New Indian Mobile Manufacturers grow like mushrooms

Last two years have been a big bang year for Indian Mobile Manufacturing industry, few years back there was no real Indian Mobile manufacturer, Only Nokia,Samsung,Song Ericssona and LG were the Big players in the Indian market. But now there are almost 10 new brands (and most of them Well established in other areas). The likes of BPL,Onida,Karbonn,Fly,Philiphs and innumerable others have opened shop and already started to impact the big players in the bottom segment.

They offer much more value compared to Nokia or Sony Ericsson in the Rs 1000-5000 segment, and most of these manufacturers also offer minimum 1 year warranty unlike the chinese phones, So its a party out there for Indian consumers and growth story of these manufacturers also is incredible.

Other reason for their fast growth is that most of these manufacturers sell phones with newer features like Dual Sim etc for an extremely low price. For instance Karbonn offers a dual sim phone for Rs 1800/- with FM and a toy cam. And for a dual sim from big players you might end up paying Rs 8000 for Samsung’s only model.

With the ban on Chinese handsets, people and shopkeepers are looking for safer options in these new brands, who are ready to capture market even with a loss. Karbonn and Fly phones also offer service centres too, you can walk into any Sony Ericsson service center and get your karbonn or Fly phones serviced. These strategies help both the manufacturers ie Sony Ericsson as well as the new players.

But on the other hand this aggressive growth has threatened the big players, for instance Sony Ericsson has stopped/closed their Dealerships in B/C cities due to poor profitability. In few years we might see a whole new hierarchy in the Indian market. Lets wait and watch this game.

Samsung Corby S3653 Full Touch Screen Phone review

Sporting a 2.8  inch capacitive touch screen, Samsung Corby definitely makes a strong statement in the Mobile market. With no real competition in the low end Touch Screen scenario, Samsung tries to strengthen its hold in the sub Rs 10,000 / $240  Touch screen market. After good success with Samsung STAR and STAR 3G, this phone is expected to consolidate its hold.

The phone has an unusual rounded shape rather than a typical bar shape of Nokia 5800 or Apple Iphone. Also the phone comes in funky colors like Caribbean Yellow,Pink etc. Lets look how it compares against other similar full touch screen phones in terms of dimensions and thickness

Samsung Corby S3653 Black and Yellow  Face book app
Samsung Corby S3653 Black and Yellow Face book app

Samsung Corby – 103 x 56.5 x 12 mm
LG Cookie KP500 -106.5 x 55.4 x 11.9 mm
Nokia 5800 – 111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm
Nokia 5530 – 104 x 49 x 13 mm
Samsung STAR – 104 x 53 x 11.9 mm
Nokia X6 – 111 x 51 x 13.8 mm
Nokia X3 – 96 x 49 x 14 (Not a touch screen) mm
Nokia N97 – 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 (18.2 max) mm
Iphone 3Gs -115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm
Nokia E71 – 114 x 57 x 10 mm
Nokia N97 mini – 113 x 52.5 x14.2 mm

The phone is definitely a slim one in its league also very light weighing at 94 g. And its screen is bright and as you would expect from a capacitive touch screen, doesnt support multi touch etc.

But Samsung Corby comes preloaded with variety of Apps for the internet hungry youth, Orkut,MySpace,Facebook, Twitter,Yahoo messenger,Google Talk, Gmail , Youtube, Flickr,Picasa to name a few. It comes with 27 widgets preloaded and you can still download 75 more from samsung site for free.

Samsung Corby S3653  Home Screen
Samsung Corby S3653 Home Screen

It has a inbuilt memory of 64 MB and supports upto 8GB in External Memory Cards. The phone comes with 2MP camera without Autofocus, with One touch zoom. In connectivity Corby supports Bluetooth A2DP (streaming stereo music over bluetooth). There is no 3G and Wifi.

The phone comes with an office viewer, but strangely Samsung omitted On Screen QWERTY keyboard, which might be a turnoff for many considering this phone is targetted at social media fans. Also there is no accelerometer to Auto rotate the screen mode between Landscape and portrait.

