Introduction:
Of late, a lot of people have been asking about cheap dual SIM phones which are abundantly available in the market and offer a cheap and viable alternative for people looking for a backup phone.
Spice, Micromax, Karbonn, Lava, Lemon, Intex have all got phones which look similar and offer almost the same level of functionality. These phones have become so popular that they have been eating into the market share of the more established, international brands such as Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson.
The simple reason behind the re-division of the market share pie-chart can be attributed to the sheer number of features these small brands offer in their phones when compared to the entry level models of the more established brands. What’s more, these phones come with established service centres, regional distributors and good after sales service network they seem to be gaining a firm foothold in the entry level segment. The advertising and marketing blitz unleashed by these brands as well as their growing popularity are making people reconsider their purchase decisions when it comes to spending around Rs.1000 to Rs.2500.
I needed a cheap, secondary phone for myself and after going through threads and posts in the forum for a couple of days; I decided to try the Spice QT-44. The specifications of the Spice QT-44 looked better than the Micromax Q-1. Let’s see what this phone has to offer.
Technical Specifications:
Bundle (4/5) :
The box has a picture of Katrina Kaif grinning at us, something Intex or Micromax don’t have and this might influence Katrina Kaif fans to go for the phone!
The bundle has the mobile phone and its battery, the charger, the hands- free, the warranty certificate and the user’s manual. A list of the service centre locations have been printed in the brochure. A memory card as well as a data cable would’ve been welcome additions to the bundle.
Design and Build quality (3/5):
This phone looks very similar to a Blackberry, which I must say is a compliment to its design. From a distance it can fool most people with its looks. The phone is light weight and surprisingly well built and comfortable to hold. The phone has a slim waistline and it slipped into my jeans pocket quite easily. There however is a cheap feel to the phone and the orange strip running along its side is utterly hideous!
The 2.2 inch screen has a resolution of 220x176 pixels and supports 262K colours. It offers good legibility under direct sunlight. The text on the screen can be read easily. Images however don’t look very crisp and somehow look slightly over exposed.
The QWERTY keypad is small and somewhat uncomfortable to type on if you have big fingers and might require a while getting used to.
Dual LEDs have been placed at the top of the phone and function as torch. The torch is quite bright and has a good range.
There is a single mini usb port which lets the user charge the phone and to connect the hands-free. Since the port is a mini USB port, it can be charged by connecting it to a computer or a laptop using the mini USB cables which come with portable hard drives.
Opening the back panel reveals the ORANGE (!) innards of the phone. Two memory card slots are present. None of the memory card slots are hot swappable which loses the phone Brownie point. Also present are two slots supporting GSM SIM cards in the master-slave configuration. All this is hidden by the 1000mAH battery which sits on top of the memory card and SIM card slots. The speaker sits at the base of the phone.
User Interface (4/5):
The phone comes with the typical Java based user interface. It has quite a lot of features to offer. The navigation is simple using the D-pad. There is no lag and everything works smoothly. Everything is quite detailed which makes the operation of the handset rather easy.
Messaging is fun with the QWERTY keypad. T-9 support has been added as well.
It comes with an E-book reader, currency convertor and a calculator program.
The Spice fun section comprises of various tools which cater to social networking buffs as well as nifty tools like cricket updates and weather updates.
Entertainment in the form of games such as F1 will keep you busy when you have nothing else to do. I found the F1 game rather addictive.
Multimedia (3/5):
The phone comes with a basic multimedia player application which supports mp3 files. The speaker wasn’t as loud as I was expecting it to be. The sound tends to be distorted if songs are played at maximum volume. The bass is nonexistent. The output through headphones is acceptable. Although the supplied hands-free doesn’t do justice to the audio playback, I am sure with better headphones and a mini USB to 3.5mm jack adapter the sound will be much better and fuller. The FM radio functionality is good and the signal reception is good. There is an inbuilt sound recorder as well. FM recording functions are present as well.
An image viewer application has been provided although the lack of clarity of the display doesn’t help.
Connectivity (3/5):
The spice QT-44 is a dual band phone and has WAP and GPRS support for those of you who are interested in using the internet. The internet connectivity through GPRS is about as basic as it gets and the browser bundled with the phone is proprietary to the phone. Social networking and IM applications bundled with the phone work as advertised.
There is no Bluetooth capability and there is no support for USB to PC connectivity for data transfer.
Phone Performance (5/5):
There are no network reception issues and the phone always showed full signal strength in my area. The call clarity is good and there were no call drops. The dual SIM function works properly and I was able to use my Vodafone and Idea SIM cards with no issues and received and made calls using both cards. Full marks to the Spice QT-44 in this department.
Battery (4/5):
The 1000mAH battery provides 4 hours of talk-time and the phone charges pretty quickly. It will easily give more than two or three days with moderate usage.
Conclusion (3.5/5):
I bought it for Rs.1439 from E-bay using a 10% discount coupon. It was priced at Rs.1599 and for that amount this phone is more than adequate as a secondary phone and offers acceptable overall performance to boot. I did a bit of research on the internet and found that the Micromax Q-1 had issues. I don’t know what the issues were but I sure didn’t want to find it out the hard way!
Spice has a good nationwide after sales network. At Rs.1599 this phone is extremely good value for money and should be considered for all the features it bundles with it. Budget conscious buyers do consider this phone. I am more than satisfied with this phone and I am sure other adopters of this phone would agree with me.
OVERALL SCORE : 3.5/5
NOTE: The user manual doesn't state SAR ratings. Nothing about SAR rating has been mentioned in the manufacturer's (Spice) website as well.
