Left your festival gifting too late? You can't go wrong with a smart phone: there's one for every budget
When it comes to planning gifts -- for weddings, birthdays or festivals -- we Indians are like that only. Most of us think in the box.
Shaadi: Pressure cooker/Non-stick tawa.
Diwali: Dried fruit box /diya set (traditional or LED).
If you feel a bit more generous but left it too late this year, take the advice of this ageing pro: You can't go wrong with a smartphone -- or something connected with it.
There are three advantages: Nobody says no to a second phone, so duplication is not an issue. Most of my suggestions can be ordered online -- so even if the gift doesn't reach by Diwali, an-email bringing the glad tidings will. Lastly, no other category has such a huge price bandwidth: the ideas on this page range from around Rs 300 to Rs 17,000.
One Plus X: Sense and Sensibility
Everything about this 4G phone shouts stylish sensibility -- starting with its metal-edged, black glass body to its flat USB cable -- coupled with sense: 2 slots for nano SIMs. One of them can be used extend micro SD storage to a total 128 GB (the internal storage is 16 GB with 3GB RAM). The cameras are a faster-than-usual 13 MP rear and an 8 MP front. The 5 inch LED screen display displays the full HD resolution that the phone can shoot. It wakes up automatically when the phone is pulled out of purse or pocket.
One Plus X has overlaid its OxygenOS over the Android Lollipop and this lets you customise your gestures as shortcuts. The phone's built-in Radio lets you broadcast music from FM stations without using Wi-Fi or consuming data. In recent days, OnePlus has launched an interesting photography app, Reflexion, as well as 4 wallpapers based on works of well known modern Indian artists. At Rs 16,999 this mid range 4G phone is a class act.
Coolpad Note 3: Ungli chaap!
We have come full circle! Time was, when a thumb impression was the only way the learning-challenged could identify themselves without having to sign their names. Now many of us think a digital ungli chaap is both cool and convenient. The 4G dual SIM Coolpad Note 3 encourages this new trend. It is one of the first and most affordable of smart phones in India that offer a built-in fingerprint scanner to unlock the handset. With a 5.5 inch TFT IPS screen displaying 720 p HD, it is almost large enough to be called a phablet. Indeed, its 64-bit Cortex Octa core is a solid task master.
Internal RAM of 3 GB is as good as many portable PCs and the 16 GB storage can be expanded to 64 GB. The cameras --13 MP rear and 5 MP front -- are fairly standard for this class of phone, but I was happy to see that the makers have not compromised on the battery size to make the product ultra slim: so this is slightly chunky device (partly due to the strong aluminium frame) promises about 15 hours of talk time from a 3000 mAh battery. For many on-the-go owners that might be a key plus point. Good value at Rs 8990.
Swipe Elite 2: Jawaani josh!
Swipe is an interesting company whose mantra seems to be 'forever young'! Fuelled by desi enterprise, the average age of its creative team in Pune is 26. Just 3 years old, it has won a clutch of awards for innovation, after it stormed the India scene with the first ever 3-D tablet. Within weeks of launching its first, aggressively priced smart phone, Elite, the company has launched Swipe Elite 2 this week, arguably the cheapest 4G phone in India at Rs 4666, something the young will appreciate.
The 4.5 inch phone is fuelled by a quad core 64-bit chip, with 8GB on board storage expandable to 32 GB. To keep the price down, they have limited the RAM of this dual SIM Android Lollipop to 1 GB and I'm not sure if in this age of galloping apps, this is the right trade-off. The battery too, is just 1900 mAh, but they say have done some very clear things with software power management a to make this more this more than adequate while assuring a very quick charge cycle.
The cameras are fairly standard -- 8MP rear and 5 MP front. What Ido like, is Swipe's overlay on Lollipop 5.1, called Freedom OS: It offers hundreds of theme pix, customizable gestures, search shortcuts and what is both clever and sneaky -- a 100 GB SwipeBox free storage which they achieve by aggregating all your cloud storage services into one!
Sound proposition!
If there's one thing I hate, it's using the tiny in-earpieces that phone makers throw in free. Our ears are differently shaped, so how come they assume one size fits all? So I am thrilled that Delhi -based QHMPL has launched a pair of wired, on-the-ear stereo headphones, QHM 485, with the neck/head band, cleverly foldable, so that it collapses into a very small-n-light package indeed. The makers have added noise cancelling functions to the tiny mike on the cable. +
There's no volume control so you have to use the controls on the phone or tablet or MP3 player, you are connecting. But the music comes over rich and loud. At just Rs 299, this is a great gift for your friends -- or for yourself this week (shut out all that phataka noise)! Shop carefully: on major online shopping sites it is even cheaper!
Free exchange:
Finally a seasonal bonus that costs -- zilch! Hike, the biggest free local messaging app in India, has answered that pain point of many users : the cost of Internet connectivity. Hike direct, is a recent add-on to version 4.0.6, that allows users to chat, exchange stickers, transfer photos and files of any type, without the Internet & without incurring data charges. Mobile phones can connect with one another directly within a 100 metre radius bypassing the telecom networks.
Users can then chat and share files directly at zippy speeds up to 40 Mbps. Hike claims 100 MB of data would take less than 10 seconds. I doubt. You can consistently achieve such speeds -- but even so this is a great boon to phone owners on modest plans. For Diwali, Hike is also offering exclusive discount coupons from over 100 top brands including Amazon, eBay, Jabong, AskMeBazaar, Domino’s and Pizza Hut.
(With inputs from V. Sudhashina and Vishnu Anand)
