Sunday, March 18, 2012

Six best smartphones under Rs.15K

HTC Explorer
The Explorer is an excellent little droid just shy of Rs.11,000 and comes with good build duality and design. The 600MHz CPU may not seem like much but the Sense 3.5 user interface (UI) ensures smooth operation. The screen packs in good colour reproduction and the sunlight legibility is not too shabby either. The 3MP
rear camera captures
decent pictures outdoors and also features geo-tagging and face
detection options. If you’re on a very rigid budget, then this is definitely the phone to get.
Specsheet:
OS: Android Gingerbread (2.3)
Screen: 3.2-inch (320 x 480 resolution)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v3, 3G
Storage: 90MB internal (2GB microSD card included)
Price: Rs. 11,000

HTC ChaCha
Next on the list is HTC’s Facebook phone, the ChaCha. Available in white and black trims, the ChaCha marries an excellent physical QWERTY keypad with and equally impressive capacitive touchscreen. Sense UI is tailored to fit this landscape view which works really well and provides a fluid interface. The ‘F’ (Facebook) button lights up whenever a link, photo or video can be shared and one press is all it takes to share it with your friends. The 5MP camera also snaps some pretty good pictures.
Specsheet:
OS: Android Gingerbread (2.3)
Screen: 2.6-inch (480 x 320resolution)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v3, 3G
Storage: 2GB microSD card included
Price: Rs. 11,000

Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman
This is a new entrant from Sony Ericsson, and has simply blown away the competition, making it one of the best phones under 15K. It packs in plenty of features like a front-facing camera, 1GHz CPU, LED flash for the camera and very good sound quality, thanks to xLoud sound enhancement. The primary 5MP snapper can also record video in HD 720p, a feature rarely seen in this segment. Besides, you also get 3D Sweep Panorama mode, image stabilisation, red-eye reduction, face-detection, tap-to-focus and 8x digital zoom.
Specsheet:
OS: Android Gingerbread (2.3)
Screen: 3.2-inch (480 x 320 resolution)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth, 3G
Storage:4GB microSD card included
Price: Rs. 14,550

Nokia 603
Keeping Symbian alive is Nokia’s 603 which runs the latest Belle OS. It’s a snappy little phone with a 1GHz CPU under the hood and a 3.5-inch screen which makes it comfortable to type or watch videos on. The ClearBlack display from Nokia offers deep black levels and excellent sun light legibility. The 5MP camera will easily shoot 720p video at 30fps and this being a Nokia, stellar battery life is a given. It also supports TV-out for viewing content on your HDTV as well as Near Field Communications (NFC).
Specsheet:
OS: Symbian Belle
Screen: 3.5-inch (640 x 360 resolution)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v3, 3G
Storage: 340MB internal, expandable to 32GB
Price: Rs.14,500

SAMSUNG GALAXY ACE
The Galaxy Ace has been around
for a while and now with Gingerbread, it’s still current and relevant. The large screen makes it easy to type and watching YouTube videos is enjoyable. The 5MP camera can
capture decent pictures and the LED flash helps it to perform well in low-light conditions. The phone comes with Samsung’s TouchWix UI which makes it more user-friendly, even for novice users. The music player supports DNSe sound enhancement for better audio quality. Now that the price has dropped to `13,000, it makes a good buy in this price
bracket.
Specsheet:
OS: Android
Gingerbread (2.3)
Screen: 3.5-inch (320 x 480 resolution)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v2.1, 3G
Storage: 158MB internal (2GB microSD card included)
Price: Rs.13,000

LG Optimus
Hub E510
This new entrant from LG is turning quite a few heads already in this segment. Built a bit on the chunkier side, it
manages to offer
features like scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass,
Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA and is pre-loaded with Microsoft Exchange suite. The
5MP camera manages to capture decent pictures, thanks to features like auto-focus and smile
detection. It also
supports DivX and Xvid video playback out-of-the-box.
Specsheet:
OS: Android Gingerbread (2.3)
Screen: 3.5-inch (480 x 320 resolution)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v3, 3G,
Wi-Fi Direct
Storage: 152MB internal, 2GB microSD card
included
Price: Rs. 12,800

-- DNA Feb 28, 2012

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