The starting price for a quad-core smartphone has just fallen from about Rs 30,000 to Rs 11,000 – thanks to the new Karbonn Smart Titanium 1.
Karbonn Mobiles has become the first Indian vendor to offer a phone with a quad-core processor – something that was restricted to the likes of Samsung (with its Galaxy 3), HTC and LG till now.
Without doubt, the Karbonn Smart Titanium 1, also called the Karbonn S1 Titanium, shoots to the top of the charts in terms of specifications, especially in the Rs 10,000 range.
A quick browse-through of the specs reveal a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.2 GHz processor paired with Adreno 203 GPU, a 4.5 inch IPS qHD display and 1 GB of RAM.
Its direct competition will be with the dual-core Micromax Canvas 2 or A110. The Canvas, priced at about Rs 10,300, has been a big hit and is practically unavailable in most cities and online vendors in India due to the huge demand. Last week, the LAVA Iris 501 was launched to take on the Canvas phone.
The biggest difference between these models and the S1 Titanium will be in processor power and RAM (512 MB vs 1 GB).
The A110, for example, scores about 5300 in Antutu Benchmark tests, which measure different things like CPU, graphics processor, SD card write speed etc.. However, nearly all the quad-core phones launched so far, like the Galaxy S3 and the LG Optimus 4X (Rs 28,000), score double that in Antutu tests – in the 11,000 range. We would expect this model to have a score of around 9,000 at least.
That said, a lot of fast-selling tablets in India have Antutu scores of just 7,000 or so. So, 5,300 is not really very low for a phone.
Still, if speed and power are your thrills, the Karbonn S1 Titanium has a higher claim on your Rs 11,000 than just about any other phone out there in India right now.
In addition, as Karbonn reminds you, it has a “4.5” qHD display which renders vivid colours on the 540×960 pixel IPS matrix is best suited for viewing stunning pictures and high resolution cinema output.”
The other features are 3G, a 5-MP camera with flash, Android 4.1 ‘Jelly Bean’ and a 1600mAh battery.
The S1 Titanium is available for preorder at Karbonn’s website.