17 Jun 2008

Now mobiles at rock bottom prices

Last weekend, a colleague showed me his latest acquisition - a cool looking mobile phone with a classy touch screen interface, stylus, sleek looks, nice loud volume, multimedia capability, mp4 enabled, twin cameras, some sort of handwriting recognition, scheduled on-off feature, dual sim, twin batteries supplied and a lot of other niceties. One look an i assumed it might be in the 30K INR price range. So it was a big suprise when he told me that he got it for less than - hold your breath - 3K INR!

Welcome to the amazing world of chinese mobiles. These China-made gadgets rivals the best of brands like Nokia, Motorola etc with features that would put them to shame. And the build quality is not bad either. It can easily last for atleast 2 years. What else does a customer need to ask for ?

Of course I have my apprehensions too. These phones are not rated by the FCC or other international bodies and so their safety rating remains unconfirmed. Also many of them have some of the sub-menus in chinese etc.

I did some googling and came to the conclusion that the chinese have replicated all the best mobiles - the N95, the N75 - why even the iPhone ! and made them available at a fraction of the cost. Some of them also have TV tuner cards, GPS navigation and the like.

Some of the phones feature amazing talktime and standby time. Check this one out which features almost a whopping 1 year of talktime and standby time ! And as I write this the ceiling has been already broken. There are reports of a phone with 2 years of standby time. So virtually almost no need for charging.

Surely the Chinese are on an all conquering spree.

2 comments :

  1. I got one for myself 6 months ago. Paid around 4500. These chinese phones don't go by any model number etc. So its tough to get games & other firmware updates. Even you can't replace the games.
    However for all other purposes d phone has been just great.

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  2. In my opinion, paying a bit more for a branded one would be better than exposing yourself to the risk of radiation hazards.
    Good things never come cheap.

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