G’Five, a Chinese handset brand, is planning to launch two tablets based on both Android and Windows 8 operating systems by December this year.

Arshit Pathak, managing director, Kingtech Electronics India (G’Five’s parent company) in an interaction with The Mobile Indian, said, “The tablets will be launched by December using Windows 8 and Android platform, and will include tablets with 7 inch and a 10 inch screens. All the tablets will be based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset.”

He added, “While we will continue to have very basic phones, we are also looking to move up in the value chain, as there are a lot of upgrade customers who are looking to buy a better handset than what they already have and this does not mean that we will not offer cheaper products, we will just offer more feature per rupee that the customer spends.”

Windows 8 operating system is designed for tablets and hasn’t yet been released.

Pathak added, “These devices will again be targeted at the bottom of the pyramid -tablet customers who want quality products at an affordable price.”

Interestingly, all the G’Five tablets will come with WiFi as well as 3G capability, as the company thinks that India is still developing as a WiFi market and therefore a combination of 3G and WiFi will help customers stay connected all the time.

G’Five has recently started giving 20 free movies (stored on the 4 GB SDcard that comes free) with its devices. These include some of the latest movies like Dabang, Golmal-3, 3 Idiots etc. Similarly, it offers 1,000 free games with some gaming centric phones. The company is also likely to bring a similar offer with its tablets. However, this was not confirmed by the spokesperson.

The exact configuration of this device and its price weren’t disclosed.

MTS has just announced two Android handsets – Livewire and Mtag, with bundled offers. With a price tag of just Rs 4,999 for Livewire and Rs 5,499 for Mtag and with free bundled voice, data and SMS, the two phones look like a great deal for prepaid users.

The deal looks even better as there are no monthly contractual fees to be paid. On top of that you get the cheapest smartphones.

In the GSM category, Spice Mi270 at Rs 5,700 seems a competitor for the newly launched MTS handsets but it does not have 3G and hence does not support high speed connectivity. Other options with 3G are more expensive – such as Karbonn A1 for Rs 6,400 , Micromax Andro A60 at Rs 5,713 and Vodafone 858 Smart (it is the GSM version of Mtag) at Rs 6,695.

And even though you are not paying a premium price you will get 150 minutes of calls, 150 SMSs and 150 MB of data free every month for 12 months. And this kind of offer is not available with any other phone, not even with the Vodafone Smart which despite being launched by an operator offers no free usage except free Facebook access for one year.

For postpaid users pricing is more attractive with Livewire available for Rs 2,999 and mTag 3.1 for Rs 3,500. However, there is a 12 month contract during which you will have to pay Rs 250 each month, but then you will also get 250 minutes of calls, 250 SMSs and 250 MB of data free every month of the contract period.

But does the offer justify buying a SIM locked device?

While it is true that the bundled offer is not worth Rs 10,800 as the company claims, it is probably worth at least Rs 3,000. In addition, MTS is not asking for any premium in terms of handset price. Also, it must be noted that MTS is offering the cheapest call rates amongst all the operators and the data speed and Network coverage is also good. Being a CDMA network, data charges are much lower as well.

While Livewire is essentially a ZTE phone, mTag 3.1 is a Huawei phone. Both these companies are of repute and are major supplier of telecom equipments to almost all the operators in India and across the world.

In terms of specifications mTag has slight edge, which reflects in the price also, as it has a 2.8 inch capacitive screen with 320 x 240 Pixel resolution. Livewire has a similar screen with the same Resolution but comes with a resistive touch input.

With just 528 MHz Processor with 256 MB RAM, mTag 3.1’s performance is expected to be just acceptable, but then that’s what you expect from a low cost smartphone. Livewire has a slightly bigger 600 MHz processor. However, since it employs a resistive touchscreen, the overall performance of mTag is expected to be better.

We have used both devices, although for a very short while, but we found their performance quite acceptable especially considering that they are in the lowest smartphone category.

What is most worrying is that mTag and Livewire use 1050 mAh and 1000 mAh batteries respectively. Although the claimed Standby time is 200 hours, getting a full day’s backup for normal usage would be a surprise.

Other features of the Android phones are all available including Bluetooth, WiFi, A-GPS, 3G (CDMA EVDO, 3.1 Mbps), and Google products suite are all available. Also, the devices can be used as modems.

If you look at the specifications of other Android phones with 2.8 inch screens, they all come with resistive touchscreens (except Vodafone Smart), and comes with similar hardware and software but are more expensive, and aren’t bundled with any service offers.

Verdict

On the face of it it is an offer well worth considering. However, we will reserve our verdict till we finally get to test the device. If some of you do buy these handsets do let us now your experience.

