The Android Army in India


I have seen many on tech forums asking information or advice in buying new Android smartphones. Well, some start with asking about Symbian smartphone and end up with Android phone. So, to make things simple, I thought of making a proper list of Android running phones available in Indian market (official channels only).

The quick list:

  1. Desire HD: 27k-28k : Available
  2. Motorola Milestone 2: not available
  3. Motorola Milestone: 20k: Available
  4. Samsung Galaxy S: 27k : Available
  5. SE Xperia X10: 25k-26k : Available
  6. HTC Desire: 23k-24k: Available
  7. Samsung Galaxy 3: 10.5k-11.5k : Available
  8. Samsung Galaxy 5: 8k : Available
  9. LG Optimus GT540: 11.5k : Available
  10. LG Optimus P500: 14k : Available
  11. SE Xperia X8: 13k : Available
  12. HTC Wildfire: 14k : Available
  13. HTC Legend: 22k-23k : Available
  14. SE Xperia X10 Mini: 12k : Available
  15. SE Xperia X10 Mini Pro: 14k : Available

 

Desire HD:

desire hd 2desire hd maps

Desire HD is successor to highly successful HTC Desire and is the best smartphone available in India right now, with monstrous 4.3” LCD, 8mp camera, superb SenseUI. But there is one area where it is really weak. Battery life. Don’t know why HTC chose a 1230mAh Li-Ion battery for such a huge phone. Clearly, this could turn out to be the Achilles heel for this phone. This phone features the latest senseUI that features offline maps, fastboot and HTCSense.com integration.

Status: 28k

The Good:

      • 4.3” 16M color 480 x 800 display
      • Superb Sense UI over Froyo
      • super fast boot up time
      • offline maps
      • 1.5GB ROM
      • 768MB RAM
      • Native support for DivX
      • 8mp camera

The bad:

      • Poor battery
      • LCD is yesteryear’s display technology and eats lot of power
      • poor multimedia quality
      • No front facing camera video calling

Who should buy this phone:

      • The biggest android device
      • Those looking for HTC’s flagship device

 

 

Motorola Milestone 2:

Motorola-Milestone2

Milestone 2 is the successor to highly successful Motorola Milestone. The most notable differences between these two are :

    1. 2nd edition has better keypad with bulged keys instead of flat keys
    2. More spacious keypad, thanks to omitting useless D-Pad
    3. Motoblur UI
    4. 8GB Internal Storage
    5. 802.11n with DLNA
    6. 720p video recording
    7. Li-Po battery instead of Li-Ion
    8. Faster 1GHz processor

These two phones look similar and there isn’t much difference in weight and dimensions too.

Status: Yet to be relased in India

The Good:

      • Improved qwerty keypad
      • 3.7” 480 x 854 16M capacitive touch with Gorilla Glass layer
      • 8GB internal memory
      • Froyo pre-installed
      • 720p video recording
      • Very good battery life

The Bad:

      • MotoBLUR is a bit irritating UI
      • Step-motherly treatment by Motorola towards Indian customers (Milestone still awaits Froyo upgrade)

Who should get it:

      • qwerty maniacs
      • shutterbugs
      • smartphone with large display

 

Motorola Milestone:

Motorola Milestonemotorola_milestone1

Motorola, before the release of Milestone was pluging into abyss. Their recent phones failed big time and their operating system was seriously outdated. Thanks to Sanjay Jha, Motorola turned to Android when it needed fresh start and that paid off really well. This phone played major part in turning Motorola’s mobile phone business back into profits. This phone didn’t have a fancy UI like HTC Hero nor it was low priced like Samsung Galaxy Spica. This phone was targeted at a different audience. Sporting a gigantic 3.7” display, this phone was instant hit among those who loved to have hard qwerty. Hardware wise, the phone has powerful ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz CPU and  PowerVR SGX530 graphics (same as what N900 has). And if I remember properly, this phone was one of the first to Éclair (android 2.1) update.

