A Cell Phone Buyers Journey
A few days ago i decided to get myself a new CellPhone. The requirements were quite simple - the cell phone should preferably have:- Speaker
- Camera (Picture/Video)
- Less than Rs 10K
- Reputed Brand, for easy access to after sales service.
- Small/Flat/Sleek.
Pretty basic stuff you would say. But it took me a few days to figure out what was best available within budget.
So, here are the phones which came close to satisfying the requirements:
- Motorola V3 - VGA Camera (Costs less than v3i)
- Motorola V3i - 1.23 MegaPixel Camera
- Nokia N Series - Much more costlier than Motorola V3i, and not as Sleek.
- Samsung Slim - Could not find a sample model to check it out, but costlier than v3i.
Finally zeroed in on Motorola V3i, as it met most of the stated requirements. In my opinion it was the best available phone with the desired features, within that budget.
The Pluses:
- Sleek, classy look. Available in two colors a Black and Reddish (for lack of a better name).
- Flat, easily fits into your pocket. Big buttons - ease of use. A Nice Flap.
- Transfer pictures etc. from phone to your computer using a simple USB cable that comes along with it (no need to install any software!).
The Minuses:
- Highest Voice Volume is quite low. If you want to put it on speaker and do a conference call or listen to songs - forget it.
- Voice Recording feature is not good. Again same problem, feeble voice playback.
- The video files are in .3gp format - which is understood by Apple QuickTime. Windows Media Player cannot play this format. (anyone knows how to convert?).
- Quite a broad phone (width/area). Wonder why it had to be so broad. I guess when you make things that flat, it becomes broad!
Overall a good Phone for the price. It has other features like BlueTooth etc., which i do not use. And i can send MMS emails, but perhaps for that i need some sort of internet connection or i need to contact my connection service provider to figure out how that can be done (gadget experts welcome to throw in your advice). So you see - this is a pretty ordinary phone user's journey - no expert - but a willing student!
Random Thought: Wonder what would be the state of Cell Phones in India, if govt. created a PSU to manufacture and give connections, and not allow private players. The number of cell phones added in less than a year in India now is more than it added in its entire history since independence.
posted by Apun Ka Desh @ 4:48 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
The largest number of cell phone are provided by BSNL. The largest cell phone network is also that of BSNL. The cheapest connections are also from BSNL.
Private palyers lie Hutch(recently acquired) are knowns for dropped calls, bad network,billing errors
PSUs suck? Or do private players suck?
George - you have a point there.
But i wonder if BSNL was a monopoly in Telecom what the state of things would have been.
We have been through 40 or so years of that era.. and we know what used to happen! A 3rd rate black land line phone had a waiting time in Years !!!
If private players wouldnt have been allowed in Telecom, we would be having one large useless PSU manufacturing poor quality cell phones, for which you would have a 5 year waiting time, and to get a connection bribe or wait again endlessly. Every sector govt. has removed its clutches from - the sector has flourished. Education should be the next sector to be freed from the clutches of the politician mafia. Just see how many engineering colleges in india are actually run by Politicians - why so?
Wonder why you didn't want your cell phone to be your MP3 player as well. That isn't such a geeky need AKD.
SB> Yes, MP3 Player would have been good too, but i am not much of a Song Listener... and with increasing features, cost of the phone spirals too :). So got to settle at optimum level!
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