Category — Mobile

Finding lost mobile phones is big business. Previously independent application developers and service providers like airtel had come up with software to track lost mobile phones. However these softwares had an inherent weakness. The thief could always uninstall the application !!!! That is where the advanced mobile tracker from samsung scores. The application comes preloaded with the tracker software. Hence the thief can not uninstall it.

You need to activate the application before the loss. make sure to change the default password. Then enter 2 mobile numbers who shall be alerted in case of a loss. A sms is sent as soon as there is a change of sim card. The sms contains the new number. From the mobile number you can easily trackdown the thief.

There is no doubt that the performance of Iphone has been patheic in India to say the least. However analysis of how a smart marketer like Apple got its acts so horribly wrong throws up some interesting observations.

1. India is not a priority market: Apple has never been bullish on India. That does not surprise me as apple has always sold pricey products and Indians by nature are value conscious. I am not suggesting that we buy only cheap goods. We do buy expensive goods but the features must justify the price.
2. Apple’s partners in India (Airtel and vodafone) got their strategy wrong: Airtel and Vodafone knew very well that revealing the price of the IPhone will kill all excitement about the product. I am sure that is why they kept silent about the price till few days before the launch. However contrary to what they expected, this created lots of negative press about the product.
3. Deliberate strategy of Apple: You are free to think that I have lost my mind to suggest that Apple deliberately wanted to have limited response to Iphone. However fact is Iphone is still a new product. There may be some issue with the handset. If that had happened, Apple with negligible presence in India would have got into a difficult situation.  Hence apple could have planned to get a small set of users into the fold so that the word of mouth effect can start and Apple can learn about indian consumers without taking too much of risk.

What do you think? Was it Apple’s stupidity or brilliance?

Not many mobile phones come with flash technology which is necessary for watching videos available on popular video sharing sites like youtube. Tinytube solves the problem by converting the videos into formats supported by mobile phone browsers. Try out tinytube.net from your mobile phone browser today and watch youtube videos on your mobile phone browser.

Bleu 458x is a sleek but simple mobile with some really interesting features. There are 2 soft keys just below the screen of Bleu 458x. The phone comes with a VGA camera. While the camera of this bleu mobile leaves a lot to be desired, the 458x is perhaps one of the few mobiles in its price range to come with a camera.

The Bleu 458x comes with 4MB internal memory and PC connectivity. It also comes with a FM radio. It also comes with bluetooth that helps smooth transfer of file. It has standard features like FM radio.

Most importantly Bleu 458x comes at a price of Rs 3,600. That makes it one of the best budget mobiles available in the Indian market.

Customer care number can be really helpful, if you get into some problem with your mobile handset. MyMobile magazine has published the customer care number of leading handset manufacturers like Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

 Nokia customer care number : 30302828

Motorola customer care number : 39026686

Sony Ericsson customer care number : 39011111

Samsung customer care number : 30308282

LG customer care number : 39010909

Want to stay updated with your favorite blogs while travelling? If you have a wap phone then try out the google feed reader. You can try it out at m.google.com/reader from the  browser on your mobile.

Why do you need to customize your airtel hello tunes? 

Want a really naughty song as the hello tunes only for your girl freind? Obviously you can not let the same song play when your boss calls you. Airtel has made it really simple. You can use up to three different songs as hello tunes.

How to customize your airtel hello tunes? 

All that you  need to do is just call 543211, select the song of your choice for the special caller, key in the 10 digit mobile number of that person. That’s all.

However you will have to pay subscription charges for each airtel hello tunes that you use. So do not try too many different hello tunes.

Virgin mobile seems to be really thinking Hatke. Now they have come up with a smarter pay option, a combination of prepaid and postpaid plans.

Postpaid plans are like credit cards, you pay after use. However they are typically associated with a higher monthly rental. Prepaid plans are similar to a debit card. You pay and then use the benefit.

What is this smarter pay from virgin mobile? 

The smarter pay from virgin mobile attempts to combine both the worlds. You recharge your mobile with 199Rs vsmart card. Just like prepaid option you will get ceratin talktime. However simultaneously you get to choose a credit limit for yourself. Which means you can talk for more time than you have paid for. If you run out of credit then you can top-up your phone with recharge coupons.

