Blast from the past: Nokia Asha smart feature phone prototype with strange touch QWERTY keyboard

Photos of another prototype from the “Devices and services” days of Nokia appeared on the Chinese Nokibar forum on Baidu. The device in question is a Nokia Asha “smart feature phone”. The Asha lineup was designed to bridge the gap between classic feature phones and full-fledged smartphone.

 

A cancelled Nokia Asha full-touch QWERTY smart feature phone prototype. https://t.co/vPHFDBvNDF pic.twitter.com/PtxDX8uNJx

— nokibar (@baidunokibar) July 4, 2019

The prototype that appeared on Baidu doesn’t have a name (at least the original poster didn’t mention it), but the battery is manufactured in 2012, a year before the sales of Nokia’s Devices and services business to Microsoft.

The phone comes in a polycarbonate shell colored in green, with fabula design lines. There is only just one button on the device – the power button located at the top, together with the charging port. My guess is that the 3.5mm headphone jack is at the bottom, but there are no pictures showing it. The device is smallish and looks kind of cute.

An interesting photo is the one that shows the touch QWERTY keyboard of the phone that has 7 rows of keys, not including the number row. It’s an interesting layout, but was probably necessary considering the screen size. I’m not sure if the keyboard remains all the time on the screen, because the last photo shows the UI that doesn’t have any input fields. It might be that Nokia tested an always-on QWERTY touch keyboard phone, but it doesn’t make sense to me losing more than half of the screen just for a keyboard you won’t use all the time.

What do you think? Tell us down below. 🙂

Source: Nokiabar