Nokia becomes the first multinational tech firm to launch a global product in Kenya. The global phone manufacturer yesterday announced the launch of two low end phones – the Nokia 100 and Nokia 101. The launch was held at Nairobi’s Serena hotel amongst journalists from Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. Also in attendance were several high key Nokia executives led by Mary McDowell, Nokia’s Executive Vice President, Mobile Phones. McDowell says that Kenya was chosen as a venue for the launch as East Africa represents part of the next 1 billion people that Nokia is targeting to provide with mobile phones. Kenneth Oyolla, Nokia General Manager for East and Southern Africa, says that Africa would account for 20 per cent of new mobile phone users by 2015. In addition, Oyolla says that the Nokia 101 and the Nokia X2 -01 had been conceptualised at Nokia’s Nairobi research center, one of only seven Nokia’s research centers in the world. The Nokia 100 and Nokia 101 are based on Nokia Series 30 mobile operating system. Both devices feature a new grid user interface which comes with standard icons that Nokia has standardised across all their mobile phones. The devices also come with a flash light, inter-changeable rubber covers, several games and a daily & monthly personal finance tracking application.

The devices also reflect the new naming convention that was recently unveiled by Nokia. The convention runs from 1 to 9, excluding 4, with 1 been the lowest in complexity and 9 the most advanced. 4 is excluded due to it been considered unlucky in China, Nokia’s largest market.
Nokia 100 also comes with FM radio and a long life battery which can lasts 32 days on stand-by and 7.2 hours on talk. Another unique feature is multiple phone books which means that the phone can be shared by many people with each accessing their own unique phone book. The phone will retail at USD 30 or KES 2,700.
Nokia 101 is the fifth dual SIM device to be launched by Nokia. Standard features in Nokia dual SIM devices include ability to remember configurations of up to 5 SIM cards. There is also the ability to personalise the 2 SIM cards with unique ring-tones, preferred voice and SMS. The phone supports memory cards of up to 16 GB. Battery life will have a standby of up to 32 days,  talk time of 8.5 hours and music playback for up to 33 hours for devices sold in India, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Devices sold in the rest of the world including Kenya will have a battery life up to 25 days on stand-by, 6.7 hours on talk and 26 hours on music. Nokia 101 will be available at USD 35 and KES 3,500.
Nokia Life Tools

In the same event, Nokia also announced the success of Nokia Life Tools. McDowell says Nokia Life Tools consists of a platform that is designed for those not on the web. Life Tools provides information in four categories: healthcare, agriculture, entertainment and education. Content is country specific with the platform now serving 30 million people in China, Indonesia, India and Nigeria.
Calin Turcanu, Nokia Head of Mobile Phones Business Unit Middle East & Africa, says: “Life Tools provides agricultural product market prices in Indi and healthcare and disease information in Nigeria. We have put a lot of effort in creating the content such as having doctors in our Nigeria team,” he says.
Nokia partners with local mobile operators to deliver the information via SMS. Content partners also include Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in the education sector to determine key focus areas.
Turcanu says that they would be rolling out their Life Tools to other African countries based on the success that they have experienced in Nigeria.
Series 40: Maps and more

Nokia also re-affirmed the position of the Series 40 feature phones. McDowell announced that new devices would come pre-loaded with the Nokia browser and Nokia maps. At the same time, 40 per cent of apps downloaded on the Ovi store are now on the Series 40 platform.
Turcanu says that the Nokia Browser is made to compress data which leads to faster loading of pages while saving the user in data usage costs.
Nokia maps will come pre-loaded on new devices together with Nokia Browser. The first devices to feature this will be the C2 - 03 and the C2 - 06. “Preloading of Nokia Maps means that they will not require downloads to function. In addition, Nokia maps will rely on cell triangulation (positioning using base stations) rather than GPS meaning lower costs for the devices,” says McDowell.
Nokia is also working on more and better applications for the devices including WhatsApp, ebuddy and Facebook with an improved look and feel.
However, multi tasking will not be available in future versions due to what Turcanu refers as a need to save on battery consumption.
Older devices such as Nokia C3 -01 will receive over the air updates and PC updates of the new Series 40 OS.
It was also announced that the recently released Nokia N9 running Linux on the Meego OS will be available in Africa later on this year.