TechGazing

Have Indian cellphone consumers ever been more spoiled for choice? Barely a year ago, a touchscreen phone was pretty much the preserve of those with deep pockets. Today, the market is full of devices that feature touchscreens and do not cost the earth. And the latest to join the affordable touchscreen brigade is the S7000 from Spice. It comes with a 3.2 inch touchscreen (as big as the HTC Hero or the Nokia N97 mini), a 3.2 megapixel camera and memory that can be expanded upto 16GB using a memory card. Not bad at all.

The phone supports most popular video formats so should be handy for watching films - the screen is certainly big enough for them - and also comes with features like Bluetooth and FM Radio. In keeping with recent trends, a number of apps have been installed on the phone, letting users access services and sites like Yahoo, Wikipedia, Vuclip, Facebook, Nimbuzz, Reuters, and Ibibo. Continue reading »

Dual Sim? Check. Three-inch touchscreen? Check. Social networking apps? Check. Decent browser? Check. 2.0 megapixel camera? Check. Motion sensor games? Check. All for Rs. 5,500? Check!

We are talking of the recently-launched Fly LINKZ E145 phone, which has just gone and redefined value for money when it comes to touchscreens. At least on paper.Yes, we don’t know how exactly the phone will perform but the fact is that with a price tag like that, one does not go in with the greatest expectations - quite the opposite of what happens when you bust close to Rs 25,000 on a device. And that already gives phones like the LINKZ an advantage.

Of late, we have been seeing a number of new brands in the Indian cellphone market, the likes of Fly, Zen, Micromax and the like, to name a few. While we have not really handled too many of their products to comment on their quality, what we definitely love about these newcomers is the fact that they are offering so much for so little. We recently talked about QWERTY phones that we were available for less than Rs 5,000 and now we have a three-inch touchscreen device that costs a fraction over that figure. Good times for Indian customers, we reckon!

It can be a heck of a challenge - buying a phone for someone who not only does not know how to use it, but also insists that she is just fine without it. To complicate matters, she also happens to be your mum. I recently went through the entire will-this-phone-do-for-mum process and came up with a list of factors to keep in mind when you buy a phone for your mater: Continue reading »