Design
Over the years, Nokia has quietly improved the design of its entry level and budget mobile phones. A tight body shell and no creaky/moving parts in the phone make it usable normally and without extra care. Nokia Asha 311 has a good design with curved edges and no sharp corners on the body. It has a stainless steel strip resting between the touchscreen and the chin of the smartphone. Asha 311 is 12.9 mm thick and weighs just under 100 gram.
Nokia Asha 311 has two stainless steel action buttons on the strip and a poly-carbonate body. The lower part of the smartphone has a matte finish and solid colours. While the battery cover and sides have slightly different shades and a metallic finish on the pink coloured model. The entire back panel comes with a glossy finish and is a great fingerprint magnet. If the phone had a matte finish all over its body like its bottom part, it would have offered better grip. On the other hand Asha 311 seems to be focused at the young crowd aspiring to carry a chic feature phone.
Under the thin steel strip lies a microphone while the volume buttons are located on the right side. There is a lock/sleep key below the buttons on the right side but no dedicated camera key. All these buttons need to be pressed hard to get the function to work. That might be a turn off for several older folks trying to get comfortable with their first touchscreen device.
Nokia has placed the micro USB port on the top between the micro charging port and a 3.5 mm audio port. At the back lies a 3.2 megapixel camera without a flash. The loudspeaker mesh is located at the back just below the steel strip. The SIM card and microSD card slots are located under the battery below the back panel. So there is no hot-swappable memory card feature and one has to pull out the battery to access either of the cards.
However, Nokia Asha 311 is appealing, comfortably fits in the hand and is best suited for the young crowd.