The good:

  • Superb bulid quality
  • Very slim taken into account the landscape qwerty
  • powerful CPU and GPU
  • Very good 3.7” TFT display
  • Great camera
  • Landscape qwerty
  • great multimedia performance

The bad:

  • average talktime
  • Motoblur not so good
  • no FM
  • flat qwerty keys not everyone’s cup of tea
  • no video calling
  • only 256MB of RAM

Status : Available for 20k

Who should buy:

  • heavy users of keypad
  • big screen lovers
  • Multimedia (movie watching is a pleasure)

 

Samsung Galaxy S:

galaxy SSamsung-Galaxy-S

Well, this is without a doubt the best mobile phone that I have ever tried. Even the superb Legend looked like an el-cheapo phone before the might of Galaxy S. While the 4” Super AMOLED is truly stunning, the combination of Cortex A8 Hummingbird CPU and 512MB of RAM makes the phone zippy. Touchwiz UI 3.0, though has impoved a lot, still is behind SenseUI. 720p recording, 16Gb internal memory, 802.11n, wifi access point capability, video call camera, the list is endless. If one had a budget of 30k, this is undoubtedly the phone to get and there is no need to give a second thought. To add fun, Samsung has inbuilt Swype text input which is real fun to use and many report that it is faster to type using swype than the traditional way (http://www.swypeinc.com/)

The good:

  • Stunningly beautiful Super AMOLED display
  • 4” of real estate
  • Touchwiz 3.0
  • DivX/Xvid/MKV supported out of the box
  • 1Ghz Hummingbird CPU (ARM Cortex A8)
  • 512MB RAM, 16Gb user memory
  • Great multimedia performance (superb video quality, great audio quality, good FM reception)
  • it’s just 9.9mm thin
  • Swype text input
  • decent camera with 720p recording
  • great talktime
  • super light yet grips well.

The bad:

  • body is fingerprint magnet
  • no camera flash
  • Kies PC sync application is really bad, doesn’t work on mac and linux.
  • buggy PC sync drivers on windows 7
  • Should’ve come with Froyo preinstalled

Status : Available for 28k

Who should buy:

  • looking for the best android device
  • big screen lovers
  • Multimedia
  • can make iphone owner’s cry with envy Smile
  • heavy multitasking

 

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10:

xperia x10xperia-x10-1

Early 2010, this phone was the most anticipated phone of the year. First, It’s an Android phone and it’s SE’s first shot at Android. The initial demos created lot of craze. It has powerful hardware like 4” TFT touch display, 1GHz Snapdgragon, 8mp camera, 384MB RAM. But then it got lost in the barrage of devices like HTC Desire, Nexus One, Moto Milestone. The reason was simple. This phone was still running the slower and older Android 1.6 while everyone else moved to much faster and feature rich 2.1 (Éclair). Even to this day, this phone run 1.6 when Nexus One has moved to Froyo and other brands like HTC have lined up to move their phones to 2.2. SE designed TimeScape UI is a pleasure to use. It’s easy on eyes and looks fresh but thanks to Donut, there is a lag and a serious thumbs down to SE for not being able to utilize the potential of underlying hardware. Thanks to Donut, the display is stuck at 65k colors even though the LCD is capable of 16M colors and the resulting display quality is nowhere near to what Legend and Galaxy S provides. Now that phones like Galaxy S, Droid 2, Droid X, Evo are coming out, there seems no need to get this phone unless you are after the brand name.

The good:

  • Timescape UI
  • 4” of real estate
  • great talktime
  • 8mp camera
  • 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU
  • very good build quality
  • superb audio quality

The bad:

  • No FM
  • no video calling
  • no multi touch yet

Status : Available for 26k-27k

Who should buy:

  • Purely for SE loyals.
  • shutterbugs

 

HTC Desire:

desire all sidesdesire display

Till the end of 2009, Android handsets were powered by decent CPU and RAM. Enter 2010 and a new era had begun. The era of Android phones with superpowers. It all started with Google’s Nexus One which was designed by HTC. Then, few months later, HTC released Desire, a phone that looks strikingly similar to N1, running Sense UI. The advantage that Desire had over N1 is that this phone was powered by SenseUI which makes life much easier and the phone was made available in multiple countries. With AMOLED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB or RAM, 5mp camera, thin and sturdy build quality, the phone was an instant hit. When released, this phone will go head-on against Galaxy S, Milestone and Xperia X10. The big question here is ‘when will HTC release this phone in India?’ and ‘why HTC is not releasing this phone in India?’. The problem is the shortage of AMOLED display panels (manufactured by Samsung) for this phone and N1. HTC is now looking to replace AMOLED with Sony’s SuperLCD panel and if the decision is made, the phone will be available in Indian market very soon.  Also, for those who think that SuperLCD may not match the quality of AMOLED, the answer is NO. Cnet’s recent comparison of the AMOLED AND SuperLCD showed that SuperLCD is on-par with AMOLED in most aspects and the difference is negligible.

