Earlier this year, Indian
company Ringing Bells said it was about to put a smartphone on the market
costing less than $4 (£3). As the company says the first 200,000 handsets are
ready to be shipped, the BBC's Shilpa Kannan in Delhi tries one out and asks if
people are right to be sceptical.
Getting your hands on the world's "cheapest
smartphone" is not easy.
Freedom 251 is an Android phone advertised by
Ringing Bells at 251 rupees (£2.77).
In the hand, it feels somewhat like Apple's iPhone
5.
And, surprisingly for its price, its specifications
are quite impressive:
§ camera on both front and back
§ 4in (10.2cm) wide
§ 1GB Ram
§ 8GB internal storage, expandable to 32GB
§ quad-core processor providing more processing power when
necessary but making less use of its battery at other times
There are two models, one black, one white.
As I
handle the handset, it seems to work like a basic smartphone.
But
it is hard to really test its capabilities, as it has very few applications,
covering only basic tasks, such as:
§ calculator
§ music
player
§ web
browser
§ email
At
the demo, the company told me the final model would be made available for
scrutiny only after 30 June. Later, on Tuesday afternoon, it said that date had
been delayed until 7 July.
Some
people are worried.
Questions
are being asked about whether the company will be able to deliver the millions
of handsets it says it can.
One member of the
Indian parliament, Kirit Somaiya, has even suggested a "huge scam" is being perpetrated, while the head
of the Indian Cellular Association has said the sale seemed to be "a joke
or a scam".
Mohit
Goel, the founder and chief executive of Ringing Bells, denies the allegations
of fraud.
His family
has been in the dry fruits business for decades, and he says it was a desire to
be part of the digital India dream that drove him to the idea of a cheap
handset.
There
is no denying the demand for such a product.
India
is the world's second-largest mobile phone market, with one billion subscribers
- many have joined those ranks thanks to other low-cost - but not this low -
smartphones.
But
is the Freedom 251 too good to be true?
I
first managed to get my hands on one of the handsets when the company first
launched the product, in February this year.
More
than 70 million people had registered online, and the company's website had
crashed.
But
the device given out to me and other journalists was actually a Chinese-made
phone.
Its
brand name - Adcom - had been covered up with white paint on the front, and a
sticker hid it on the rear.
And,
oddly, the icons of the phone's apps looked liked those of an iPhone, despite
it being an Android device.
This
led to a furore as people protested outside the company headquarters, and there
were multiple inquires by the police, tax authorities and the enforcement
directorate.
Ringing
Bells then refunded the deposits it had taken from more than 30,000 people via
the internet.
The
new handset is definitely a different model.
The
most obvious change is that it now has three buttons below its display, rather
than just one.
So, where
is Ringing Bells making these phones, as it has yet to build factories?
Mr
Goel says his company is importing "knocked-down parts" from Taiwan
and assembling them in Haridwar in northern India.
But
once it makes enough money, he adds, the company wants to manufacture all the
parts in India.
The
phone costs about 1,180 rupees to make, and Ringing Bells claims to subsidise
it via tie-ups with some of the apps that will be pre-installed.
Mr
Goel says the business will still lose about 150 rupees on each phone and hopes
the government will step in with subsidies.
About
200,000 handsets are said to be ready to send to customers.
Ringing
Bells also plans to sell other more expensive handsets - ranging in price up to
about $100 (£75) - at a profit.
But,
with just over a week to go until Freedom 251's launch, critics remain
unconvinced.
"I
find it difficult to believe that any sort of phone can be manufactured for 251
rupees, so it's difficult to see what kind of business model they have,"
says Pranav Dixit, a tech expert at the news site Factor Daily.
"More
importantly, the founders don't have a technology background."
Update: The original version of this story
said the Freedom 251 phone would launch on 30 June. After publication, Mr Goel
told the BBC the launch had been delayed until 7 July, and the article was
amended to reflect this.
Representative
Image
Source: BBC
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