Nokia 3711 Phone Comes to T-Mobile for $69.99

The Motorola Droid or Samsung Moment not within the bounds of your holiday recession budget? Nokia has a more modest but wallet-friendly alternative: On Nov. 5, the Finnish not-just-a-phone-maker announced that its 3711 feature phone is now available on the T-Mobile network for $69.99 with a two-year contract

The clamshell-style phone features a hidden-until-lit 1.36-inch external display, as well as a 2.2-inch QVGA primary display when opened. Users can browser the Web via a dedicated T-Mobile web2go key, and there’s support for e-mail, instant messaging and SMS and MMS.

The 3711 includes a 2-megapixel camera with video capture, photo editing, a gallery application and photo sharing direct to MMS, e-mail and Nokia’s Ovi Share. There’s also a media player, Stereo Bluetooth, stereo FM radio, a 2.5mm audio connector, voice recording and voice dialing. Plus, there’s integrated A-GPS and a Nokia Maps application.

The 3711 operates on quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 900/1700 and 2100/1700 frequencies, offers TCP/IP support and can act as a modem for another device.

The 3711 measures 3.5 by 1.85 by 0.6 inches, weighs 3.3 inches and has overall rounded edges to make it feel nice in a user’s hand.

While the smartphone market – and particularly the touchscreen smartphone market – continue to show strong growth, Juniper Research reports that the low-cost handset market is also thriving, encouraged by emerging markets.

In an August report, analyst Andrew Kitson predicted that “low-cost handset shipments will number more than 700 million in 2014, up by 31 percent from levels seen in 2008, albeit slightly down from a peak of 716 million in 2010, as some users begin to upgrade to costlier devices.”

The 3711 runs the Series 40 operating system and comes with several “green” credentials: 60 percent of its packing materials are recycled and 80 percent of the device is recyclable.