I do hope that HTC will soon release this phone because by next month, SGS will be getting Froyo that makes full use of the phones powerful hardware, X10 will be getting Éclair, making it a worthy purchase and Motorola might launch Milestone 2. Once these updates/releases happen, Desire’s sales can suffer.

Status : 23k-24k

The good:

  • Sense UI
  • 3.7” SuperLCD
  • superb build quality
  • 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU
  • thin profile
  • 5mp camera with autofocus

The bad:

  • no proper release date from HTC
  • not many are comfortable with optical trackpad
  • average battery life
  • not the best when it comes to multimedia.

Who should buy:

  • with 25k+ budget and looking for the android device with best User Interface.

Samsung Galaxy 3 a.k.a i5800:

02_GT-I5800_large04_GT-I5800_large08_GT-I5800_large

Samsung i5800 a.k.a Galaxy 3 was one of the most anticipated phones in the year 2010. The reason is that Samsung had suddenly stopped production of super-hit i5700 which was selling like hot cakes and was the only good sub 20k Android based phone. Termed as i5700 (spica) successor, i5800 had generated lot of interest among buyers. On paper, it was a better phone than Spica. Thinner, lighter, double the amount of RAM, bigger ROM, 802.11n, android 2.1, better battery life. But there was one thing that turned many away from this phone. That is the display’s resolution. While Spica has 320 x 480 pixel resolution (a standard resolution for 3.2” android phones), i5800 has 240×400 resolution and also a slower processor. So, what’s the big deal with having a display that sports lower resolution. First, movies, UI and pictures look a bit washed out. Text will not be as crisp as what you get on better resolution displays and more importantly it’s a big headache for app developers to customize apps to run at this resolution and hence the number of apps available for this phone will be comparatively less. If someone offers me Spica and i5800, I would still go for Spica any given day. Given that Spica is no more in production and no more sold in market and i5800 is sold at a very good price of 12.5k, it can be the phone that most budget consious buyers will eye for. It may get a stiff competition from HTC Wildfire and SE Xperia X8 though.

Status: 12k-13k

The Good:

      • Light and slim
      • 512MB ROM, 256MB RAM
      • price
      • DivX support out of the box
      • very good audio quality
      • very good battery backup
      • 802.11n

The Bad:

      • poor resolution
      • slower processor when compared to Spica.

Who Should buy:

      • budget conscious buyers

 

Samsung i5503 a.k.a Galaxy 5:

galaxy 5 sidegalaxy 5 frontgalaxy 5 rear

 

Well, who would’ve thought that a sub-10k android mobile phone will come out from a big brand. Samsung surprised many by announcing budget android phone with a price tag less than 10k. Except for the OS, the hardware specs is inferior to most of the phones that are in same price range. An average 256k color 2.8” 240 x 320 pixel display, mediocre 2mp camera, decent processor and battery life. There isn’t much to say about this phone but if you are one of those whose budget is strictly inside 10k, this one is for you. More serious suggestion is to spend another 2k and get galaxy 3 at least. If you are okay with buying stuff from Spice mobiles, the Spice MI-300 offers lot more for a cheaper price tag.

Status: 10k

The Good:

      • price tag
      • Android 2.2

The Bad:

      • low resolution display, 256k color only
      • mediocre camera
      • small size display
      • average audio quality
      • no DivX support

Who should buy:

      • if on a shoestring budget and android a must

 

LG Optimus One P550:

optimus one angled

Mid-range phones like wildfire, G3, G5 suffered from one common problem, poor display resolution and low quality panels. LG’s Optimus One is the mid-range android device worth buying since Samsung pulled Spica from the market. A decent 320 x 480 pixel capacitive touch was like diamond among cheap displays from competition. With 512MB of RAM and dedicated graphics accelerator, this phone can  provide better gaming experience. Also, this phone comes with Froyo pre-installed and LG already promised Gingerbread update in the future.

