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

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.

I have not been able to personally use the handset before writing this Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Review. This review is a summary of other reviews on the net.

The Nokia 5800 has a one-finger touch screen while the iPhone can handle input from two fingers simultaneously. The 5800 has a better camera, including a Carl Zeiss lens. The Internet browser of Nokia 5800 can handle Flash files, which the iPhone can’t.

The XpressMusic is among the first devices to support Comes With Music, Nokia’s music service which offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue, that includes close to 40 lakh songs.

I could not find any information about the price of Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. However I think it will be priced below Rs 20,000 and will give the iphone a good run for money.

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

Have you ever worried about the data that is present in your used mobile phone, that you are selling to someone else? Seems like you are not alone. A survey conducted by BT, the University of Glamorgan in Pontypridd and Edith Cowan University, Australia found that a fifth of second hand mobile devices contain sensitive company and personal information.

Also nearly a quarter of the mobile phones contained sufficient information to identify the owner and employer.

Blackberry devices were the ones carrying the greatest volume of information.

In many cases it was possible to recover the call history, the address book, the diary and the messages from the device and the information these provided included a business plan of the organisation and it also identified its customers and the state of the relationships with them.

The findings raise a question that will be repeated many time in the near future. As mobile handsets become smarter by the day, are the users realising that this is not just another harmless gadget?

It will be interesting to see a similar study done on used mobile phones in India as well. The findings may not be as scary as the use of smart phones has not become too high. YET !!

Good quality stuff pays off for sure. Ajay’s readerszone has gone upto a pagerank 5. Great show Ajay.

Seems like Google has become really serious about paid links. Abhishek has been penalized even further and abhisays is down to a pagerank of 0. Abhishek is out of town. It will be interesting to see what effect it has on his traffic level after this change.

Madhur’s blog is down to a pagerank of 2 as well. I am not sure why though.

Bibhuti’s adoholik is up at 3. Techbanyan and techpavan continue to be at pagerank 3. Surprisingly fastrevise continues to be at pagerank 3. (Surprising because I have effectively abandoned that site)

With so many changes, it will be interesting to study the impact of the current pagerank changes on the traffic level. I intend to contact all these guys for the same. Hope they will agree. And if you want to volunteer then please drop a comment.

You have 3 choices

1. Continue with your existing mobile phone
2. Gift your used mobile phone to your younger sibling
3. Sell your used mobile phone

I have thought about it for quite sometime now. All the 3 methods have their pros and cons. However I think that option 3 is your best option. I will use the method of elimination to prove that selling your used mobile phone is the best way out.

The advantage of continuing with your old handset is that you do not have to suffer the loss of price. Is that true?? You had bought a mobile worth 18,000Rs. Irrespective of whether you sell the used mobile phone or not, you now have a mobile that is worth only 12,000Rs. So you have already lost the money. You need to simply acnowledge the loss.

Similar logic applies to option 2 as well. Actually this is a much worse option for 2 reasons. a) Most probably your brother/ sister does not need as feature rich phone as your old mobile phone and b) no one appreciates getting a second hand phone as a gift.

Instead what you should do is sell your used mobile phone in the market. Put in some additional money to buy the mobile handset that you want. If you want to gift a mobile to your sibling, then simply buy a mobile that he truely needs and buy him a new mobile.

P.S:

1. I may be a little biased as I am working on a website that will allow you to buy and sell second hand mobile phones. It is still a work in progress. However you can check it out at contacthello.com

2. Your brother may like to buy a second hand mobile. However let him make the choice. Remember mobile phone is a personal object and people like to use one of their choice.

I always refer to the used goods as second hand goods. Most of the people I know also use similar terms. So I was confident that people must be searching for second hand mobile. However as a good webmaster I like to rely on data. So I went to google insight for search and compared 2 terms i.e second hand mobile and Used mobile.

Which one do you think won? (Hint: I was absolutely wrong, as usual ) You can see the result on Google

India searches for Used Mobile Phone and Not Second hand Mobile Phone. However I have still not understood why it is so? Is it really that indians use the term used mobile phone or is it something else? Please let me your view as I am starting work on my new site and this is critical to the success of the site.

1. The nokia n96 does not stand a chance on coolness factor. iPhone is perhaps the only mobile that can impress your freinds.
2. N96 has a good user interface. However good is not enough while you are competeing with steve jobs product.
3. storage and camera are perhaps the 2 most important functionality of any mobile phone. And Nokia N96 is a clear winner on both counts. Actually the camera in iPhone is a shame.
4. When I first thought about music, I thought iphone will be a clear winner. Was I wrong!!! Nokia n96 beats iphone on the music front as well.
5. iPhone scores over n96 in battery life though.

Have you terminated a reliance postpaid connection recently? If yes then please..please..please let me know.

Thanks in advance