A revolution was created in the Indian smartphone industry with the launch of the Freedom 251 smartphone from Ringing Bells, a homegrown manufacturer. The highlight of this smartphone is its pretty low price tag of Rs 251 that is unimaginable for many. The registrations for the cheapest smartphone have already started.
It has to be noted that it is not possible for any manufacturer to produce a smartphone priced this low without subsidies. The production cost of a device of this sort will be a minimum of Rs 2,000 even if the device is assembled in India.
The early unit of the Freedom 251 shows that the device runs slightly different software with a set of pre-installed applications meant for the safety of women. Also, there are Swachh Bharat related apps and some apps to help people living in the rural regions to get access to information.
The main thing to note about the Freedom 251 is it will do three things due to its price. These are an increase in penetration beyond 100 percent, a push in the adoption of smartphones, and to drive data adoption quickly. Eventually, the networks are to get bogged down unless the operators upgrade for higher capacity.
Talking of the specifications, the Freedom 251 features a 4 inch touch screen display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution. Though the device is small, the screen does not look that bad. The screen has decent brightness levels, viewing angles, and colors. There is a circular home button as well. The smartphone has a 1.3 GHz quad core Spreadtrum processor teamed up with 1 GB of RAM and Mali 400 GPU. The internal storage of the device is 5.92 GB that can be expanded up to 32 GB using a micro SD card.
The Freedom 251 has dual SIM cards and the device has a heavy launcher. There is support for in-built gestures such as double tap or swipe to wake the screen, etc.
