Datawind’s Under $50 Phone To Launch On March 17?

A month ago, we had informed you that Datawind, which manufacturers low-cost Android tablets in the country under Aakash brand, will be back soon. At that time, the news was rife that the company is eyeing to launch affordable smartphones priced under $50 (Rs 3,000 approx).

The reports we heard were true. The company has just sent out invites for a March 17 event, where we are expected to see these phones. These devices will come with 2G and 3G connectivity support, wherein the former will be cheaper than the latter. As quoted in the report, Suneet Singh Tuli the man behind Datawind has openly talked about the prospects of making phones under Rs 2,000 with free Internet, for one year at least.

The average price of a quality smartphone in India still revolves around Rs 5,000 pricing. However, Tuli thinks that the price of smartphones would drop to the pricing of a 'feature phone'; and this could probably happen in 2015.

The affordable Datawind phone in all likelihood would sport a 4-inch display (resolution not known), and would come with a quad-core CPU running on Android 4.4 KitKat version out-of-box. Google's ploy of making KitKat less hardware hungry is probably encouraging phone manufacturers to make low-priced phones with latest software in tow.

While on paper, these phones look like an enticing proposition, we will refrain ourselves from giving any kind of verdict on the same—not unless we get to spend some time with the device in question. Afterall, it is Datawind that we are talking about. It was expected that the company would expand the tablet market with its low-cost Aakash and Ubislate tablets, but that has not exactly happened yet.