Nokia’s finished messing around. After a fairly exciting product launch of its flagship phones, the Lumia 820 and 920, Nokia’s now gone and released two baby-smartphones. Let’s welcome the Asha 308 and 309 to the party and see what these hardy devices offer outside of the new “fluid swipe” interface.

Humble hardware

These phones are not meant for the usual suspects. These are smartphones for the rest of us. There’s the tough but tiny 3-inch screens, a 2MP rear camera and Nokia’s Asha Touch UI which is really a re-skinned Series 40 OS. Remember the N9? While it’s a lot like that.

What else? There’s an 800Mhz CPU, an 1110mAh and a paltry 20MB internal storage though there is an SD card slot. Finally, and most heinously there’s EDGE. Yes, both the 308 and 309 are EDGE-only devices. For those hard-pressed to pick a phone, the only difference between these two phones is that the 308 has support for GSM/EDGE 850, 1900MHz bands and “Easy Swap dual SIM accommodation.” Having a dual-sim phone is all the rage these days.

This, on a 2012 device released from one of the world’s biggest mobile phone makers.

Here’s the best part though. Both phones ship an economically priced US$99. Nokia’s going to ship the Asha 308 and 309 Q4 2012.