Budget 10-15K New phone for wife EDIT: Bought Galaxy S Core

N

naru80

Disciple
1. Budget?
A: 10-13k

2. Preferred Form Factor(flip, bar, slider)?
A: Bar

3. Preferred display type?
A: TFT

4. Do you have any brand preference or dislike? Please name them.
A: would prefer Samsung

5. Preferred input method (Touchscreen, QWERTY, etc.)?
A: Touchscreen

6. Camera required or not? If required, please specify type like front camera/flash/etc.
A: Required a 5MP camera. Flash.

7. Preferred operating system? (Android, Symbian, iOS, Windows Phone etc).
A: Android

8. Preferred connectivity options? (3G, Wifi, Edge etc).
A: 3G.

9. What is your intended use for this phone(internet, camera, multimedia, mails, etc)?
A : calls, what'sapp, wifi tethering, Internet, mails

10. Any other requirements?
A: Don't require dual sim
Good battery life is the key requirement
Wifi tethering is a must
Display quality matters more than size

11. If you have already considered a phone then please mention the model.
A: Samsung galaxy s advance/xolo 800/ micromax canvas plus/hd

I'm learning towards s advance. Is it a good choice? It's available for 12.5k online. Gingerbread installed but Jellybean update coming soon.

Or xolo (10k) and canvas hd (12.5) or canvas plus (11.5) a better buy?

Kindly note: my wife is using a bb and she wants to switch to an android. So Nokia is out of the question.

Please advice.
 
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Yeah i have heard a lot of reviews myself too. i find Ranjit's reviews kind of awkward. mentioning the obvious is not a review. One can review something after putting it to the test.
Dude we can go on with this but lets not take up this thread to do this. Let's opt for the PM route.

And yes its pretty hard to get a good low cost samsung phone cause there are too many models and all of them are the same with different names.

S Advance has a few custom roms i think and rooting is pretty simple too. Personally i dont like samsung phones ever since they started this mass marketing business!
There are many more options available but for this low a price i dont think any offers a S-AMOLED display!!! Also Samsung ASS is pretty decent.

If you have anymore thoughts please let's use the PM route and not clutter the OP's thread.

Regards.
 
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@blr_p and @ shanx

Don't really care about an offhand remark from a reviewer. I have friends who own samsung grand and they complain about the lag. And they got it for around 20k!

AS far as I'm concerned, I thought s advance looked pretty good on paper for the price.

Rest assured if it turns out to be a lemon, I'll let techenclave know.
 
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shanx said:
S Advance has a few custom roms i think and rooting is pretty simple too. Personally i dont like samsung phones ever since they started this mass marketing business!
There are many more options available but for this low a price i dont think any offers a S-AMOLED display!!! Also Samsung ASS is pretty decent.

If you have anymore thoughts please let's use the PM route and not clutter the OP's thread.
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If you don't mind i'd rather it be out in the open so everyone can see what the trade-offs are. Let's play anyone that wants to participate vice each other. The OP has already bought his unit, this is for others that might be considering the same.

When i asked Ranjit about this he went on about performance and that specs are not everything which is true. Now what does that mean. A quick gander at XDA and what i find is that JB on S advance is laggy. You can fix that with some work and custom ROMS but there are still issues like this..

you just can't play hd videos or games. That's all. And camera works only video doesn't.
Click to expand...

No lag but those limitations might give some people pause. To get the video working requires OMX drivers to be worked in. All in all, the custom roms are not fully functioning (yet). How much longer it will take is anyone's guess. In the meantime (some) people have wanted to shift back to GB because its much faster than JB. This implies fewer apps from the playstore will work. Finally a third alternative is to use a trimmed down JB. I've yet to discover how lag free that option is.

So there are issues with this phone and JB. If you stick with GB then fine otherwise....

How bout you tell us your expereinces with S Advance & JB ? Given JB is what people want to run at this point in time on their mobile.

naru80 said:
AS far as I'm concerned, I thought s advance looked pretty good on paper for the price.
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That's the crux of it all. If you look at Chinese rebrands the specs literally jump out of the page when combined with the price. It's only when you hold the unit and play with it that you get to really know how it all works together.

S Advance vs Core is a much more subtle comparison, we are comparing like with like or as close as possible as the units come from the same vendor, yet i did not expect to read people complain about JB. The difference specs wise is minute 768MB RAM vs 1 GB RAM, 1.2Ghz CPU vs 1Ghz. How can there be THAT much of a difference in performance IRL.

To me its clear that by flooding the market vendors can claim they are offering choice but what it really does is make people spend on higher priced models to save the headache of ending up with the wrong product. So they catch that segment that can afford more but did not want to spend as well as those that cannot afford more but still want a smartphone.
 