Some innovative advertisement + 10p per minute of incoming call + some smart innovations are sure to get virgin mobile some really good market share. Whether that market share will turn into profit or not will tell us if the virgin people are really smart..

More details are available at http://www.virginmobile.in/smarterpay_info.html

Lack of premium handset was a major reason for many people not to use CDMA operators. Reliance seems to be trying its best to solve this problem. They have tied up with HTC to offer the Touch Diamond to the users of Reliance communications. HTC Touch Diamond is as sleek as possible and no one can crib about lack of handsets for reliance connection. The only catch? The handset is priced at close to 40,000 Rs. That is way more expensive than the iphone or nokia n96. With that sort of a price tag, I seriously doubt anyone will go for these handsets ever. Looking forward to a drop in price.

If anything looks  too good to be true, then most probably there is a catch. Well the saying applies to lifetime validity plans from many service providers in India as well.

• Lifetime is not lifetime: Even though they advertise as lifetime, in reality it is not a lifetime offer. Most of these plans are valid till the validity of the license of the service providers. That means the lifetime validity plan from airtel is valid till 2014 and the lifetime offer from vodafone is valid till 2015. 6 years or 7 years is not lifetime for sure. Reliance lifetime connection is valid till 2021 though.
• need to recharge periodically The biggest attraction of lifetime validity plan is that you do not have to recharge the phone every month. That does not mean you can just get a lifetime card and forget it. Vodafone requires you to recharge your phone with 200 Rs every 6 month to stay active. Even reliance communication has a simliar requirement. I could not find a similar requirement in Airtel though.
• You have to pay a much higher rate on outgoing calls: Too bad if you want to make outgoing calls. At 1.99Rs/min for local calls and 2.75Rs/min for std calls, the vodafone plan looks like a robbery to me. Airtel and reliance are much better with 1Rs/min for local calls and 1.5rs/ min for std calls. 
• Airtel and vodafone charge 1 rs/ sms!!!! Reliance is silent about sms charges. Just head over to the internet cafe and send sms messages for free.

Verdict: Make sure to read the fineprint before going for any plan from the indian service providers. Alternatively you can subscribe to my feed. Airtel lifetime validity plan looks like the best of the lot and stay away from vodafone.

sms prices may have fallen but cheap sms messages can never compete with free sms messages. This is a rather long post as I have reviewed all the free sms providers in detail. If you are interested in quick summary then go to the summary table at the bottom of the page.

1. Foosms: Foosms is the only website in this list that does not need you to register to send sms messages. Also it allows you to send 120 characters. Atrochatro is the only other website that allows to send more characters in the sms message. However it does not allow multiple messages to the same number in a short span of time. This is the only website you can use if you do not have a mobile phone.
2. Atrochatro: At 149 characters, it allows the maximum number of characters. The sms does not contain any advertisement as well. However they have completely messed up the web interface. It is cluttered, confusing and looks like spam. It needs you to fill up a captcha even while logged in.
3. way2sms : The best website of the lot. It allows you to send sms messages upto 110 characters long while logged in. The other 50 messages are supposed to be used for advertisements. However I did not see any advertisement other than “delivered by way2sms” in any of the messages. Way2sms allows you to send group sms messages. i.e you can define a group of freinds and then send a message to all of them at one go. Great for sending those happy new year messages for free. There is no restriction on number of messages that you can send in a day.
4. 160by2: This is one of the most popular free sms service providers. It allows to send sms messages upto 80 character long. You can send upto 50 messages in a day.
5. Youmint: This one is even better than free. Youmint actually pays you for inviting freinds to their service and participating in online surveys. They have the best website of the lot. However registration is a painfully long process. Took me more than 3-4 minutes. Allows you to send unlimited number of free sms messages less than 80 character long.
6. smslife: One of the lesser known sites for free messaging. Allows to send upto 100 sms messages in a day less than 80 characters long.
7. I have not been able to try out www.tezsms.com, SMSINTEGRA.COM and imobile.ibibo.com

Please post your experience with all these sites. Also let me know if there are other websites that allow to send free sms messages to all mobile networks in India.

Summary of websites that allow free sms messages in India: I shall summarize the above in a tabular form when I am free.