Specifications
2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

Dimensions 103 x 56.5 x 12.4 mm
Weight 90 g
Display Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 256K colors
Size 240 x 320 pixels, 2.8 inches
Speakerphone Yes
Memory Phonebook 1000 contacts, Photocall
Internal 64 MB
Card slot microSD (TransFlash), up to 8 GB, buy memory
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
HSCSD Yes
EDGE Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G No
WLAN No
Bluetooth Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, v2.0
Camera Primary 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels
Features Smile detection
Video Yes, QVGA@15fps
Secondary No
Features Messaging SMS, MMS, Email
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS
Games Yes + downloadable
Colors Jamaican Yellow, Cupid Pink, Minimal White, and Festival Orange; 2 Fashion Jackets
GPS No
Java Yes, MIDP 2.0
– MP3/WMA/eAAC+ player
– Find Music recognition service
– H.263/H.264/MP4/WMV player
– Organizer
– Voice memo
– T9

Well if you have sub 10k budget Samsung Corby S3653 is definitely a good buy. The price of Samsung Corby S3653 is Rs 8600 ($ 200 ) and you might end up getting more discounts during Diwali or New Year offers.

Nokia 3720 classic vs Samsung Marine B2100 Xplorer – who is the toughest phone?

Well we cant resist the temptation of comparing the two phones claiming to gain the crown for “Toughest phone “. After Samsung launched Samsung Marine ie Samsung B2100 Xplorer and created a whole new segment fpr the Tough and adventurous . And  Nokia followed suit by launching its own Tough phone Nokia 3720 classic tagged as Handle Without care.

Samsung Marine B2100 Xplorer vs Nokia 3720 classic
Samsung Marine B2100 Xplorer vs Nokia 3720 classic

Lets go through the features one by one to see who is the real boss in this show down.

Network
Nokia 3720 classic – GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900
Samsung Marine B2100 Xplorer – GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
Both are 2G only phones and there is nothing to choose between them here.

Dimensions and looks :
Nokia 3720 – 115 x 47 x 15.3 mm
Samsung Marine – 113 x 48.9 x 17.4 mm
The Nokia 3720 is slightly thinner than the Samsung Marine. But the Marine looks more sportier.

Display
Nokia 3720 – 16.4 Million Colors 2.2″ TFT 240 x 320
Samsung Marine – 65 Thousand colors 1.8″ TFT 120 x 160
This is where the Nokia 3720 wins handsdown against the Marine. Bigger display and more colours at higher resolution the Marine looks like a kid against the Nokia 3720.

Camera
Nokia 3720 – 2 MP, 1600 x 1200 pixels, LED flash
Samsung marine -1.3 MP, 1280 x 1024 pixels, flash
Again the Nokia 3720 has better specs in the camera department. Doesn’t necessarily mean better pictures.

Data :
Nokia 3720 – GPRS and EDGE class 11
Samsung Marined – GPRS and EDGE class 10
Not much of difference in the speeds as most networks wont even scale upto half the maximum speed.

Battery
Samsung Marine : Li-Ion 1000 mAh
Stand-by Up to 600 h
Talk time Up to 9 h
Nokia 3720 : Li-Ion 1050 mAh
Stand-by Up to 408 h
Talk time Up to 7 h
Though Nokia has a better battery the actual Talk time and Standby time is lower in the Nokia 3720. Samsung marine offers almost 20% higher in Talk Time and Standby. This could be mainly due to the Nokia’s S40 which is more of a smartphone OS.

Water Resistance ,Dust proof and  Shock Proof

Nokia 3720 – Water proof and Dust proof. But when subjected to shock tests the speakers were not working but over all it was good.
Samsung Marine – It is quite good in all the tests and came out with flying colours.

Both the phones were also tested for build quality and both stood the challenge.

It is worth to check the water and beer test on the Nokia 3720 and what happens when Nokia 3720 is run over by a car.

check those videos here.