Status: 13k

The Good:

      • Standard resolution display
      • 512MB RAM
      • Froyo pre-installed
      • Dedicated Graphics Accelerator
      • Native support for DivX
      • Gingerbread update promised
      • Minimal modification to Android UI

The Bad:

      • Mediocre camera (no flash)

Who should buy this:

      • Those who are after mid-range touchscreen
      • Android lovers

Sony Ericsson Xperia X8:

sony-xperia-x8

This is another good mid-range mobile phone. The only mid-range phone better than this one is LG Optimus One. If you are sceptical about buying LG mobile, this would be the next best phone to buy. Gorgeous UI, brilliant display and superb build make this phone unique and stylish. There are few hiccups though like 128MB RAM, comparatively smaller display but still is much better phone than LG Optimus, Samsung Galaxy 3 etc.

Status: 13k 

The Good:

      • Beautiful UI
      • 3” 320×480 16M color display
      • Trademark SE audio quality

The Bad:

      • only 128MB RAM
      • no flash for camera

 

LG Optimus GT540:

optimus frontoptimus rear

This is the cheapest Android from LG available in India. Though the price is around 11k, there is nothing much to say about this phone. The display itself is inferior to competition (256k color 320 x 480px resistive touch). RAM too is very low at 156MB which means that after certain while, the OS will lag. This phone is meant to be a sub 10k device and doesn’t have a place among the 12k-15k Droids. I would ignore this phone if I were you and go for much much superior Optimus One P550

Status: 11k

The Good:

      • Build quality and looks
      • Display resolution
      • Native support for DivX

The Bad:

      • Resistive touch and 3” size
      • Low amount of RAM
      • mediocre camera and no flash
      • only 139MB of user memory

Who should get this phone:

      • None

 

HTC Wildfire:

wildfire all angleswildfire front-side

This phone is not yet released in India and is one of the most awaited phones. Set to replace Tattoo at midrange, this should be HTC’s proper entry into midrange phones. But still, am a bit sceptical on the phone’s low resolution TFT display. 240×320 resolution on a 3.2” display can make the display look dull and is non-standard too for Apps. The design of the phone looks strikingly similar to HTC Desire and Nexus One which means that the phone should have very good build quality.

The good:

  • Strong bulid quality
  • 384MB RAM and Qualcomm 7225 528MHz processor.
  • Decent multimedia options

The bad:

  • average talktime
  • nonstandard resolution
  • no wireless N
  • average talktkime

Status : yet to release

Who should buy:

  • those looking for midrange Android based phone

 

HTC Legend

legend all angleslegend chin

After the huge success of Hero, HTC introduced the successor named Legend (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN7sd6cnmIc). While Hero turned out to be a great in terms of UI, Legend turned out to be Legen –wait for it- dary, Legendary. From the outerbody to the UI, everything was so impressive that it is really hard to neglect this phone. Made from single sheet of aluminium, Legend is the strongest of all the current gen phones. While HTC Sense UI on Hero was innovative, the improved SenseUI on Legend’s 16M color AMOLED display is truly stunning and looked out of the world. Still, there I no other UI that can match Sense UI in ‘awesomeness’ and ‘customizability’. And the result is that this is one of the top selling phones in the market right now. One thing that I can say is that one who gets used to the SenseUI in this phone will never look at any other UI. It is truly addicting.

The good:

  • Rock solid and stunning aluminium unibody design
  • Gorgeious AMOLED diplay  that can take your breath away
  • Improved Sense UI
  • Éclair
  • 384MB of RAM and 600MHz Qualcomm 7227 processor
  • great multimedia features. videos look stunning while audio is crisp
  • USB tethering without the need of PC client

The bad:

  • average talktime
  • metal body tends to get hot causing irritation to the ear while on call for long time
  • No video calling
  • No dedicated camera key
  • average FM radio reception

Who should buy:

  • recommended for everyone with budget less than 25k INR.

