Nokia 220 is unabashedly simple, but stylish (hands-on)
Boldly colorful and solidly-built, the straightforward Nokia 220 was designed to look and feel great while making calls.
BARCELONA, Spain -- For most of its mobile life, simple cell phones have been Nokia's bread and butter. It's safe to say that Nokia knows how to make a good-looking device that handles basic communication. The 29 Euros ($40, £24) Nokia 220, announced at MWC 2014, looks like a promising addition to this legacy.
One thing I like about Nokia is that no phone is beneath its attention. The 220 comes in bright colors; I saw it in red, but check out our slideshow for the blue and yellow versions. The polycarbonate unibody design has rounded corners, and a smooth finish that helps it fit comfortably into my palm when I held it. In typical Nokia style, the color runs deep. Instead of simply coating the phone, it saturates the material and flows into the dial pad, a rarity.
Nokia adds one other tiny bit of flair, where a square directional navigation pad surrounds a central select button. It looks neat and handles well.
Into the meat of the phone, the 220 has a 2.4-inch, 320x240-pixel display, a 2-megapixel camera, and Nokia's Express Cloud Browser, which compresses data. You will have access to Facebook and Twitter, and in a nod to Microsoft, Bing is the default search engine.
The Nokia 220 goes on sale for 29 Euros in the first week of March.
Read also: Emerging markets are the next smartphone battleground
Catch all the mobile news from Mobile World Congress 2014.