Press "Enter" to skip to content

India manufactured Freedom 251 smartphone: The first look says it all

India manufactured Freedom 251 smartphone: The first look says it all

The Freedom 251 smartphone, which Noida-based technology firm Ring Bells Pvt. Ltd claims has been launched. As the name suggests, it is priced at Rs.251, and is up for booking now on http://www.freedom251.com.

They claim the phone will be “delivered in 4 months”, from the exact date of booking. At present, you can buy the Freedom 251 merely through this site, and not on any other e-commerce platforms or offline stores. Taking into consideration the very fact this phone is being targeted at the unconnected demographic of the population, does selling it online just really make sense?

But there is a catch, in fact, many of them: the review unit we got didn’t switch on even after we followed all troubleshooting measures and the battery of the phone was fully charged.

But that is exactly what Ringing Bells has done with the Freedom 251 cellphone that we’ve received. But why would anyone use whitener to hide any branding away?

On a side note, the glass over the screen is a fingerprint magnet and extremely reflective.

The response to the aforementioned question resides in this image. At least the phone which we got is made by IT peripherals and smartphone manufacturer Adcom while Ringing Bells asserts to create the Liberty 251. Perhaps, that clarifies the requirement to hide the name, and hope no one will see. Ringing Bells is to answer our queries about the Adcom connection.

Fairly regular stuff here– a memory card slot, dual SIM card slots and a removable battery. The rear panel is made of plastic.

All these are the memory expansion slot which supports a micro SD card as well as the double SIM slots.

Ring Bells asserts the Liberty 251 has a 1450mAh battery. We really don’t know what to trust.

The Indian national flag is painted on the back panel, which is not otherwise black in colour.

Really basic packaging of the Freedom 251. The pack includes a set of earphones and also a charger.

The patriotism seemed to be wearing off fairly quickly. The Indian flag painted on the rear panel was wearing out before we started using the telephone.

The home button below the display gives it a very iPhone-ish look. But that is about it.

The cellphone, thanks to its 4-inch screen, has a fairly streamlined footprint. Besides, the choice of using a physical house button is surprising, considering the reality that Android offers on-screen navigation, where users don’t have ever to move away from the touchscreen to change between apps.

Our first impressions with the device seem to suggest the quad-core 1.3GHz chip, paired with just 1GB RAM, is still doing a pretty acceptable job in terms of performance. We found that switching between apps is very easy, and even with 5-6 programs open in the background, the newer ones opened without much delay.

source: via