufacture feature phones, as the company sells millions of these devices every month.
Microsoft was hoping that feature phone users might become a part of the Microsoft ecosystem by creating a Microsoft account, but there's no word on whether or not the million of feature phone users actually did that.
Earlier this year, Microsoft teased that it's gearing up to oust is Lumia smartphones, and if rumors doing rounds are anything to go by, the company will do away with its Lumia brand by the end of 2016.
In related news, Microsoft may be planning a Surface-branded phone for next year. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Lumia and Windows Phone strategy has failed to yield the desired outcome, and to make things worse, both sales and Windows Phone market share have hit the skids since the company's mobile revamping last year.
Microsoft has significantly downsized its phone business, aside from letting go thousands of employees as part of a $7.6 billion write off for getting hold of Nokia's phone business.
