The war amongst the budget 4G smartphones in India seems to be intensifying. The latest entrant in this market is the combined entity of Micromax and Vodafone, who have tied up to produce the Bharat2 Ultra budget smartphone. This phone, it seems, will give keen competition to the Reliance Jio smartphones which have upset the entire market and has been termed disruptive in some quarters.
Reports suggest that the effective cost of the device will be Rs 999. All old and new Vodafone users will only have to buy the smartphone at Rs.2,899. A simple recharge of at least a sum of Rs 150/- per month for a period of three years has to be made. At the end of 1.5 years or 18 months, all the users will receive a decent cashback of Rs. 900/-. After another 18 months or 1.5 years, there will be a second cashback of Rs. 1,000. These sums will go to the Vodafone M-Pesa wallets, and depending on convenience, the users may be able to either withdraw the money in cash or to transact them digitally.
Rahul Sharma, who is a co-founder at Micromax was quoted by a GizBot report as saying, “The Bharat-Series has been aimed at an acquisition of the first generation smartphone users. This partnership with Vodafone will help bring in the next phase of smartphone adoption by hand-holding consumers to upgrade them from feature phones to smartphones. We believe that greater device affordability and low-cost data packs will drive increased smartphone adoption, as there is still a huge gap. At Micromax, we want to give superior device experience in an affordable way and Bharat range is a testimony of the same, having already sold more than 2 million handsets.”
As far as the specs of the Bharat2 Ultra smartphones are concerned, they are pretty decent for such a price tag. It is powered by a Spreadtrum SC9832 1.3Ghz quad-core processor which will work in tandem with 512 MB RAM as well as 4 GB of internal or native storage. The new phone boasts a 4-inch WVGA screen. Also onboard is a 2 MP rear camera as well as a 0.3 MP front-facing snapper.
The rear camera has various modes like a scene, frame, and a burst mode. It runs on the slightly outdated Android Marshmallow and is backed up by a 1300 mAh battery. To provide a better holistic experience, it also supports full video viewing, as well as social networking, and some chat apps.
