Micromax Q5C Review

Bought it for Rs. 4500/-. Looked nice visually with good finish. Went home and started using it and then the dream of a economical QWERTY phone on CDMA went bad.

My observations,

-The keys are very cramped together and small. Invariably one will press on another adjoining key. Very tiring and not meant for people with healthy fingers. Even my wife's thin fingers could not operate it properly.

-The moment i inserted the headset for FM Radio, the phone hangs. No key works, nothing. Only option remove battery and restart. Afterwords again tried for auto scan. Nothing happens. Then tried for manual frequency. No voice. I was not deep inside where the FM Signals are weak because at the same place, other phone's FM was working crystal clear. Then went outside on the road. Voilla. FM sound started with a lot of disturbance. Tried all channels. Only one channel with lot of distrubance. Nothing else in any other channel.

-The phone is having memory of only some 2.6 MB which again is the root cause of so many issues,

It is having 2 Megapixel Camera but if you shoot a photo with the highest resolution, it will shoot but the photo won't open in the phone saying size too large. You are saving the photo on memory card and not on the phone. Still no high res photo could be viewed on the phone.
Same thing with the video. At 30 FPS it gives error and does not record.

The camera is having LED Flash as touted in the specifications. Any average person will understand that Camera Flash should flash when you click a photo. But here things are different. The so called LED Flash is actually a LED Light which you can start from the phone settings. It remains on till you disable it. It is just like a torch function on many chinese phones. The light is very low. And even in little darkness, it had no effect. Just a marketing gimmick.

-There is a facility for attaching Picture ID in your contact list which is actually just on paper. Whatever size image file you try to attach, it will say file size to large. I have tried even 10kb file. Didn't work.

Internet and Browsing.

Opera Mini is preinstalled but when you launch it, phone takes approx. 3 to 4 minutes saying connecting. Then the page loads. If you type another web page address or even click a link on the loaded page, it again takes 3 to 4 minuted saying Connecting. After that the page loading time is OK for a CDMA 1x connection. Forget about serious browsing even normal browsing is not possible with this phone. Lets understand this with my actual experience.

-Launched Opera MINI. Load time including connecting-3 Minutes.
-Typed GMAIL.COM and opened. Load time including connecting-4 Minutes.
-Typed USED ID and Password and LOGIN- Load time including connecting-5 Minutes.
-Clicked on the first e mail-Load time including connecting-4 Minutes.

So for checking just one e mail, time taken is 16 minutes. Useless actually.

Tried installing other JAVA browsers like BOLT and UCWEB. Both installed. UCWEB was faster then OPERA as far as page loading goes. But the problem when you click on any link and phone displaying the message Connecting was uniform across all browsers. This i suppose is with the CDMA technology when the connection is immediately terminated and then reconnected when you use internet again. There is some issue with the modem of the phone taking so long to connect again.

The phone is not having any Phonesuite. However USB and Modem Drivers are there for connecting to PC and browsing. Installed USB Drivers and connected the phone to PC. Surprisingly, the speed for PC browsing is appropriate for a 1X Connection and had no issues.

Audio Player and Sound Quality.

-The audio player standard like many chinese phones. Sound quality for phone speakers is quite loud and you can hear the audio very comfortably in a room size of approx. 150 square feet. Sound is real loud actually.
-The bundled headset is also having good loud sound. Sound in the headset is loud with more sharpness but absence of bass totally.

Video Player

-Did not play any files saying file size too large.

Call Quality and Reception

-The call sound quality and reception was excellent across locations with very clear voice even with 3 Bars of Signal out of 5 Bars.

Memory Card access with UDISK function.

-You can access the memory card with data cable with UDISK function. But the speed of copying anything by this mode was extremely slow. It took nearly 11 minutes to copy one 6 mb size mp3 file. And even then when the file was played only 25% of it played and terminated.

So for copying anything to Memory Card, you will have to always remove it and attach it to a separate memory card reader and attach to pc. Imagine every time you click a photo or want to transfer some music, you cannot do it through data cable because it will take hours but only have to use separate memory card reader.

So there are many other gripe which i don't even remember or care to remember. Ultimately after 24 hours, went to the shop from where it was purchased and requested the guy to change the handset with other brand. Now the sad part. The fellow said he will do it but deduct Rs 1500/- as he will have to sell it as second hand only even though it was used for only 24 hours. Got really annoyed. Negotiated and finally the guy agreed for deducting Rs. 900/-. Had no other option so agreed and bought LG510 Cookie Zip instead.

For all who want to buy this handset, it is useful only if you want to make and receive Calls and nothing else. So please do not fall for this trap of cheap QWERTY CDMA handset.


Review by rajanmehta.

http://www.rimweb.in/forums/topic/25986-micromax-q5c-launch/page__st__15

Nokia 5800 Express Music

Clearly a competitor for iPhone, but at lesser cost. After all, there are not many models out there that comes bundled with so many features, at less than 300 Euros.

The software is responsive, but it is not any great either. Touchscreen scores above average, even though the iPhone fares batter in this department. On the texting front, Nokia 5800 Express Music offers more than one option to the users: a mini QWERTY keyboard, full screen QWERTY,and an alphanumeric keypad.

Multimedia is excellent. The camera clicks good pictures, even though the performance is not up to the mark in low light conditions.

