Wisetechie Blog : Ctrl your Tech Life

With the launch of the overhyped Nexus One , Google have entered the hotly contested mobile phone domain , but is it worth it to buy a Nexus one phone ? Also is it worth it to buy it in the US and import it into India ? The Nexus One has been dubbed as a superphone in many circles but does that justify its price ?

Currently Amazon.com lists the Nexus one phones starting at 680 USD or 31000 Indian Rupees. Add around 3-4 thousand to that and you get the Indian Grey market price of around 35000 rupees for an Unlocked Google Nexus One phone.

Before going into the viability of getting a Google Nexus One imported into India or for that matter asking a relative to bring it, we look at some of its features.

The Google Nexus One runs on the Android operating system, not a lot of Indian smartphones run on Android, heck not a lot of any kind of smart phones run on the Google Android operating system and the Nexus One Google hopes will change all that.

One of the USPs of the Nexus One is said to be its voice command feature for searches and normal phone operation etc. Ok, lets reverse a little, my Nokia Symbian phone does that too and I loaded the Google Symbian app on it a few days ago and it also has voice recognition.

The Google Nexus One boasts of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1 Ghz processor, now thats a lot of computing power for a phone. The touchscreen is  480 by 800 pixel and has a diagonal width of 3.7-inches. The phone has a AMOLED display which people are claiming is out of this world.

The phone has a 5 MegaPixel camera and has a LED flash. The phone features no hardware keyboard like the Iphone which its supposed to kill. The no hardware thing is a turnoff for me. I love the QWERTY on my Nokia E-series phone.

Overall, the Nexus One is one mean performance machine with good parts and excellent performance, but the price is a little out of reach for most people. I would much rather buy a laptop than this, but to each his own, Indian fanboys of the Google Nexus One will surely order one for them. Teardown by Isuppli pegged the cost to manufacture a Google Nexus One at 175 USD.

Its strange how company after company keeps ignoring India as a launch market for smartphones. First it was Apple with its delayed Iphone launches in India and now its Google. Even HTC waits a lot before bringing its obsolete world models into India it seems.

fnp.in is the website of a company Ferns and Petals which claims  to provide ‘good quality flowers’ However the flowers are pathetic and decayed.

I had sent a bouquet to my dad on his birthday via the Ferns and Petals website, my parents told me that the flowers came but were decayed and already browning. The flowers aren’t fresh as claimed on their website.

I wrote feedback on their website to replace the flowers otherwise i shall be forced to publish their pathetic quality of products and service, but as expected I got no reply.

So please avoid fnp.in like the swine flu, its bad quality flowers , forever !

Fans of Apple in India arent happy, well the majority arent, i admit Bhaichung Bhutia looked happy with his Iphone. Apple’s announcement of the Iphone in India turned out to be a huge whimper due to the exhortative pricing strategy employed by Apple with Airtel and Vodafone. Lets admit it, we knew the price wasnt going to be the US price os $199 or 8000 rupees. We were pegging it at 13k-18k rupees which would sort of even justify some of the hype but what was the result is truly a gameplan lost.

We have scores of emails from prospective buyers telling Apple to keep the Iphone with themselves, most cant evven think about spending >30k on a mobile device with a shitty 2 MP camera, no video recording and a 3G USP which isnt even functional yet.

Forums are full of people hitting back at the hype, people are telling Airtel agents to goto hell and stop promoting their iBoxes as iPhones. Iphone fanatics who were certain to purchase the phone have dumped it, quite frankly as they cant afford it.

So who would go for a Nokia N96, Nokia N95 instead of the Iphone ? , the smart money says anyone with a decent amount of brain and anyone who isnt a Steve Jobs obsessed fanboy.

So unless you want to show off your Iphone by pinching a photo to zoom in and zoom out, give the Iphone 3G India a HUGE miss. There is a price drop around the corner for this overpriced piece of junk. Or better, get a laptop instead.

Well you got to give it to Bharti Teleservices, they seem to have beaten Vodafone on the launch date, with Vodafone yet to announce a launch date for the Iphone, Airtel has already announced on its website that its going to launch the Iphone on the 22nd of August and pricing information will be available in due time on the site. I have already signed for the prebooking, but am yet to get any information on the launch  price etc. The only information is available on their website and nowhere else.

So called tech sites like Techtree had claimed a lot of inside sources in Vodafone about the launches (LOL !) , we never had any inside source, only followed developments on websites and hence we weren’t wrong.

It is surprising that Vodafone which had got into an agreement with Apple before Airtel wont get to have the first mover advantage for the Iphone. For the Indian Iphone fan : Exciting times ahead

In what will directly impact the sales of the Iphone 3G phones, the Indian Government today announced plans to e-auction the 3G spectrum in India. BSNL and MTNL will get the spectrum automatically by paying the highest bid price, private operators will have to bid.

International parties too can bid for a piece of the Indian 3G spectrum slice but with a catch, they will either have to get a license or invest in an existing Indian company to offer 3G services.

The non-availability of 3G services was the biggest drawback as far as the Iphone 3G’s sales in India were concerned. Vodafone and Airtel must be thanking their stars as this announcement is bound to boost both interest and demand for the new Apple Iphone 3Gs in India which is expected to be launched this month.

The 3G or 3rd Generation platform offers download speeds of 14.4 Mbits/second and upload speeds of 5.8 Mbits/sec . These speeds are much more than the present ones offered under 2G. India has a huge range of 3G phones in the market for a long time now, but the services were missing. 3G will allow services like video calling, streaming data and VoIP at a fast and hopefully economical price.

The 3G spectrum offers a much higher bandwidth which ensures faster data transfer as more channels are available and simultaneous transfer of different types of data like Voice, Video and misc. data.

Also announced in MNP or mobile number portability, so people will be able to switch networks without changing their numbers. Idea and Spice users who wish to get the Iphone may choose this route once the MNP is implemented.

Ok so things seem to be heating up as the launch of the Iphone 3G in India nears, Airtel just sent a teaser email which announces the launch of the Iphone 3G on their networks but falls short of giving an exact date on which Apple Iphone 3G will be launched in India. The mail was probably meant to sustain interest in the hyped launch.

The Iphone 3G is seeing an extended wait in India, Vodafone has currently given no news as to the launch date for the Iphone 3G. There are reports that Vodafone’s exact Iphone launch dates are 22-26th August 2008 , these ofcourse are unconfirmed.

Apple has also made an Iphone India seciton on its website, the site lists the Indian operators that will launch the Iphone 3G, Airtel and Vodafone. It also however has no information on the exact Iphone India launch date.