Nokia Astound: The smartphone for those without a smartphone [Video]

The trend in mobile always seems to be that of one-upmanship. Build it bigger, make it faster, make it do more are the commands that are most often followed. But what about converting those who aren’t yet your customers?

Nokia‘s Astound is making a jump that we saw LG do not too long ago. While LG’s phone was an Android-based model that was priced at $100 (on contract, of coure), Nokia is sticking with its Symbian OS (while we wait for the Windows Phone versions to come later) and pairing up with T-Mobile in the US to get it combined with a $10 data plan.

With the Nokia Astound, you’re getting a thin, light phone that’s tailored to those people who haven’t yet made the smartphone jump. It’s 10.5mm thick, with a rather sexy metallic casing. The 3.5-inch display is AMOLED (not Super, but still very good) and provides haptic feedback for touch.

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Connection is handled a number of different ways. It’s a CDMA phone, but it’s also a GSM. Beyond that, you have USB 3.0, Wireless N, a micro-USB connector and the standard Nokia 3.5mm AV connection plus an 8 megapixel camera.

8 gigs of internal storage will start things off. You can choose to add another 32 gigs via MicroSD, but it’s not included. Remember, Nokia’s not aiming for people who are apps-crazy already. The best part of it all? The price.

There is a $50 rebate required to make this deal work with T-Mobile, but after it’s all said and done the Astound will only run $79. Of course there’s a monthly voice plan required, but you figured on that. But for $10, you can also add 250 megabytes of data, which should be more than enough for the new smartphone owner to handle email and the like.

I might not be sold on Nokia’s Symbian OS, but a lot of people in the world are. I’ll be sitting down with a representative from Nokia tomorrow to talk about the Astound, as well a the move over to Windows Phone. Have questions you want answered? Leave them in the comments.