DataWind Launches Sub-Rs 5k, 5-inch Smartphones

Datawind has announced 5" smartphones in India at under Rs 5,000, which it hopes will shake up the phone market in the way its sub-Rs 5k UbiSlate did to tablets.

It's selling three variants of what it calls the PocketSurfer5. The 3G model, PocketSurfer3G5, is priced at Rs 6,499, runs Android 4.2, and has a 5 megapixel camera (apart from a front-facing VGA one) and a capacitive multi-touch 5" display. The 3G5 is powered by a dual-core, 1.2 GHz Cortex A7 chip, a smaller, faster and more power-efficient successor to the older 1 GHz Cortex A8 that powers the entry-level variant.

That entry model, the Rs 3,499 PocketSurfer5x, ships with Linux, has 2.5G support, a VGA front-facing camera, and a resistive touch screen. The middle variant is the Rs 4,999 PocketSurfer5, also with 2.5G support and a 2 megpixel rear camera, like the entry model, with Android 4.0 running on a Cortex A9 core. This model, too, has capacitive multi-touch, and a front VGA camera.

While competition is strong in the smartphones space, this is a new price territory. There does not appear to be any significant brand of 5" smartphone in the Indian market at under Rs 5,000. Entry-level models from Karbonn and others start at nearly Rs 6,000.

Price apart, does the PocketSurfer5 have any edge over competition? DataWind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli says the big difference is the internet experience. "People are switching to smartphones with bigger screens to access the internet. Non-3G devices can take over 2 minutes to get a web page. The PocketSurfer can do that in 5 seconds."

The phones are initially being sold at online at pocketsurfer.com. Tuli says that the company is working both on deals with operators for bundling data and for distribution, and retail tie-ups with independent, regional distributors. The entry and midrange PocketSurfer5 is available now for supply against online orders, and the 3G variant will be available later in December, according to Tuli. They're made in China using DataWind-supplied touchscreens.

The London- and Montreal-based company supplied tablets for the Indian government's ultra-low-cost Aakash tablets program for education, and also sold them directly under the UbiSlate brand. The tablets were plagued by supply delays.

Tuli says supply for the PocketSurfer5 phones will not be a bottleneck, unlike with tablets "where we were taken aback by the demand". He says supply capacity will be at the same level as for the UbiSlate tablets, up to about 80,000 units a month. DataWind claims to have supplied over a million units across 18 months, in the Indian market.

CyberMedia research shows DataWind at #2 after Samsung in the tablets market in April-June 2013, with 12.5% share for the UbiSlate (not including Aakash tablet shipments). A CMR survey found 87% "preferring" Android, versus only 10% opting for the iPad. Significantly, Apple isn't in the top 3 tablet vendors in India.

DataWind's original PocketSurfer, which wasn't sold in India, was a mobile internet device that claimed to be the fastest to work over GSM, nearly ten years ago. The brand isn't known here, so why bring it in rather than a variant of the better-known UbiSlate? "We wanted to differentiate between the two," Tuli said. "We wanted to highlight the surfing part, versus the education oriented ‘slate'."

The PocketSurfers use compression to deliver web pages faster, claiming over 10x speed increases, over slow GSM networks. That stand the new devices in good stead over Edge networks and even 3G, though we haven't tested the device yet. DataWind claims a 5-second delivery of web pages over Edge networks.