NFC Nokia Astound for T-Mobile free with contract

If you are in the market for an NFC-enabled handset that doesn’t cost very much in upfront mullah, you may want to take a look at the NFC Nokia Astound. T-Mobile, via its website is currently giving the NFC Nokia Astound away at no charge as long as an accompanying 2-year agreement for service is signed up for. UPDATE: We even found it where you get $25 back, see below.

I have never heard of the NFC Nokia Astound, what’s it like?

If the NFC Nokia Astound passed you by when it launched in March and you know nothing about it let us fill you in on a few details. In essence it is a smartphone that runs on Nokia’s Symbian mobile OS and is cut from the same cloth as Nokia’s new C7 flagship model. Oddly, nowhere in the marketing for the NFC Nokia Astound does it mention it is NFC-enabled, not on the Nokia website and not on the T-Mobile site either, but it is. Even more strange than having an in-demand feature that is not marketed is the fact that when you get the NFC Nokia Astound home, you have to manually enable the NFC chip inside. The phone even ships with NFC tag writing software so we are unsure why this would not be highlighted on phone specifications, but hey ho, it’s got the good stuff and that’s all that matters.

NFC Nokia Astound Specifications

The features are not too bad at all for a free with contract phone that includes NFC.

Firstly, the NFC Nokia Astound ships with an AMOLED screen that shoots light at you in a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels, or what we like to call 16:9 nHD. The screen is a mid-sized 3.5 inch capacitive touch screen. The orientation is controlled by its onboard accelerometer and even boasts an magnetometer (for compass features) and a proximity sensor. It comes with 8GB of internal memory to get you started and will happily do video calling utilizing its front facing camera. It has a front facing camera which is partnered with an 8 mega pixel shooter around back. The rear camera is also fitted with a couple of LED flash units, and comes with a digital zoom.The camera also doubles up as a 720p HD camcorder. That alone has to be worth the hefty price of nothing!

The phone also has GPS and navigation capabilities. We are guessing it is a matter of just add apps. It also has expandable memory via a MicroSD slot so you will be able to store plenty of photos and music. The NFC Nokia Astound can theoretically hold an extra 40GB of memory, but in real world availability that will likely mean a 32GB card.

Basics are of course included, like text and picture messaging as well as “always on social networking”, the obligatory 3.5mm audio jack, built in FM Radio & music player that supports MP3,WMA, iTunes & ACC, personal and work email, speaker phone, stereo Bluetooth, USB tethering, address book, alarm clock, calculator and calendar. The battery is a 1200 mAh Li-ion battery that should give you at least 318 minutes of talk time and 656 hours on standby.

Lastly, on the data side of things the phone supports HSDPA which will give you the potential of a 10.2 Mbps connection.

NFC Nokia Astound summary

The Nokia Astound is no super phone, but does have quite a few features it shares with its higher specification HTC & Samsung cousins. Some of its specs fall a little short from the true super phones, but to be frank they are not NFC-enabled and the extra screen size and processors they boast increase the price substantially. If you want an NFC phone and it doesn’t have to be the bleeding edge, the NFC Nokia Astound could be just what the doctor ordered.


NFC Nokia Astound