Status: available in the market for 22.5k-23k

 

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini:

SE_Xperia_X10_mini_PP40_Black_1-1-398x800SE_Xperia_X10_mini_PR_4308_RGBx10 mini side rear

Probably, the only Android running phone that looks cute, this phone is the smallest Android phone and is kind of a sister of Xperia X10. The second picture shows how tiny this is. I was so much used to 3.2” and 3.5” touch phones that when SE released an android phone with 2.55” touch display, I felt as if they shrunk the phone more than necessary. This phone is currently sold for around 15k rupees. Thanks to the lower resolution and smaller display, even though this phone has 600MHz processor and 128MB RAM, the UI is snappy even with TimeScape UI. But the major problem is that Android is not meant to run on such small devices and you can feel it when you try to browse internet or try to chat with someone. The tiny display just can’t accommodate good keypad and chat window not is a good experience to play 3D games.

The good:

  • TimeScape UI
  • extremely cute looking design
  • sturdy build quality
  • fluid UI with no lag
  • 88gms weight
  • 5mp camera with LED flash
  • 600MHz processor

The bad:

  • doesn’t come with qwerty keypad. due to small display, only standard numpad is provided and text addicts can struggle a lot with this phone.
  • really tiny for an Android OS
  • 128MB a deal breaker who install Apps
  • low talktime of 4hrs on 2G network
  • non-replaceable battery.

Who should buy this phone:

  • strictly for females
  • those who are not interested in huge display but still need a capable OS

Status : available in the market for 15k

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro:

x10 mini pro two viewx10 mini pro typing

X10 mini pro is nothing but X10 Mini with landscape qwerty keyboard. though the keyboard is a nice addiiton to this phone. And guess what, though the phone is tiny, SE has managed to put in a very vey capable keypad. typing using the keypad felt really good and thanks to SE for making the battery user-replaceable. This phone should cost around 17k-18k which is not so good price given that you can get Samsung wave for same price or few few more bucks, you can get HTC Legend.

The good:

  • TimeScape UI
  • extremely cute looking design
  • sturdy build quality
  • fluid UI with no lag
  • 88gms weight
  • 5mp camera with LED flash
  • 600MHz processor
  • highly capable landscape keypad

The bad:

  • doesn’t come with qwerty keypad. due to small display, only standard numpad is provided and text addicts can struggle a lot with this phone.
  • really tiny for an Android OS
  • 128MB a deal breaker who install Apps
  • low talktime of 4hrs on 2G network

Who should buy this:

  • texting addicts who doesn’t care what the OS is
  • female users
  • SE lovers

Status : available in the market for 16k-17k

 

Motorola Motoroi XT720:

xt720 frontxt720 rear

This will be released soon at sub30k price point. This is the first Android device from Motorola that is totally focussed on Camera and multimedia. with 8mp camera with Xenon flash, 720p video recording and HDMI out port, this phone has the capability to please the shutterbugs. However, there are some minor issues. The phone looks ugly and there is only 256MB of RAM onboard. This could make the phone a bit slow when multiple apps are opened. Given that there isn’t any proper review on this phone, we have to wait and see how this phone is received by early adopters. I have a feeling that it might get lost in the crowd (X10, SGS, Milestone 2, Nokia N8 etc).

Status: Not released yet

The Good:

  • 3.7” display
  • 8mp camera with Xenon flash, image stabilization
  • 720p video recording
  • TV-out via HDMI port
  • Active noise cancellation
  • ARM Cortex A8 720 MHz
  • very good batery life (on paper)

The Bad:

  • ugly looking design
  • 256MB RAM

Who should buy:

  • Shutterbugs
  • HDMI video playback from phone to TV.

 

Motorola Backflip:

Every now and then Motorola brings out phones with weird and head-scratchable designs and Backflip is one of such phones. The phone is designed in such a way that while the front of the phone houses a 3.1” touch display, the rear has a full qwerty keypad and you need flip the keypad from the back to the front.

backflip rear

Who would believe that the above picture is how rear side of the phone looks like. And notice where the camera is.

backflip

And this is the funniest part of the design. There is a trackpad (shown in the above picture) right behind the display. To use the trackpad, one has to flip the keypad out and use the trackpad from behind the display. Thus, you will be using the trackpad without actually looking at it. It’s weird but it actually works.

