sgiitk

@csmart; Unfortunate, but I have to agree with you. This is not the first scam nor will it be the last. Every time there is a big scam, a few months later there is a bigger one the the previous one is forgotten. Also the media loses interest after a few weeks.

Could Samsung/Reliance not find a more dated phone to release?

Was long overdue. Thank God the DMK mafia tactics did not work. Heard that following Obama's visit - Singh is King, and put his foot down. I only hope the Congress Bureau of Investigation does not paper it over. Thanks to the fourth estate. That is our only hope!

Chinese are not in the higher price brackets. Indians are al(most)l rebadged Chinese! The Chinese have a non-descript OS and more often that not the support CD is junk!

Saw the report. The Motorola Driod 2 & X are very close (74 points v 75 points). iPhone 3 and htc Aria are a further point behind.

They are living up to their name No kia!

dhiraj bhai: I also saw the new item - looks interesting. Presumably the OS can be field upgraded to 2.2. The 500 MHz processor as against 1GHz - pros and cons please? Also, I hear that Dell has some model with a slide out QWERTY keypad. Is it true in any of these?

Also, what about 'imported' GSM handsets? Once unlocked what are the cons - if any?

Yes, doc I like it. Sounds like the famous forgetfulness of Jagjivan Ram in filing his IT returns, and I bet Raja will soon claim something that he forgot!

I agree that the days of cloned handsets may be somewhat numbered. However, with junk handsets at a rip off price, we are left with no options. I think we will be forced to move off CDMA to GSM pronto. Thank God MNP is (almost) here. One thing worth noting - many of the handsets may be originally locked and sold at a concessional price in the home market as part of a plan (say 3 years). So we are in a dark grey area to start with.

I think there is another big question - touch or keypad. Some people (yours truly included) are unhappy with Touch. At the moment the decision is obvious - Touch -> Android or (maybe) Apple, keypad -> Blackberry. There are signs of dual interfaces (e.g.BB Torch) coming in. In the longer term touch is likely to be dominated by Android, which BB is an extremely mature and stable platform, and will continue, possibly with more dual interfaces. Symbian, I am afraid, has fallen in the crack.

Nokia have abandoned the CDMA market ages ago. They also have some litigation going on with Qualcomm. Even in the GSM market they have been dormant for too long. Now they seem to have woken up. Whether it is too little, too late only time will tell.

Will someone who has ported successfully give the full sequence of operations. Let us say you want to port from A to B. Then I guess you will have to do the paperwork with B and get a SIM (or is that only required in the CDMA > GSM case, and a RUIM the other way round). Then probably the sms for the port and then somehow get the code into the new chap. Please elaborate in detail. Many of us will be most grateful. What happens to i. the plans, and ii. the deposit (some of us with old connections had paid significant deposit amounts).

Pretty stupid. I will not sell you a decent handset, chage a hand and a leg for what I sell, and will not let you work with a grey market import. A fit case for voting with your feet - take MNP and migrate out!

I think they are inviting all of us to desert them in droves once MNP is fully up and running.

dhiraj: I never thought it was at my post. Saw the abbreviation at a few places and could not figure it out Sorry that you thought otherwise. A Google search did not enter my mind - signs of ageing!

dhiraj bhai: I do not understand what ROFLMAO is. I am sure there are a few others like me. @Genius: I have hitesh special and am quite happy without BIS. I must however, confess I use my mobile 99% of the time to make and receive calls and sms. Do use the 'smart' part sometimes and works well. Also, by keeping the Network off I get a long (>4 days) battery life. I know Android is the future, and I may switch to it in a couple of years. Will have to see what hardware is available, and then may even go GSM. The decision will be BB or Android. I have a Nokia 5230 on BSNL (with 3G) and the boss is quite unhappy with it. My son (htc Hero - CDMA) and daughter-in-law (Samsung Galaxy 5) are already on Android. While he is delighted (except that Reliance 1X seems to be permanently off in Karnataka at the moment)she is unhappy with the touch interface. So it a matter of taste.

I will not be at all surprised to see Android as Numero Uno. Hear that the BB-OS6 on Torch is disliked by many.

Very interesting. I am sure there is a lot of overlap internally between Android and Chrome. Also, for a long time Oracle were making noises about doing away with OS's (esp Microsoft/Windows) in Oracle hosts/servers and the like. What are the odds of Oracle on Chrome, as the next big thing?

I agree consolidation has been one of the basic Ambani mantras for ages. My own guess is a bit different - MDA gobbles up on of the New Bachhas, sets up a good GSM footprint and then a few years down the line 'consolidation' occurs. I suspect the original foray into GSM took place to try and cut Qualcomm to size! They were demanding high royalties. We seem to agree that in the long (or rather no so long) term consolidation/ merger / whatever is a distinct possibility.

@kesav; Two things 1. The worst case is that the first guy disables you and second does not enable you. 2. They will take some time for the modus operandi to be debugged and smoothed. You pays your money and takes your choice. I am waiting to dump my BSNL postpaid for Airtel/Vodafone. Then one day I may do likewise to my Reliance.

Unless you are desperate to dump your service provider prudence says that wait for a month or two for the system to stabilise, before using it.

@Mufaddal: With due respects what I mean is that take a look at the sarkari list - very very poor, forget the pricing, and zilch support. The htc, and Android worlds are still missing on Reliance! We get the same or better phones here at a fraction of the price with superb support (hand holding) thrown in for free. However, you do not get all the features to work on these. For example, both mine and my son's phones are capable of EVDO, we cannot activate it on Imports. I hear that configuring an Import for running on Tata is getting more and more difficult. This was my point, nothing more. Correct me if I am wrong.

I have one of Hitesh's 8330's. I was unable to get 1x in Karnataka, and am fine here in UPE. My son has a Saadikk htc Hero in Karnataka and is not getting 1x either. Since both of these are grey imports we shall not be getting EVDO in any case. By the looks of it Reliance seem to be having issues with data services in many regions.

I agree with Saurav in that the limited choice of CDMA handsets is a big pain. The increasingly restrictive policies vis a vis Imported sets as are available from many experts here are also a problem. I have a BB8330 (courtesy Hitesh) and my son an htc Hero (courtesy Saadikk). The company prices are prohibitive, and the choice very limited, and mostly of obsolete or obsolescent models. . As for the resale value,is not a big consideration. In two to three years, the resale value is under 25% of what you paid! I am also an original DAPO customer (as is my son), and have been quite happy with Reliance service. The tariff does not bug me since unless I am on roaming, I do not even hit the Rs.399 base of my plan. Now next time round, with MNP my son and I may both 'vote our feet', and switch to GSM.