I''ve been searching a long time for a phone that has wifi but doesn''t require a data plan. These days everyone has a smartphone and cell phone service companies are totally milking it by requiring all smart phones to have a data plan. There''s already wifi hotspots everywhere so mobile data isn''t something I''d want to make my parents pay for. However, I was getting sick of my old Z431 that didn''t even have proper typing. The Nokia Asha 501 provided me with everything I was looking for: good calls, threaded text messaging, expandable memory, good music player, wifi and internet browser, and camera and many more pluses.There are still small improvements that Nokia could make to the OS but so far so great. Here''s a forum with a bunch of suggestions by users: http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Asha-and-other-Nokia-Series-30/Asha-501-Problems-Compiled-HERE/m-p/2326115#M105690CallingThe phone user interface looks really nice and straightforward. Call quality is great and the range of volume is also nice, from very loud to very quiet. The color of the volume level changes depending on what you''re doing. For general sounds such as ringtones it is blue. For the volume of the music player or music in games it is pink. For the volume level of calls it turns green. It''s a subtle but nice feature.TextingThe great thing about texting is that it has threaded messages. If you don''t know what that is, threaded texting is basically one conversation of a bunch of messages made to look like an IM conversation. iPhones and Androids use threaded text messaging. Other phones require you to see single messages one at a time, even if they are all from the same person.The texting is easy. The keyboard takes some time to get used to. It doesn''t seem to have the same "tolerance" as other phones, you have to have a lot of accuracy with where you press. However, the phone can be oriented in landscape mode to make the keyboard slightly bigger. Switching keyboards is easy, just swipe left or right on the spacebar. There is a more traditional alphabet layout (like older phones where the 1 key was also the abc key) along with the QWERTY keyboard. You can also attach photos, videos, and audio to messages. Smiley faces/emoticons are automatically converted to cute pictures. Also, the spelling suggestions/predictions could use some work. They don''t automatically insert themselves like iPhones and Androids do and lowercase i''s don''t automatically turn into uppercase i''s.WebInternet surfing is okay. This phone is surprisingly great at watching youtube videos. Some pages will look old, like it used to before smartphones. The browser is Nokia''s Xpress browser. It apparently sends webpages to Nokia''s servers for compressing so that you use less data. That''s a nice feature for people who have data plans. Loading is normal, fast I suppose. The start pages contains many links you might need and has them sorted in categories like News, Sports, Entertainment, etc. The top row of icons are for Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and Google. What I like about the browser is that going back doesn''t refresh the page so it''s really fast.CameraThe camera is actually pretty nice. Way better than my old phone''s camera. It''s okay for taking a quick shot of something interesting. I don''t like that it''s fixed focus though, that pretty much limits how your shots can look.Music PlayerThe music player is good, has all the basic features. Playing albums, artists, songs, and playlists. Loop, loop one, shuffle, share. The back speaker is amazing for a pretty cheap phone like this. You have to hear it in person to really understand. Small phone with big sound.RadioThis phone has an FM radio in it. You need ear buds that have an antennae in it and all my earbuds seem to have one. You can bookmark/star stations or rotate the dial to scan for other stations. It''s a nice additional feature.User InterfaceThe navigation of this phone is based on swipes. A swipe from the right or left edge sends you to your apps or Fast Lane. A swipe from the bottom brings up a context menu. A swipe from the top brings down notifications and toggles for wifi, bluetooth, data, and sound. I love this. It feels incredibly intuitive and I''m starting to accidentally use those gestures when using my iPad. There''s also a camera option from the lock screen with a swipe from the bottom, nice feature but it seemed hidden.You can have a custom wallpaper for your lock screen but for some reason only preinstalled wallpapers can be used for the home screen. Apps can be rearranged and uninstalled on the homescreen too.Fast LaneFast Lane is basically your history of what you''ve been doing. Recent apps opened, recent web pages, you can update Facebook status and tweet from it, view upcoming events and alarms, recently installed apps, etc. There are options to choose what shows up in the Fast Lane so privacy isn''t much of an issue like someone else stated. It''s a nice feature but I don''t really use it much.Glance Screen and 2 Tap UnlockingThis is one of my favorite features. The Glance Screen is a screen that shows up when your phone is lock. Instead of the screen just being off it shows you a clock and notification icons for new messages and missed calls and etc. I like this cause I tend to look at the time a lot and also because you don''t have to turn on the screen over and over to see if you got a new message. I''m sure this saves your phone some battery from all of those message checks.There is also the feature to unlock the phone just by tapping the screen twice. It can also work from the back of the phone. This is more of a gimmick feature. It''s cool and all but I''d rather just press the unlock button.Overall it''s just a really great phone to have. Good for the basic needs with a lot of extras. What really sold it for me was that it has wifi but doesn''t require a data plan.*Any additional things to say I''ve probably also said on the forum that I linked to*