Which touch phone to buy within Rs.10K

After Apple showed the world, the magic of touch, there are several players who have ventured this avenue. So, today we have so many touch phones in market that it makes one confused which phone to buy.

Apple comes at around Rs.30K, which is quite large for everyone. This is where Apple has gone wrong. If they reduce the price then other players will surely be eliminated.

I will give you a detailed review on which touch phone to go for, and yes below 10K. There are so many players, that I am also confused whom to include and whom to not.



First make up your mind what exactly do you want from your phone. There are two types of touch phones in market. One is a normal touch phone, another is called touch smart phone. Now, I have heard that word smartphone, what is it? A phone where you can install new softwares and perform some enhanced functions is a smartphone. It is like your pc, but its a phone after all. There is a huge market full of applications that you can download and install to your mobile. I will give you an example, say you want to use your mobile as a Business Card reader, and your phone doesnot support it, then you can download a software which will use your phone camera, and convert your phone to a Business Card reader. This is a smart phone.

The other type is, you can not install softwares to that phone, but use the applications that is provided in the phone itself. But there are java applications which you can run on these phones and can achieve the flavour of the softwares. But you need a phone where you can run java applications. You can get all the java applications from http://www.getjar.com.

Now with the phones. First phone that comes in mind is from the market leader, NOKIA.

The phone recently released was Nokia 5230. When coming from the market leader, you can be rest assured that this is one of the best phone. Priced at Rs8300/- this is a smartphone running on S60v5 Series. This is the same operating system on which n97 runs, and a powerful processor. So indirectly it means you can install all applications in 5230 that you can on n97. Another fact is, this phone is a 3G enabled phone. So, you get a fast browsing and net experience with this phone. It has been tested over BSNL 3G in Kerela, and is working without any problem, and yes we were able to stream videos from youtube without hiccups over the GSM 3G network. One point in which it beats the iPhone is it supports flash in the browser, which means you can watch youtube from the normal browser itself, you do not require a separate application. So, with so many good points, is it the ultimately phone? No, there are some drawbacks to this as well. First this one doesnot support a wifi, which is a must these days. Second it has a 2MP camera, come-on  Nokia, 2MP? The bare minimum you should be giving is 3.2 with flash. 2MP is not acceptable. Also, it is a 3G phone without video calling? How could Nokia do this?

Now moving on to the next market leaders, Samsung. Understanding the market and the need for touchphone

Samsung released a series of touchphones and yes in less than 10K. Though these phones are not smartphones, but you can install Java applications in these phones. There are so many phones, with almost equal features that it is not possible to get all the details of these phones here. But I will try to give the most I can. Starting with the 3G version, Samsung Star 3G is a great landmark. Star 3G is a great phone, with great touch screen, 3G, Video Calling, great features, 3.2 MP camera and at a price Rs.9856/-. The non-3g is also good. It has the wifi, and almost similar features but a bit bigger than 3g at a price Rs.8654/-. Then Samsung releases a Corby series. All Corby phones are non-3g, and non-wifi. But it has many social widgets on the homescreen and the target audience was the young generations. Samsung Corby S3653@Rs.7692/-,
Corby Pop S3510@Rs.6827 /-, Corby Plus B3410@Rs.8749 /-. To install java applications on Samsung phone please go through my other blog. All these phones have the touchwiz interface with widgets for fast action and use on the homescreen itself.



Moving to LG Mobiles. LG has some great mobile phones, but when somehow this 10K market has been missed out. It has only one phone LG Cookie released at Rs.7212/-. The phone has a good touchscreen, and some great features. But it is a non-3g, non-wifi phone. It has the features of widgets on the home screen and it is customizable. It has a good 3.2 MP decent camera, and 8GB expandable memory. It has support for EMail, Instant Messaging. It also supports Java applications.

There are other touch phones as well from so many companies. We have Motorola E6, Spice, Fly, Simocco and others who have touchscreen phones. But I should mention, most of these touch screens are useable with a stylus. But when we have touchscreen phones which we can use with our fingers, these phones with stylus is a big no from me. But I should mention of the new company Movi. They have a good dual sim touch screen phone MT1.