A smartphone in three digit INR price isn’t realistic. Seriously, because the components even in the most basic smartphone would cost a bit more than that. But still, we saw two such names recently – the Ringing Bells Freedom 251, and the Docoss X1. The former was priced at Rs. 251 but the latter seemed better with the price, at Rs. 888, which seemed a bit believable. But what was the outcome? They made the news and went disappearing.
Fast forward to 18th May 2016, we see another name with another unrealistic pricing – the Namotel Acche Din smartphone priced at Rs. 99. What? Yes! The phone is claimed to be sold at that price, without any EMI or any such thing.
While the Freedom 251 was seen through a proper press conference and then some interviews of the MD of the company, the Docoss X1 just showed its appearance on every local newspaper to get enough PR. But now, the Namotel phone was launched through a press event in Bengaluru, India.
Should you book Namotel Acche Din smartphone? The question should rather be – How many minutes or hours are you going to waste talking about, trying to find out where to book, and even if you find out a way, how much money you lost by booking and seeing things fade away from the scene in a few days.
Even this is the same pre-order scene, where you have to go to their website namotel.com and pre-order the device this week, and that is not it. You cannot just go, register and pre-order! You will first have to go to bemybanker.com and get a lifetime membership there, which costs Rs. 199, and after that, you’d be able to pre-order the Acche Din smartphone.
Does that ring any bell? It promotes bemybanker.com rather than the device because even the actual website of the company doesn’t talk much about the phone because there might not be one that you would be able to hold even after paying and waiting. Think about it – Why would someone sell a smartphone at that price? not even a feature phone can be made at such a ridiculous pricing.
In case you are one of those lucky ones (which you might not be) to get the phone and see a problem with it, the company’s promoter Madhav Reddy says that there are about 575 service centers where you can get it repaired. So, will a broken screen get replaced for Rs. 25? or will the battery get replaced for Rs. 20?
Have fun, talk about it and look cool while trying to show off if you were able to book the phone for the given price, but don’t expect it to reach you anytime soon.
Oh, and I forgot to talk about the specs of the Namotel Acche Din smartphone – a 4-inch WVGA display, 1GB of RAM, Android Lollipop OS, 4GB internal storage, a MicroSD card slot for storage expansion, and a camera combination of 2-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera. By the way, do let us know if you find any alternatives with these specs, even if the price is a little higher.
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