Of late, a lot of people have been asking about cheap dual SIM phones which are abundantly available in the market and offer a cheap and viable alternative for people looking for a backup phone.
Spice, Micromax, Karbonn, Lava, Lemon, Intex have all got phones which look similar and offer almost the same level of functionality. These phones have become so popular that they have been eating into the market share of the more established, international brands such as Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson.
The simple reason behind the re-division of the market share pie-chart can be attributed to the sheer number of features these small brands offer in their phones when compared to the entry level models of the more established brands. What’s more, these phones come with established service centres, regional distributors and good after sales service network they seem to be gaining a firm foothold in the entry level segment. The advertising and marketing blitz unleashed by these brands as well as their growing popularity are making people reconsider their purchase decisions when it comes to spending around Rs.1000 to Rs.2500.
I needed a cheap, secondary phone for myself and after going through threads and posts in the forum for a couple of days; I decided to try the Spice QT-44. The specifications of the Spice QT-44 looked better than the Micromax Q-1. Let’s see what this phone has to offer.
Technical Specifications:
Bundle (4/5) :
The box has a picture of Katrina Kaif grinning at us, something Intex or Micromax don’t have and this might influence Katrina Kaif fans to go for the phone!
The bundle has the mobile phone and its battery, the charger, the hands- free, the warranty certificate and the user’s manual. A list of the service centre locations have been printed in the brochure. A memory card as well as a data cable would’ve been welcome additions to the bundle.
Design and Build quality (3/5):
This phone looks very similar to a Blackberry, which I must say is a compliment to its design. From a distance it can fool most people with its looks. The phone is light weight and surprisingly well built and comfortable to hold. The phone has a slim waistline and it slipped into my jeans pocket quite easily. There however is a cheap feel to the phone and the orange strip running along its side is utterly hideous!
The 2.2 inch screen has a resolution of 220x176 pixels and supports 262K colours. It offers good legibility under direct sunlight. The text on the screen can be read easily. Images however don’t look very crisp and somehow look slightly over exposed.
The QWERTY keypad is small and somewhat uncomfortable to type on if you have big fingers and might require a while getting used to.
Dual LEDs have been placed at the top of the phone and function as torch. The torch is quite bright and has a good range.
There is a single mini usb port which lets the user charge the phone and to connect the hands-free. Since the port is a mini USB port, it can be charged by connecting it to a computer or a laptop using the mini USB cables which come with portable hard drives.
Opening the back panel reveals the ORANGE (!) innards of the phone. Two memory card slots are present. None of the memory card slots are hot swappable which loses the phone Brownie point. Also present are two slots supporting GSM SIM cards in the master-slave configuration. All this is hidden by the 1000mAH battery which sits on top of the memory card and SIM card slots. The speaker sits at the base of the phone.
User Interface (4/5):
The phone comes with the typical Java based user interface. It has quite a lot of features to offer. The navigation is simple using the D-pad. There is no lag and everything works smoothly. Everything is quite detailed which makes the operation of the handset rather easy.
Messaging is fun with the QWERTY keypad. T-9 support has been added as well.
It comes with an E-book reader, currency convertor and a calculator program.
The Spice fun section comprises of various tools which cater to social networking buffs as well as nifty tools like cricket updates and weather updates.
Entertainment in the form of games such as F1 will keep you busy when you have nothing else to do. I found the F1 game rather addictive.
Multimedia (3/5):
The phone comes with a basic multimedia player application which supports mp3 files. The speaker wasn’t as loud as I was expecting it to be. The sound tends to be distorted if songs are played at maximum volume. The bass is nonexistent. The output through headphones is acceptable. Although the supplied hands-free doesn’t do justice to the audio playback, I am sure with better headphones and a mini USB to 3.5mm jack adapter the sound will be much better and fuller. The FM radio functionality is good and the signal reception is good. There is an inbuilt sound recorder as well. FM recording functions are present as well.
An image viewer application has been provided although the lack of clarity of the display doesn’t help.
Connectivity (3/5):
The spice QT-44 is a dual band phone and has WAP and GPRS support for those of you who are interested in using the internet. The internet connectivity through GPRS is about as basic as it gets and the browser bundled with the phone is proprietary to the phone. Social networking and IM applications bundled with the phone work as advertised.
There is no Bluetooth capability and there is no support for USB to PC connectivity for data transfer.
Phone Performance (5/5):
There are no network reception issues and the phone always showed full signal strength in my area. The call clarity is good and there were no call drops. The dual SIM function works properly and I was able to use my Vodafone and Idea SIM cards with no issues and received and made calls using both cards. Full marks to the Spice QT-44 in this department.
Battery (4/5):
The 1000mAH battery provides 4 hours of talk-time and the phone charges pretty quickly. It will easily give more than two or three days with moderate usage.
Conclusion (3.5/5):
I bought it for Rs.1439 from E-bay using a 10% discount coupon. It was priced at Rs.1599 and for that amount this phone is more than adequate as a secondary phone and offers acceptable overall performance to boot. I did a bit of research on the internet and found that the Micromax Q-1 had issues. I don’t know what the issues were but I sure didn’t want to find it out the hard way!
Spice has a good nationwide after sales network. At Rs.1599 this phone is extremely good value for money and should be considered for all the features it bundles with it. Budget conscious buyers do consider this phone. I am more than satisfied with this phone and I am sure other adopters of this phone would agree with me.
OVERALL SCORE : 3.5/5
NOTE: The user manual doesn't state SAR ratings. Nothing about SAR rating has been mentioned in the manufacturer's (Spice) website as well.