This is how the phone looks when the keypad is open:

backflip side

Hardware wise, it’s an okay phone with 3.1” Display, 256MB RAM, a 528MHz processor and this is one the very few phones that use Motoblur UI. Apart from the design, there is nothing much to say about this phone. The ideal price for this phone would be 17k and anything more than that means that the phone can be ignored

Status: 17k.

The Good:

  • unique design
  • full size qwerty
  • Noise cancellation

The Bad:

  • awkward design
  • 256k color display
  • below par battery backup
  • inferior processing power
  • Motorblur needs lot of improvement
  • poor multimedia capabilites

Who should buy:

  • those who are after phones with weird design
  • qwerty maniacs

 

Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700:

i5700 backi5700 front

This is the cheapest Android device that was ever available in Indian market. The only problem is that this phone is almost extinct. This was the phone that brought Android to the masses. Available at a retail price of 12.5k-13.5k, this phone broke the price barriers that were built by HTC. Notable features of this phone are

  • price
  • Android 2.1 (Éclair)
  • 3.2” TFT LCD with resolution of 320×480
  • 800MHz processor
  • great build quality
  • out-of-the-box DivX playback

This phone may not stand a chance against the might of Milestone or Galaxy S, but it’s available for less than half their price tag. This phone was a boon to those who wanted to use Android and cannot afford 20k+ rupees. It could do everything that a higher priced andorid phone could do but what it masters is DivX playbakc. This phone is in an elite league of phones that can play DivX videos out of the box. And most importantly, it was one of the early crop of phones that got Eclair (android 2.1). Rumour says that this phone might even get Froyo.

Not so good:

  • weak camera
  • 128MB RAM only
  • not so great aesthetics
  • immature Samsung customer service.
  • no multi-touch

Status : not available in the market now.

Samsung Galaxy i7500:

i7500 fronti7500 rear

This phone can be called as the ugly duckling. Like i5700, this phone is really hard to find these days. Most of the dealers say that Samsung has stopped production of this phone. Hardware wise, this phone is really good. It has got a stunning 3.2” AMOLED display, 11.9mm thin, 5mp camera with LED flash, 8Gb of internal memory, sturdy and sleek design, very good battery life. But it runs Donut (Android 1.6) and has very weak 528 MHz processor. This created serious imbalance between software and hardware. Donut runs slower than Éclair and putting a slower processor is like adding fuel to fire. This phone died a sad death in the market when Samsung announced that they are not interested in releasing any updates for this phone (neglecting updates is an act that Samsung does a lot with their phones).

Status : not available in the market now.

HTC Hero:

hero all angleshero chin

This was the phone that truly lived up to its name. This phone stood apart in the world that was dominated by iphone and symbian phones. This was the first phone that came out with HTC SenseUI, which is still the best custom UI ever designed for Android (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaFH0vI2w1A). For the first time, Android users had experienced something that nobody else had. The amount of customization that was available through SenseUI was never seen before. It has familiar angular chin design, a super accurate trackball, gorgeous display, multitouch, ample amount of RAM and what not. I had a feeling that this was the real beginning of Android era. HTC showed the world the real power of Android. Comparing the earlier video with the video on HTC magic’s UI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_NNY_mgxIs) showed the amount of customization that can be done to Android.

The good:

  • Sense UI
  • Gorgeious diplay
  • trackball
  • breathtaking design
  • Updated to Éclair
  • Decent Qualcomm 7200A processor @528Mhz and 288MB of RAM

The bad:

  • no camera flash, no FM.
  • not good in  multimedia.

Status: Not available in the market now

HTC Tattoo:

tattoo all anglestattoo bottom

This was HTC’s first shot at midrange Android segment and sad to say that it was a failure. The main problem with this phone is that it came with a 240×320 resolution display and not many apps were optimized for this resolution. Add to that the lack of apps for Android 1.5 (was at a time when Android was building up).  While it has few good features like good build quality, decent multimedia performance, it was torn to pieces by the Galaxy phones. Spica was available for cheaper price and offered lot more and that resulted in doom for Tattoo.

