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?

Samsung D830

Samsung D830 is the clamshell design in the newly released Ultra Thin Edition phone series. It is named Samsung Ultra Edition 9, the last digit hinting the thickness of the phone case, which stands at 9.9 mm. Samsung D830 measures 103x54x9.9 mm and has a weight of 92 gm. One may well think how Samsung had managed to cut the weight of its handsets. Pretty simple, except the battery and the electronic circuits, make all other parts plastic. Samsung D830's front and back cover may appear like metal. But in realty, it is not.

Samsung D830 comes with a 2 mega pixel CMOS fixed focus camera, which is located on the rotating block near the flip axis. In fact, that is the only place in the entire phone body where the camera could have been embedded, thanks to its 9.9 mm thickness. The camera functionality, the ISO settings and white balance, they are pretty standard and similar to comparable Samsung models. The picture quality is ok, if not that great. Comparable models of Nokia and Sony Ericsson produces better quality pictures under the same conditions. However, the biggest drawback in terms of taking photos and videos is that the user cannot automatically save the pics directly into the memory card. One may have to do it manually. Worse, the counter problem with Samsung’s earlier models persists in Samsung D830 as well. Having taken the pictures, if the user moves the image files to some other location, the counter resets to 1 again. This could cause problems when you download images to your PC. There you may have to deal with too many files with the file name 001.jpg. This software flaw is really irritating, to be honest.

Another negative – if thought that way - with Samsung D830 is its keypad, which is a sensor numeric keypad as in Motorola RAZR. Its problem is that the user won’t realize if he had actually pressed the key while typing. Hence, it is mandatory that you follow the display as well closely. Else, you could end up calling wrong numbers or mistyped sms.

Samsung D830 has a 2.3’ TFT display that is capable of showing 262k colors, at a resolution of 240x320 pixels. The downside however is that the display fades under bright sunlight. Else it is very much ok. Other features of D830 include blue tooth connectivity, MP3 player, expandable memory slot, GPRS, GSM 900, 1800, and 1900MHz bands support, Wap browser, email client, 80 MB internal memory, and flight mode.

Regarding battery life, Samsung D830’s 630 mAh Li-Ion battery scores only below average when compared with similar models of Nokia and Sony Ericsson. About one hour spent on calling, and no other applications used, the charge may last up to 2 days. If you are an avid gamer or music buff, then most probably you may end up recharging it every 24 hours.

Final Call – Not worth the money spent, especially since other models in this category performs far well than Samsung D830. A Samsung X820 or Motorola KRZR would be a better choice. Samsung D830 is priced at around £230/$400/17,000 INR.

Sony Ericsson K750i

Sony Ericsson K750i, released in the second quarter of 2005, still remains the best buy in its price range. No other mobile phone companies offer a comparable model in the price range 10-11k INR.

Going right into its specifications, K750i spots a clearer TFT screen than its predecessor K700i, easy to use keypad, and a very userfriendly user interface. Its 2-megapixel autofocus camera performs reasonably well under well lit conditions, but hopeless in poorly lit surroundings. Its built-in flash is of very limited purpose. The music player gives good audio quality, few of the drawbacks being the lack of graphic equalizers and the inability to forward the current playing track. Dedicated hardware buttons help the user to go straight to the media player without having to navigate through the menu.

K750i supports GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz networks, alongside HSCSD and GPRS. Unfortunately, EDGE and 3G are absent. Bluetooth and Infrared manages short distance connectivity. The phone comes with a 32 MB non-volatile internal memory and a 64KB memory stick in its expandable Memory Stick Duo slot, which can be expanded up to 2 GB. Other features of Sony Ericsson K750i include mms and sms, polyphonic as well as MP3 ring tones, email, WAP 2.0 support, USB 1.1 connectivity, and Java MIDP.

On full charge, assuming phone conversations for more than a hour daily, and the phone switched on for 18 hrs on a trot, the charge will last for two such days. MP3 playback drains the battery faster. For every one hour of MP3 music, it consumes nearly 20% charge.