April 18, 2022: If you are old enough to remember the early years of the mobile phone in India – around the turn of the century – you won’t need reminding of the iconic status of a Nokia handset. So ubiquitous was the phone and so cannily designed for Indian usage( complete with torch)that in  rural India, the story went, villages went into shops and asked for a ”Nokia”—their password for  handphone.
Nokia stopped making phones some years ago but the brand lives on in some markets, courtesy HMD Mobile.
And the Nokia’s they make and sell in India, remain faithful to their core loyal market of down-to-earth users who have no money to waste.
The Nokia C01 Plus was launched  a few weeks ago and remains true to some hardy formats: a removable battery, a Type A micro-USB port,  Easy to hold with a 5.45 inch screen and a weight of just 157 grams.
The C01 offers the latest Android 11 (Go) OS ands takes two nano sims. It has adequate  720p cameras  for the intended buyer --  2MP front and 5 MP rear both with LED flash and High Dynamic Range (HDR), a feature normally associated with pricier phones.
The memory is 2 GB and there are 2 versions – 16 GB and 32 GB storage that can be expanded to 128 GB.
Many readers may have graduated to more powerful phones but  in addition to offering a good proposition to buyers with tight budgets, I  see  a definite role for theNokiaC01 Plus as a handysecond phone when travelling especially to foreign destinations. Always good to have a stepney. The C01 is Rs 6999 ( 16 GB) and Rs 7999( 32 GB), but discounts bring this to Rs 6299 and Rs 6799. Phone site.       -Anand Parthasarathy