The good:

  • decent build quality

The bad:

  • average talktime
  • nonstandard resolution
  • slow UI
  • No dedicated camera key
  • average FM radio reception
  • bad multimedia performance
  • bad camera and no flash

Status : Still avialalble in market for 13.5k to 14k.

Who should buy:

  • Nobody. this phone is not worth it’s price tag.

 

Acer beTouch E110:

e110

An android phone for the masses. Priced inside 10k, this is the phone that is built for the masses. The hardware is balanced. Though the processor runs at 416MHz, it should be able to drive the OS without any problem given the low resolution 2.8” 240 x 320 display. One concern that I have is the low amount of RAM, ROM and it runs Donut which is very old OS.

The Good:

  • Price

The Bad:

  • display quality
  • low RAM and ROM
  • service and updates still a question mark for Acer phones

Who should buy this:

  • If the budget is strictly inside 10k and you are after Android based phones.

 

 

Spice MI-300:

Spice_Mi-300

I never really liked any of the el-cheapo mobile phone companies that started in India. Then I saw Spice MI-300. I was surprised to see the specifications of this phone but was stunned to see the price tag. 3.2” 480 x 320 display, thin and lightweight, 5mp camera, Wi-Fi etc. One cannot ask for more in a 10k mobile phone. The only gripe is that the phone runs Android 1.5 but Spice has promised to bring out 2.1 update by October. If Spice can manage to push regular updates and provide good support, they can put this phone above phones like SE X8, HTC Wildfire and Galaxy phones.

Status: 9.5k-10k

The Good:

      • 3.2” HVGA display
      • Wi-Fi
      • price tag
      • good battery life
      • good design with trackball navigation
      • slim and lightweight
      • 5mp camera

The Bad:

      • Very weak GPS lock and stability
      • Android 1.5
      • support quality a big doubt, so is reliability

Who to buy:

      • Those with budget less than 10k and wanting android handset
      • those who are okay with Spice being manufacturer.

 

Here is a brief comparison of specs of all these phones. I will be updating this post as new phones are added to the Android arsenal in India:

37547994

Note: This table will be updated soon.

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14 thoughts on “The Android Army in India

  1. Hii I was looking in the range of 17k but there seem none at that price point

    Are there any problems with the processor of HTC Legend and do u think its worth to extend by budget to 24k and buy one??

    • yes. the good android handsets start at 22k price point. check HTC Legend and Motorola Milestone. Both are equally good phones. among the two, I would suggest Miestone if you prefer vanila UI and Legend if you like SenseUI. My pick would be Milestone. The extra screen real estate and better GPU make it a better buy.

  2. Thanks for the response and kudos on the awesome post (+ visitor on RSS).

    As far the milestone vs legend goes hardware wise milestone seems much better (bigger screen, GPU, phy keypad) but I saw ppl in few forms seems to feel that the support for motorola is less.
    http://forum2.mobile-review.com/showthread.php?p=887859#post887859

    This worries me if the milestone doesn’t get any future updates, as I would certain have the mobile for atleast 2 more years

    • When it comes to after sales support, both such big time in India (though better than Samsung support).

      For updates, yes, Motorola is not concentrating well on Indian users for updates. Their biggest market is USA and they are ignoring everything else. On the bright side, there are good number of cooked ROMs for milestone as it is one of the most popular phones in the market right now. HTC too has been very very slow in bringing updates to their phones. I am waiting and losing patience on Froyo update for Legend. SE is worst of all. All their phones are still stuck on 1.6.
      In short, when it comes to updates, except for Google (Nexus One), everyone else is pretty much f’ed up. 🙂

      Try both the phones if you get a chance and it will be easier for you to make a decision. When I bought my Legend, Milestone costed 7k more and that made my purchase decision easier. 🙂

    • If you mean MeeGo, right now, is in a really bad shape (pre-Alpha). Even if it comes by 3rd quarter of this year, it will take atleast a year or two to even start challenging Android as I doubt if anyone other than Nokia develop devices for MeeGo (like they do for Android). If Nokia went ahead with Maemo, it would’ve been a strong contender by now.

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