A Phone For 299!
It may
sound unbelievable, but a feature phone at this price is a reality
Let’s address the thought
that immediately exploded in your mind. No, not another Freedom 251 kind of
disaster. This one is for real. It’s not a fantasy phone, not a marketing
gimmick to get free publicity, not a flight of fantasy phone to be delivered
months from now and not a scam to make money. I’ve spent a few days with it, it
works and can be bought right away in large numbers.
Detel
D1
Now for the fine print.
It’s a feature phone, as basic as it gets, voice calls (great quality speaker),
SMS, FM Radio, good battery life (15 days on standby) and some more feature
phone type of features. But look at that price again.~299! That’s the price of
a cup of coffee (even more now with GST), half the price of a single movie
ticket or one-fifth the price of a good meal. For ~299, you get a proper phone
in a packaged box, a charger, and one-year warranty. Even within the feature
phone market, it absolutely decimates the price barrier and holds the potential
to shake things up like never before. The outside of the box says ‘Lo Kar Lo
Baat’, a colloquial reference to the fact that with this phone, all those who
could not afford a phone but dreamt that one day they too would buy a phone can
now own and speak on one for the first time.
The new
emperor is an old king
With this ~299 phone, the
absolute return and dominance of the feature phone market in India is now
complete. It’s one of the only places in the world where feature phones still
outsell smartphones. Such phones are preferred by a large population either due
to price or its inherent simplicity. In this already-on-fire market, a number
of catalysts have further ignited it into an explosive one.
Jio
phone
The first real salvo has
come from Jio. A 4G feature phone that is deemed free. You pay ~1,500 and three
years later, you return the phone and get your ~1,500 back. While many dismiss
it as a way to collect huge funds for three years, this phone has truly gotten
everyone excited. I’ve had people with iPhones asking me how they can lay their
hands on this phone. However, many questions still remain to be answered about
this phone (battery life on a 4G network, will it have a hotspot feature, are
you stuck with a phone for three years and what if you don’t want to pay for
monthly data?). While the free phone idea is great on paper, some customers may
still have difficulty in paying ~1500 at the start.
Intex
Right after the Jio phone
came the announcement of the Intex Turbo+ 4G. What was even more surprising was
the original rumour that Intex was actually making the Jio phone for Reliance.
To make things even murkier, the Turbo+ has very similar specs to the Jio phone
and a price point that’s right there too.
FRND
The makers of the Centric
range of smartphones, are already setting the feature phone market on fire with
their range of FRND phones. Rumours are strong that they too will have
something major out soon to compete in the same category.
Others
Vodafone and Idea also
are hinting towards a 4G feature phone from their stable and it’s obvious that
Airtel will have one too. The next three months will see the feature phone
market turn into a bloodbath with various giveaways, price cuts, schemes and
cut-throat offers. The smartphone market will look very boring in comparison.
Fifty crore people
already use feature phones in our country. India may soon teach the rest of the
world a lesson on how to leave no one behind in the mobile technology
revolution. Lo Kar Lo Baat!
·
Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology,
NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3
A
Phone For 299!
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