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@blr_p dude every phone has its share of cons. If you are looking for the perfect phone at the lowest cost, then i am afraid it does not exist! Yes the S advance may have lags on some models! The model i had hands on was pretty ok and i did not experience any lag at all! Stock JB rom from Samsung. Samsung has a bad habit of releasing a lot of models with crappy specs! Yes i read the threads at XDA and people have had their share of problems! However that does not mean that all of them are bad! And around 70% of the people who buy a smartphone end up just making calls and texts and emails after 6 months or so! So high end specs and updates are not what they look for.

I completely agree with your point that Samsung sells crappy phones at the mid and low range so people are forced to pay a lot of money for better specs.

To conclude i would say that if you want a badass smartphone and fork out the cash go for Samsung. If you want a phone that will get you by there are lots of other brands offering good service and better products!

Cheers !
 
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shanx said:
Yes the S advance may have lags on some models! The model i had hands on was pretty ok and i did not experience any lag at all! Stock JB rom from Samsung.
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I take it you owned the S advance.

shanx said:
Yes i read the threads at XDA and people have had their share of problems! However that does not mean that all of them are bad! And around 70% of the people who buy a smartphone end up just making calls and texts and emails after 6 months or so! So high end specs and updates are not what they look for.
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This makes me question the wisdom of getting a smartphone at all. I mean if calls & texts are all you need there are many 'non-smart' options available in the sub Rs.5k range. Or why stick with android at all, Nokia makes better phones at that price.

But what you're saying is if you don't make full use of your s advance then its ok. My point here is i wish the s advance would just keep up. Not everybody needs a badass phone. This model is just 1.5 years old and JB which came out 3 months back won't run well on it. That's just over a year. It would seem hardware specs wise expecting to hold onto a phone for 2-3 years is really a function of capable hardware than anything else.

So does Ranjit have a point when he says Core is a better choice today than S Advance at the price point ? Not right now maybe in a couple of months. Not so attractive specs wise but it will work without issues with JB.

JB lags more than normal with S advance than otherwise. It does not need to be this way, samsung could fix this problem easily but they won't.
 
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@blr_p you and i can go on discussing about Samsung phones but if Samsung doesnt make the corrections nothing will happen! Devs around the globe work very hard to give the end user a decent experience overall which most manufacturers fail to provide!
Nokia basic phones dont have email functionality so they don't qualify in this category. I personally own a galaxy fit whose capacitive back key malfunctioned after 6 months! Repaired it and sold it, never looked at samsung again! I think its a matter of personal preference about what phone you buy and how you use it. So if you really need all the features of a smartphone i suggest you skip the S advance and find a more suitable phone in your price! Samsung's incompetence to provide for their users is pathetic!

Regards!
 
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@blr_p
Thanks very much for the info about JB and lag on the S Advance. This is exactly what I was apprehensive of. Sadly forgot to check XDA.

Have cancelled my order for S Advance [Thanks Indiatimes].

Going to buy Core now.
 
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Difficult decision but i think its the right one.

JB compatibility >> specs[DOUBLEPOST=1373812665][/DOUBLEPOST]
naru80 said:
Rest assured if it turns out to be a lemon, I'll let techenclave know.
Click to expand...
Thx but since this phone is for your wife and most wives do not know how to stress test a phone i expect you will sleep peacefully :)
 
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blr_p said:
Difficult decision but i think its the right one.

JB compatibility >> specs[DOUBLEPOST=1373812665][/DOUBLEPOST]
Thx but since this phone is for your wife and most wives do not know how to stress test a phone i expect you will sleep peacefully :)
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So true! Main reason for cancelling S Advance order is the color, not the lag issue. She wants a white phone. I had ordered black. :)

Bought Core [white] for 13.9 from HomeShop18. Delivery in 3 days. Indiatimes delivery was after 9-11 days. So I still get it faster.
 
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It's here! :)

Core-b.jpg
The sealed box



Core C.jpg
The phone

Unfortunately, the slots are only for micro sims. I have to go to the airtel centre and change the sim before it can work. :arghh:
 
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Just to give a perspective about JB requirement. I am running a Custom slim bean (of jellybean 4.1.2) on a HTC One V with 512MB RAM and a 1GHz single core processor and there is no lag. The stock ROM lagged like hell. Even CyanogenMod 10 lagged a lot. But this ROM is working well. What I mean is that even if the Galaxy S advance lags, you just have to find the best ROM which works for you.
 
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Help needed!

How do I transfer contacts from the bb sim to the new micro sim (not activated yet)? I tried Bluetooth, but it gave an error. Bb weirdly doesn't have option to move contacts to phone memory.

Any other way out?
 
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