Airtel has come up with a new method of communication: voice sms. It caught my attention simply because of the superior advertisement involving saif ali khan, shahrukh khan and Kareena Kapoor. However this is really a great concept.

It takes away the biggest problem of sending sms i.e the requirement to type the message. And it adds a significant value to sms i.e emotion. Many people think that it is one more of those fancy but useless value added services. Why will anyone send a voice sms instead of simply calling the other person?

 Great situations in which voice sms is the best option

• The mobile of the other person is not reachable and you want to tell something really important.
• You want to convey the same message to 10 people
• You need to call up that really talkative freind of yours and you do not have 30 minutes worth of talk time
• You want your vallentine’s day message to stand out from the 100s of sms recieved by the hot girl of your batch

Happy flirting with voice sms messages.

China mobile phones have been exceptionally popular in India due to their affordability. Chinese mobile phones with all the features of a high end mobile phone is available at 1/4th the price.

India is considering banning the chinese mobile phones

I just read some blogs that India is considering banning these china mobile phones as they do not come with propoer IMEI numbers. This makes tracing these mobile phones more difficult. So experts think that these mobile phones pose serious security threat to India.

As if terrorists care if the china mobile phones are legal or not. Any kid above 7.5 years age will tell you that the usage of the mobiles by the terrorists will be least impacted by any regulation that we pass.

Only the common man will suffer and big companies will profit. Any ban on the chinese mobiles will mean that the common man will loose an affordable option to use a high end mobile. The only gainers will be the big companies that charge exhorbiant price for the mobile phone.

Finally I hope the government will decide to fix the problem and not the symptom. The problem lies in the technology that allows a mobile handset without valid IMEI number to access the signal. Fix that and the real problem will be automatically solved.

LG 10000 is one of the premium handsets available to the customers of reliance communication or RIM. The LG 10000 mobile phone costs more than Rs 20,000.

LG 10000 : The Business Phone 

The 2 megapixel camera that comes with this handset from LG is a bit of let down at that price point. However the LG 10000 has been designed to act as a business phone. And it comes loaded with features that business users need like push and pull email support.The all new LG mobioe handset sports a 2.8-inch external touch sensitive LCD along with an internal display and a fully operational QWERTY keyboard

Other Features of LG 10000 Mobile phone

Dual speakers and voice recorder
Bluetooth v2.0 A2DP.
Extendable memory upto 8GB (using a microSD card)

Sevices to send free sms messages are very popular in India. Now Aswin has put together a really smart hack that uses the api available at way2sms to send sms messages from within php code.

What is great about the code?

1. It allows you to send free sms messages from within php code. So now you can start sending sms messages from your application itself. Like everytime you publish a new blog post you can send sms messages to your subscribers.
2. He has put the source code under Creative Commons license. Means you can download the code and modify it to suit your need.

Many interesting applications will be possible using this code. However I will like to know the response of people at way2sms to this code before I start developing applications with it. Let me know if you know Aswin personally.

Ability to check email messages while travelling to office is one of the most useful features of my Nokia N73 phone. However recently I bought a LG 6600 handset. The new mobile does not have GPRS. So I started researching on how to get my emails as sms on the mobile.

Yahoo mail sms alert yahoo provides an email alert service. Apart from the alert you shall get the message as sms on your mobile too. However currently it is availabl for airtel customers only. You need to pay Rs 30 per month as well. Check the details here

Mobee.in This is an India based startup that allows you to get email messages as sms for free. Read review of the service here and here

Convert your email into a feed: freemyfeed.com allows you to convert your email message into a rss feed. Then use a service like SendMeRss to get this feed as sms on your mobile.

Let me know if you know any other good service to get emails as sms messages on the mobile.

My project for second hand mobiles is doing quite well. I have got more than 70 second hand mobile phones for sale already. While I await the second hand mobiles market to pick up, I am starting work on a price comparison site for mobiles.

As the first step of this new project, I was researching about online stores for buying mobile phones. Thought I shall just share the list with you.

1. http://www.themobilestore.in
2. http://www.gadgetsguru.com
3.  http://www.futurebazaar.com
4. http://www.9tech9.com
5. http://cafegadgets.com
6. http://www.homeshop18.com
7. http://www.shopmania.in/
8. http://shop.in.com/

I am looking at traditional sites like rediff and indiatimes as well. Though have not quite figured them out yet.

