Nokia 2323 Classic and 2330 Classic

Discontinued
4th November 2008

Two very closely related handsets, the Nokia 2323 Classic and Nokia 2330 Classic are aimed primarily at developing markets, with a number of features under the hood that you might not expect.

The Nokia 2323 Classic (pictured right) is a very low cost handset, priced at around €40 (£30) before tax and subsidy. It features a 1.8" 120 x 180 pixel display, an FM radio, MP3 ringtones, GPRS and EDGE data, a web browser and email client. Although the small screen is a significant limitation, you'll probably have to admit that these are pretty good features for a handset that costs this little.

Add another €10 and you get the Nokia 2330 Classic (pictured left) which adds a VGA resolution camera, and comes with a wired headset in the box.

Nokia also make a passing mention of a handset called the Nokia 2320 which doesn't have an FM radio or web browser, but it costs the same as the 2323. We really can't see the point in that at all.

Both phones weigh around 90 grams and have about 4 hours talktime and 22 days standby time. Both phones look good, and they're both very inexpensive. But as we said, there is more going on than meets the eye.

Nokia have introduced two new features with their latest range of phones called Mail on Ovi and Nokia Life Tools.

Looking at Mail on Ovi first of all, Nokia have realised that many people have email enabled handsets but no email account to go with it. So, Mail on Ovi is a free service that allows up to 1GB of email storage and an email address, with support built into the 2323 and 2330 handsets. So, as long as you have one of these phones and a GPRS connection, then you can have an email address.. even if the phone is your only access to the Internet. That's actually a pretty useful feature.

As we said before, these handsets are aimed at emerging markets, although they will undoubtedly appeal to customers in more developed countries too. The other major feature that Nokia are offering with these phones is Nokia Life Tools. This is aimed at non-urban customers in developing nations, starting with India.

Life Tools allows access to information on Agriculture, Education (including learning English) plus some entertainment features. Accessing the Internet on a phone is no big deal, but the clever thing about Life Tools is that it uses SMS as a transport mechanism rather than GPRS - this means that it should work even on the most basic cellular networks that don't support packet data.

So, it is clear that the Nokia 2323 and 2330 are much more than a couple of cheap phones. Nokia have spent some time creating services that make these handsets really useful to their target markets. We think that this is quite impressive, and this approach has a real potential to make a difference.