Things are looking good for Windows Phone with the roll out of the new Mango update. Microsoft has announced the Mango update is taking place ahead of schedule and about half of the eligible handsets have already received the update so far. Since the company has achieved 50 per cent availability of the update within six days flat, there is no reason why complete release of the update should take very long.

Selected users who have Windows based smartphone will first get a notification on their phone about Mango update. Once they get the notification, they need to connect their Windows Phones with their personal computers to get the update from the Zune client on their PCs.

Before applying the update, users also need to ensure adequate power and enough free memory in their devices. As a precaution, users should get the data on the device backed up on the computer. Users would also do well get the update through wired connection rather than on WiFi. The update is also time sensitive so the phone should display correct time and date at the time of update.

The Microsoft blog post says, “Why not 100 per cent? Because we’re still collecting and analyzing installation data from our smaller operators, and need to watch it little bit longer to make sure everything is OK.”

It’s clear the company is moving cautiously on the Mango update, which is not without reason. The task of delivering software update to different handsets across different countries is hugely complicated, and the company had struggled with the release of earlier NoDo update.

Those who have experienced Mango update have posted good reviews for it, which is not surprising since the update works well even on the first generation Windows smartphones. While it is not realistic to expect Windows Phone will go on to become the top revenue generator for the Microsoft right away, but the potential is definitely there.

With webOS and Symbian already on their way out, Windows Phone is the only viable option for the independent device manufacturers, since the Motorola acquisition for Google has planted a seed of doubt in the minds of these manufacturers. Even Gartner and IDC estimates suggest the Windows Phone will manage to beat Apple’s iOS by 2015.

Sony Ericsson has announced to provide support to the independent developer community &#151 FreeXperia and provided necessary handsets as well as software with that. This means that Sony Ericsson handset users may expect more apps in future.

Back in June, Samsung had extended support to independent developer groups who work on alternative custom ROMs (Read Only Memory) for Android based smart phones. However, Sony Ericsson makes a mention that unlocking Bootloader on the phone and installing Custom ROMs voids the handset warranty.

In an official blog, Sony Ericsson’s head of developer relations, Karl-Johan Dahlstroem mentioned, “We (Sony Ericsson) provided debugged and rebuilt camera library binaries, which we will soon make available on Developer World under a special EULA license. We also supported the group with approximately 20 devices, to make their work easier.

Several Independent Custom ROMs developers like the most famous one Cyanogenmod lures the power users of the Android smartphones to make the best out of their device hardware. FreeXperia group of independent developers are working on the Cyanogenmod Custom ROM for the Xperia 2011 devices. These developers customise the Android code and the experience for best performance of the smartphone.

So Sony Ericsson has extended hand of support from the Sony Ericsson Developer program perspective. The company already offers bootloader unlocking support for the 2011 Xperia devices. Sony Ericsson strongly states that the unlocking the bootloader on the Xperia devices and installing custom ROMs devices voids the warranty. The company points out that the unlocking and custom ROMs installation business is only for the advanced Android developers.

Sony Ericsson’s step to support the independent developers is quite interesting especially after Samsung extended support and eventually hired the Cyanogenmod ROM developer &#151 Steve Kondik.

Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson are three major Android OS handset makers who have stepped forward to support the independent developers by offering device unlocking. In special cases like that of Samsung and Sony Ericsson, the independent developers were given ample software based support and also smartphones for development.

However, a noteworthy point over here is that these companies wish to keep a tab on the different custom ROMs which are flashed on the device. For instance the Samsung Galaxy S II has a special counter in its recovery (similar to the BIOS on PCs) where the device keeps the count of times a custom ROM has been flashed on the device. That counter means the company will know that you have messed around with the smartphone in case you seek full warranty.

Warranty is a serious matter and the companies are trying their best to counter it especially when it is about open operating system such as Android.

Nokia is coming out with a Linux based operating system which will be used on smartphones costing less than $100 (about Rs 4,500). The new operating system from Nokia, has been codenamed “Meltemi” and the project leader for the company will be Mary McDowell, Nokia’s executive vice president, mobile phones.

Nokia has been planning to refresh its low end smartphone segment for quite some time, and it has been looking for a replacement for the S40 phones as the users are leaving the S40 platform in favour of other smartphones. One analyst says it is good for the company to spread the risk.

By going for the Windows Phone platform, Nokia has put itself in a difficult spot as far as low end phone segment is concerned. Android, the main competitor, is anyway pushing the smartphone prices way down than Windows Phone makers are comfortable with.

The result? There is a gap in the product portfolio of Nokia. To address the situation, Nokia either needs to improve the S40 platform or come out with another operating system altogether and that’s precisely what the company is doing with its new Linux based operating system for low end phones. The low end smartphone opportunity is so big even Apple is toying with the idea of bringing one low end iPhone for the segment.