Please let me know if you are aware of any other online shopping site or any other site where I can find information about offers, discounts etc for mobile phones.

By the ways there are more than 70 second hand mobiles available for sale at contacthello.com. Do give it a visit to see if you may be interested in any of them.

I have been working on contacthello for the last 1 month. The basic idea of contacthello is very simple. It will allow people to  sell second hand mobiles   and  buy second hand mobiles online.

contacthello was very simple to build. Actually this consists of hardly 3 php pages only. The main challenge will be getting users to the site. I was confident that it will be easy as the quality of result on google for second hand mobiles is quite bad. But now looks like it is going to be a difficult task. Because people do not seem to be searching for second hand mobiles on google

I shall have to start the process from zero without the help of my good freind google. But then what is the fun without challenge?  And I am ready for the challenge. It is going to be exciting to start from ground zero all over again. Anyways I am in a better position since we started mywalkin I have the traffic of mywalkin and I have made some good freinds with many really good bloggers in the meantime. I will keep all of you updated on my progress with contacthello. Happy selling your second hand mobile phone.

The Attraction of chinese mobile phones 

What do you think will be the price of a smart mobile with touchscreen, multiple SIM card slots, 3.2 Mega Pixel Autofocus Camera, a 2GB MicroSD memory card with expandable memory upto 8GB?

1. >30,000
2. 20,000-30,000
3. 10,000-20,000
4. <10,000

Well one of these chinese mobile phones is available for less than Rs 2000. That is the attraction of the chinese mobile phones. If you want a handset with all the latest features but do not have a good enough budget, then you will do well to check out some of the chinese mobile outlets.Lack of Guarantee

Typically, the chinese mobile phones come without a guarantee. Buying a mobile phone without a guarantee can be risky. However there are 2 points to consider. 1) You can buy 4 chinese mobile phones for the price of 1 branded mobile with comparable features. So even if you get a bad handset once, you will still be better off. and 2) People who have used it seem to have a good view of them. Check these forum posts here and here.

How are the chinse mobiles so cheap then?

Many of the branded mobiles are manufactured in china only. The price of the branded mobiles are higher because of the cost of errr the brand. The cost of designing, marketing and more importantly the cost of other failed products. You see, nokia looses money over those brands that become a flop. Then when a brand becomes a hit, it has to recoup all those lost money here as well.

The chinese mobile is like a pirated movie cd. You will be getting the same movie, though the print quality can be a little bad. But then go ahead and get another cd. You will still be better off.

But the government seems to be against chinese mobile phones

The imei number is the unique identifier of the handset. Most of the China-make mobile phones carry fake IMEI numbers. In some case, several of such handsets have the same IMEI number. In such cases, it becomes virtually impossible to extract information about the calls made from these mobile phones. That is why govt is mulling use of chinse mobiles in India.

The biggest problem in going with a cdma connection like reliance or tata indicom was that you got tied to the service provider. Changing the connection meant, you had to say good-bye to your mobile handset as well. Not any more. Many mobile handset manufacturers have come up with dual sim mobile phones to solve this problem. Dual sim mobile phones support two SIM cards in a single handset.

Spice, Samsung, Fly and Motorola have already launched dual sim mobile models. Nokia and LG have plans of introducing dual sim mobile phones in future

Dual sim mobile phones from Spice 

Spice mobile has 3 handsets with dual sim. D-80, D-88 and D-90. The Spice Spice D-80 supports only gsm networks. Hence it is ideal for people with 2 mobile numbers as they can carry both of them in a single spice d-80 mobile. Spice D-88 was introduced along with D-80 and it has the killer feature of suporting both gsm and cdma networks. No need to stick to your cdma provider if his services are crappy. Spice D-90 again supports 2 gsm networks only. It is a smart phone with all the multimedia functionalities too. It has a 2 MP Camera which can double up as a webcam.

Verdict: If you want a handset that can work with both cdma and gsm networks then go for Spice D-88. If you want to carry 2 gsm numbers at the same time, then go for spice D-80 or Spice D-90