Tag: India

Is the Google Nexus One worth buying in India ?

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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.

Google Nexus one phone in India

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.

Want to buy the Iphone 3G in India, read this essential post !

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iphone 3G india

Well the Iphone 3G will soon have its worldwide launch, but India stands to miss out yet again. While the Iphone is being launched even as we speak , its interesting to note the implications of the launch on Indian Iphone 3G enthusiasts:

1. India will most probably have an August 2008 launch for the Iphone 3G, unlike the normal perception India is having a deferred launch for the new Iphone. This has been confirmed by both Airtel and Vodafone.

2. The first operator to launch the Iphone 3G would be Vodafone in India, its expected to be a soft launch with a limited number of handsets. Vodafone beat Airtel to getting to be the pioneer handset manufacturer to procure the sets. Airtel will ofcourse launch soon afterwards, or may delay the launch till Diwali in order to get better sales. It will be interesting to note how Airtel combats the advantage that Vodafone will have of launching the Iphone early on in India before anyone else.

3. The price, as you know price is THE most important factor in the Indian market. The original Iphone was infact never launched in India many say due to the pricing. Anyway, the Iphone will not be $199 in India. Most are expecting it to be anywhere from 12000 rupees to 14000 rupees.

Also, unlike last time you wont be able to import and unlock, as the Iphones will be exclusively store activated in the US,the plan desertion and leaving charges will be enormous, making importing the Iphone 3G an expensive affair.

Keep looking at this space for more Iphone infomation !

Futurebazaar.com : Shipping delays !

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Futurebazaar Logo

Ah well, i am very much in love with the great service offered by futurebazaar.com, and its no news to most people. Therefore i was disappointed when my recent orders took 2 weeks to be processed and delivered. My first ever futurebazaar.com order took only 3 days to be in my hands. But since then while their service in general is impeccable towards me, the loss in speed is very much noticeable.

Recently i had placed a large order with them consisting of 4-5 items, and the last of them were delivered only 1 month after the order had been placed which is slow by any standards.

One of the items costing around 600 rupees was received broken, but Futurebazaar was kind enough to get it replaced. The item was picked up from my home within 2 days by their courier (not TNT) and seamlessly a new order was placed and i got the item in a short period. But coming back to the speed issue :

All these speed problems point to the fact that futurebazaar.com is working on thin stock and has been having problems with fulfilling orders due to small stocks and when they do run out it takes a long time for them to replenish stock. The average shipout time on their site is constant at 4.8 days for a loooooong time now and it seems they have stopped updating it for obvious reasons. They use Bluedart couriers which are definitely one of the fastest in India, so the problem is not the courier.

Whatever the problems hope futurebazaar.com ramps up their supply chain management and is able to deliver fast and good service like i am used to from them 🙂

Also it would be great if futurebazaar.com actually gave AWBs to people after orders are shipped, Indiatimes and Homeshop18 have this facility , then why not futurebazaar ?

Is anyone at the future group listening ?

Pay your MTNL Delhi Bills online with credit card !

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A lot of us aren’t aware that MTNL Delhi telephone bills can be paid online with credit cards, all you need to do is follow the steps :

1. Log onto http://billalert.mtnl.net.in/ (Note: If link is down, try again in 1-2 days, sometimes their server goes down) and click on register to register a user for you and your telephone number.

2. After creating your user, login and see the left hand side menu, click on add telephone.

addnewphonemtnl

3. Fill in your telephone number and CA number which is available on your bills.

mtnladdtelephone

4.Now whenever you login and click on unpaid bills , you should be able to see the currently unpaid bills and pay them via the pay button which takes you to an ICICI bank payment gateway. You can then pay via your VISA or MASTERCARD.

bills

Now wasn’t that easy ? I personally have been using this method for the last 2 years and have only once faced a problem when i made the payment twice (my mistake 😛 ) , anyway the problem was taken care of by contacting the MTNL accounts dept. pretty easily.

Disclaimer : We do not endorse any payment method, post is for informational purpose only.

ESPN Star Sports intensify attack on TATA Sky

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ESPN attacks Tata Sky
Rate comparison
ESPN issues in public interest

We were the first to report on how the alleged price decrease by Tata Sky seemed to be an increase in disguise. ESPN Star Sports too realised this, and when its their channels which were left out, they wanted to kick some Tata Sky behind.

So they released an ad comparing the rates before and after the alleged decrease and confirmed what our readers knew for a long time. That Tata Sky tried to make us believe that there was a price drop. In fact the alert fooled us into thinking that a price drop had happened, but actually the price has increased for the same amount of channels as the ad by ESPN Star Sports clearly shows.

Now we too subscribe to Tata Sky and would want to see them in the green as far as profit goes, but not at the expense of its subscribers including us. The figures used by ESPN Star Sports seem to be correct.

Tata Sky does it again, manipulates the users !

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Tata Sky logo

Tata Sky is now becoming notorious for not listening to its customers. We did see some hits on the blog with referrals from apparently a PR module which tracked Tata Sky conversations on the blogosphere. But no amount of PR can help a company which increases its rate every now and then, One of our readers had commented:

Bought tata sky in SEPTEMBER 2007 with the scheme of 6months free for Rs.4000. Thinking that all the channel will be available. After that Tatasky started reducing the no. of channels by putting tem into packages like lifestyle silver life style gold , sports package etc.for this you have to pay more (appx. 40-50rs per package)This is making fool out of people. Buy reducing their price to Rs.260/ they have infact increased the price.For example.. If I opt for Super saver pack it would cost me Rs.260. without the channels which are in lifestyle silver and life style gold and sport gold pack. Now if I want to see all the channel I have to pay Rs.30 per package that make another 90Rs for all 3 packages so the total comes to RS260+90=350per month.And all the packages have some important channels like lifestyle silver has BBC in it. And what about the people who bought tatasky under diff. scheme. Like I bought it under 6months free. Tata sky is chor . I am getting it removed Secondly there is a lag in tatasky. And also some stupid numbers keep on apprearing right in the middle of the screen.

Now TATA Sky has reduced monthly subscription to 260 rupees a month but have debundled the sports channels, so you pay 40 per month extra for ESPN,Star Sports and Ten Sports for the Sports platinum pack, and then there is a Sports gold pack with the Neo Sports range of channels, and then Ten Sports is available a la carte now. Utter nonsense !

Then is the Lifestyle pack, here also we have lifestyle gold and silver which again cost you around 30 a month i think.

Tata Sky Ltd. reserves the right to add or drop a channel/ package/ service from any package and/or change the package rates.

Tata Sky is playing with its customer’s emotions by doing all this. If a consumer wants all channels, he is forced to pay around 400 or greater. Cable TV operators charge much lesser for displaying all channels and their signal is uninterrupted by rain. Lets hope some random person from Tata Sky reads this page and instills some sense into various PR and cost people drawing salary from the Tatas who were one of the most trusted brands for me (notice the past tense).

Update : Meanwhile ESPN Star Sports has taken out a notice in the newspapers about this action of Tata Sky and has promised action against the broadcaster Tata Sky. It has condemned the yanking off of its channels and reminded people that they will miss French Open , F1 and other sporting events. Also they have said that they did not hike their subscription fee.

tatasky_noitce_espn star sports