Monday, January 3, 2011

Buying a new mobile (India)

I currently have two phones, both fairly old. One is a Nokia 6021 (close to 5.5 years old now!) and the other is a Nokia E61i (about 3+ years old). The 6021 is used as a personal phone and the E61i as a business phone. Thus I have Blackberry enabled on the E61i whereas the 6021 is used more as a simple phone/sms device.

I am now seeking to replace the 6021 and given that I already have a business phone, I am not looking at a high end phone but a more mid-range phone with a budget of close to Rs. 12k or lower. However given that I am so far behind the curve, I have shortlisted certain minimum features:

1. Android (ideally 2.2 or worst case 2.1)
2. Decent camera - at least 3 MP (flash would be a plus)
3. Touch screen
4. Ability to play music (given that our only iPod is usually with my daughter)
5. Integration with Social Media (at least Facebook and Twitter)

With the above criteria, I narrowed it down to three choices, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini, LG Optimus One P500 and the Samsung Galaxy 3 5801. Though the Sony phone has good features and a best in class camera, it supports only Android 1.6 and I think it will be difficult to upgrade the OS and hence will get stuck to an old OS, thus ruling it out of reckoning. Feature for feature, the LG phone has a better spec and has Android 2.2 whereas the Samsung has Android 2.1. My only hesitation is that I have never owned either a LG or a Samsung phone (though I have used Samsung phones in the US on a business trip and they worked fine, however this experience is of 10 years ago with the Samsung flip phones that used to be available at that time), having been a die-hard Nokia user till date. I am tending to veer towards Samsung, however I would really like to hear some positive recommendations for LG which will help me to reach the right decision.

So, can you readers help me to choose ? Please give your opinion via a comment or drop me an email (please note that raving about iPhone / Galaxy Tab / etc. will do you no good since I refuse to spend more than 20k on a phone on principle!).

Thanks in advance!

PS. My prediction is that Nokia will lose market share drastically in 2011 in India since they continue to have an outdated Symbian OS for their high end phones and we can't wait indefiinitely for the Nokia OS to come out (surely it will have glitches the same as any new OS does) while the Android OS and phones mature to the next generation. Also, all Nokia business phones since the E71 do *not* support the Symbian Blackberry application (which is one reason that I continue to use my old E61i)

Updated: Jan 5, 2011:

Looks like I am right in leaning towards Samsung - read this article on CNN.

4 comments:

Makarand Joshi said...

hi nilesh, just a thing or two about touch screen phone. lack of a qwerty keyboard means mails and sms's are a pain to type. my asst has a samsung wave touchscreen with qwerty keyboard.
however might as well wait till the 3g launch/MNP and then decide on buying....
Makarand Joshi

Nilesh Bakhle said...

@Makarand, I agree, but then I am not changing my primary business phone which is a Nokia E61i with a qwerty keyboard. My thought is that Android is the wave of the future and something that one needs to come to grips with...

Shreyas said...

Try HTC.

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