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  Smartphones Under 15k

  Aalaap Ghag, Jan 27, 2006 1010 hrs IST

  Let's start off by checking out which Smartphones you can buy under 15k.

  

Page 1 - Nokia Page 2 - Nokia Again Page 3 - Panasonic, Krome and Palm

After our price-oriented mobile phone buying guides, now we're moving to feature-oriented guides. Smartphones are very popular now with everyone wanting more functionality than the phone comes with. Smartphones are different from normal phones, in that they let you install third party applications to extend the functionality of the phone. This doesn't apply to phones with Java-only support like the Nokia Series 40 phones (6610, 7250, K700i and the type), but those with an actual operating system like SymbianOS Series 60, SymbianOS UIQ, Windows Mobile, PalmOS or Linux.

With a wide variety of after market software available for phones, like e-book readers, instant messengers, media players, games and alternatives to existing features of the phone, everyone wants to jump on the Smartphone bandwagon, but price has always been a deterrent. So let's take a look at what Smartphones you can buy under 15k.

We would have liked to do a guide with sufficient number of phones under 10k, but there aren't too many of those, so we decided to up the price tag by around 5k.

Nokia N-Gage QD (Rs. 7,500)

If you're looking for a no-frills Smartphone, the N-Gage QD actually is the cheapest you can find on the market. It's pretty basic in almost every way - a 4k color screen, not so good sound quality, a very low 3.4MB internal memory, no camera, no FM radio - but it does run SymbianOS Series 60, has a hot swap MMC card slot, Java support, Bluetooth and stereo headset support. And of course, you can play games on it!

Nokia 6600 (Rs. 9,800)

If you want a Smartphone with a slightly better media experience, i.e. a digital camera, then look no further than the Nokia 6600. It offers a more standard candy bar form factor over the N-Gage QD and also packs in a VGA camera. The phone also has an MMC card slot, IrDA as well as Bluetooth and runs SymbianOS Series 60. The sound quality is still average, but hey, you can't have everything!

Nokia 6260 (Rs. 12,800)

Ten reasons why I hate this phone, but the budget conscious will surely overlook all of those. A VGA camera, clamshell-twist-flip-whatever form factor, an FM radio (hah, I know why you're here), MMC card slot, Bluetooth, 65k color screen, SymbianOS Series 60. Need ten more reasons?

Nokia 6670 (Rs. 13,200)

This is one for the value shutterbugs category. This one comes with a 1 megapixel digital camera, an RS-MMC slot instead of the regular MMC, Bluetooth, SymbianOS Series 60 etc., but no Infrared and plays back audio only in mono. And it doesn't sound too good either. This is the same phone as the Nokia 7610, which had a twisted keypad that only psychedelics could fathom. This one is for the saner lot.

Page 1 - Nokia Page 2 - Nokia Again Page 3 - Panasonic, Krome and Palm

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