Opinions needed :Spice MI-425 : 4"screen, 1GHz dual-sim, 5MP

[ch@ts]

I've been waiting to buy a decent dual-sim android, this one Spice Mi-425 Price in India | Specifications, Features and Reviews seems to have everything I want.
The only thing I'm not sure about is the amount of RAM it has. (How do I find out how much RAM it has?)
It's got a paltry 140MB of built in storage, but it seems to have everything else the Karbonn A9 does.
1Ghz processor, dual sim, front VGA camera, 5MP autofocus cam on the back, +2000mAh, +4 inch screen and it's said to be upgradable to Android 4.0.

Is it a good buy? Are Spice phones reliable?
Can I take my phone to any repair shop to get it fixed if problems crop up? (Reports online say that Spice's service centres do nothing at all)

 

[comp@ddict]

This is what I was afraid off Don't know what will be the case with Spice MI-500

July is here. But no sign of Spice Mi-500 yet.

 

[H2O]

Hi could you please elaborate on a few things,

1> Is the screen quality as good as or better than Samsung Galaxy Ace/HTC Explorer?

2> How is the game performance in simple games like Fruit Ninja, Ninjump, etc. Also does the phone tend to heat up a bit too much?

3> Is the UI smooth?

4> Does it have Touch to focus in the camera?

I am interested in getting this phone, as there is no decent phone in this price range and for some reason I trust Spice more then Karbonn. So, if someone knows of a good deal please post it here.

 

[ch@ts]

1> Is the screen quality as good as or better than Samsung Galaxy Ace/HTC Explorer?
Yes..4" 800x480, beats HVGA screen IMO. Also the colours and sharpness are pretty good.

2> How is the game performance in simple games like Fruit Ninja, Ninjump, etc. Also does the phone tend to heat up a bit too much?
Have not played them, don't know.
I've had problems with the phone heating up in only 1 scenario. I was using GPS and google maps, and after 15 mins the phone shut down and I had to remove the battery to restart. Other people have had similar issues, but its always turned out to be an app that refuses to let the CPU throttle that causes the overheating. 1 user said it may be due to the bundled NQ security suite. I've disabled it, but haven't used GPS again, so can't tell you if it worked.
Otherwise, while gaming (angry birds/amazing alex - very smooth) and watching videos, or on call, it doesn't heat up. It gets warm while wi-fi browsing, but well within comfort levels.

3> Is the UI smooth?
Very.

4> Does it have Touch to focus in the camera?
Not in the native camera app. But it's auto-focus works really well.

 

[Emil]

ch@ts - Now that you have had this for a while, have you found the memory size to affect the actual operation? Specially if you have multiple apps running? Did you find any improvement in thei regard after adding the memory card?

 

[ch@ts]

I rooted the phone, installed link2sd, and moved most of the non-system apps to the second partition of the sdcard.
So I've got no problems when it comes to running out of internal memory.

The phone has enough RAM, and at it's lowest the amount of free RAM was about 140MB. It's usually has about 200MB free.

Before I rooted the lack of internal memory was a problem, and if I had less than 40MB free, the phone would experience slowdowns.

The phone was running problem free before rooting.
I rooted the phone last week, and have had the phone freeze up about 7 times since then, and needed to pull the battery to restart it.
It froze twice when I plugged in the charger, and about 5 times when I tried to turn on wi-fi. Most of the time it didn't give any problems while turning on wi-fi, but those freezes scared me.
However, it's been running fine since the last 2 days, ever since I changed the settings on the superuser app to automatically deny su permissions.