Time management and office tools lacks full utilites.

Music, the marketed USP of Nokia 5800 Express Music, is good, even though it still has some distance to cover to keep pace with Sony Ericsson. The phone supports
a wide variety of music file formats. The music menu is user-friendly as well.

For music buffs, looking for a smartphone, Nokia 5800 Express Music just fits the bill. If it is the other way around, go for Nokia E71.

Samsung Hero Next

Samsung Hero Next is a CDMA mobile presented by Tata Indicom in its 'affordable'
bracket. Priced at 1300/-, yes, it is one of the cheapest handsets available in the market
today. But the low price means, it comes without many common features. That is,
the Hero Next does not have MP3 ringtones or camera, speakerphone, or FM Radio.
But it does have vibrator alert, organizer, alarm, a couple of games, calendar etc.

However, if there is one aspect that really lacks in Samsung Hero Next, it is the voice
quality. The sound at the earpiece is clear, but it is a tad too loud. In other words,
the sound resoultion is a bit lacking in Samsung Hero Next. Interestingly, even a
low end phone such as Haier C 2000 offers better sound clarity than Samsung Hero Next.

Are Cheap Mobile Phones Worthy?

Are the cheap mobile phones, as been marketd by Reliance and
Tata, worth its cheap price tag? Well, while it makes a cell phone
affordable for most common man, the low price tag brings with
it cheaper components and hence low quality. Most of the low
priced phones, such as Classic and Haier, have persistent
connectivity issues or the processor is too slow to respond, and
in some cases, its battery life is too less for a CDMA phone.
What you people think? Is it good or bad?

W 200i

Sony Ericsson’s budget walkman phone with expandable memory. Further, no other mobile phone maker currently has a comparable model in its class. Those who wish to buy a budget phone, but with features such as music, radio, camera, W 200i may just exactly fits the bill. The W 200i costs £50 or 5, 250 INR.

Walkman is easy to use and the sound quality is also excellent. The headphones supplied with the handset are topnotch, but still if you want to swap it for your own, you can do that as well; thanks to the standard 3.5mm jack on the hands-free kit. Further, the handset comes with a 128 MB M2 Memory Stick, but the slot can hold memory up to 1 GB.

In terms of call quality, W 200i scores above average, and regarding its battery life, it is just excellent. Also, there are few extras hidden in the menu such as the RSS reader that lets the user keep updated about the current news from his/her favorite websites.

On the downside, W 200i’s screen is below average in terms of visibility and clarity. If you look from any other angle than straight on, you’ll find the colors washed out or murky. The camera, which incidentally VGA, does not have anything great either. The picture quality is below par. Also, there is no flash and Bluetooth connectivity support (has only infrared).

To sum it up, W 200i is a good buy for those looking for a cheap music phone. If you want a better camera, and is willing to pay few $/ £ more, go for W 810i.

Motofone F3

Motofone F3 combines the aesthetics of a slim phone and a price tag that most common man can afford. Priced at a modest 1,655 INR, the phone comes with a dirt proof cover, a simple user interface that even an illiterate can navigate through without much struggle, and a long life Li-ion battery. But, the most notable technological innovation that Motofone F3 incorporates in its slender body is the e-ink display, which not only consumes very less power, but also has a good visibility under all lighting conditions. In fact, this is one of the reasons why the phone has a longer battery life than most other phones in its category. Motofone F3's other features include polyphonic ring tones, speakerphone, twin antenna, ringtone downloads, and iTap and voice prompt. Motofone F3 weighs just 68 grams.

On the flip side, Motofone F3 does not have a FM radio, and its screen is a bit small to display 13 digits in a single screen (that is, a phone number with the area code). The same handicap appears while typing text messages as well (in this case, 7-9 characters in a single screen). Elsewhere, Motofone F3 is a handy and affordable phone with good voice reception and decent overall performance index.

Few Popular Nokia Models and Their Prices in India

Lower End

Nokia 1110 ---- 2,050 INR.
Nokia 1110i---- 2,250 INR.
Nokia 1112 ---- 2,550 INR.
Nokia 1600 ---- 2,650 INR.
Nokia 2310 ---- 3,300 INR.
Nokia 6020 ---- 5,000 INR.
Nokia 6070 ---- 5,900 INR.

Mid Level

Nokia 6080 ---- 7,500 INR.
Nokia 5200 ---- 8,500 INR.
Nokia 6600 ---- 8,600 INR.
Nokia 3230 ---- 9,800 INR.
Nokia 6125 ---- 10,500 INR.
Nokia 7610 ---- 10,700 INR.

Nokia 6131 ---- 11, 500 INR.
Nokia 6151 ---- 11,800 INR.
Nokia 6681 ---- 11,900 INR.
Nokia 6630 ---- 11,900 INR.
Nokia 5300 ---- 11,999 INR.
Nokia 6681 ---- 11,999 INR.

Nokia 5500 ---- 12,499 INR.
Nokia E50 ----- 12,999 INR.
Nokia 6680 ---- 12,999 INR.
Nokia 6233 ---- 13,299 INR.
Nokia 6280 ---- 13,999 INR.

N Series

Nokia N72 ------------------ 15,700 INR.
Nokia N70 ------------------ 17,700 INR.
Nokia N73 ------------------ 24,600 INR.
Nokia N93 ------------------ 33,800 INR.