Vodafone and Facebook have jointly announced the release of a new Facebook phone called the Vodafone Blue here in India. The device, designed to offer a complete, all-encompassing Facebook experience also gets a decent array of features making it a decent entry level handset for youngsters.
The Vodafone Blue is nothing but a badgered Vodafone 555 Blue – which is actually made by Alcatel Lucent. It was launched a few months ago in Europe. The USP of the device is that it is probably the cheapest Facebook phone on the planet. Let’s now delve in to the features of the handset.
To start with, let me remind you that this is no frills feature phone that has been pimped up for complete Facebook integration. True, there are a lot of Facebook integrated, smarter handsets out there – but none will match the price at which this one would retail.
The phone features a 2.3 inch TFT display with a resolution of 320*240 (QVGA). It is powered by a rather humble MTK6253 processor which chugs along at 200 MHz The device features 40 MB of on board memory and has a micro SD card slot for memory expansion. The phone does not come with an SD card bundled though. The 1000 mAH battery is suitable for 175 minutes of talk time; while offering 324 hours of standby time. There is a basic 2 megapixel camera at the rear. Connectivity wise, the phone could have been better with it even skipping a 3G chip. You would need to be content with Bluetooth and Edge support only. It gets a decently spec’d music player with the provision of using your own headphones – thanks to the 3.5 mm Audio jack. The QWERTY keypad looked decent, and there is a Blackberry like touchpad for navigation.
Coming to Facebook integration, the device is capable of doing everything you can do on the web version of the site except for maybe the games part. In fact, the first thing the phone asks for after powering it on for the first time is you Facebook ID and details. If you do not have a Facebook ID, you can simply sign up for the service from the startup screen. You can update your status, upload phones, like and comment on status messages and do all the normal things people are on Facebook for with the Vodafone Blue.
Vodafone is offering the handset with a years’ worth of Facebook access free if you sign in from the device using a Vodafone connection. It has Opera Mini as the default browser and has Palringo as the default chat client for other networks. The phone has been priced at Rs, 4950 in India and would be available at most dealers. Note that the phone is unlocked, and there is no compulsion to use it only on Vodafone; although you would miss out on that one year worth of free data (Facebook only!) if you are on a different network.
More on the phone when we would be reviewing this one on detail!
