Nokia are going to release a new smartphone with 48 days standby battery life, costing only $99.

The Asha 501 will be shipping with a 1200 mAh battery which will allow for 17 hours of straight talk time and 56 hours of music playback before a recharge. They will supply the smartphone in white, green, red, blue, black and yellow and the touch screen will be 3 inches. Bluetooth, WiFi and a 3.2 mega pixel camera will round out the featureset.

The phone will not support 3G or 4G speeds, however Nokia are keen to point out it will ship with the Nokia Xpress Browser which can compress Internet data by up to 90 percent, enabling much quicker response times.

App developers seem keen to support the new Asha smartphone. They are working with Facebook and Airtel to provide free data access through the Asha Facebook app and all mobile Facebook web pages.

Andre Beyers, Airtel Africa's chief marketing officer said “The collaboration with Nokia is in line with our strategy of enabling people to access data in Africa as we seek to bridge the digital divide across the continent. The provision of free Facebook access is an excellent proposition to the millions of Airtel consumers.”

The phone will be released in India, The Middle East, Asia Pacific, Africa, Latin America and Europe in June. No details yet on a U.S. release time frame.

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