Ringing Bells,, a little-know Noida-based company, has launched the Freedom 251 smartphone in New Delhi on 17-Feb-2016.  At the launch, the company said you can buy the Rs. 251 smartphone by booking on the official website freedom251.com from 6 am on February 18 to 8 pm on February 21.The deliveries, however,  will be completed four months later – by June 30, 2016. This article covers Freedom 251, which might be the cheapest smartphone in the world, its specifications, What are the concerns about the phone and How to Book?

Specifications of Freedom 251

On Surface of it Freedom 251 seems good. Specifications are given below.

• Operating System : Android
• Android Version : 5.1 Lollipop
• Processor : 1.3 GHz Quad Core
• RAM : 1 GB
• ROM (Internal Storage) : 8 GB
• Expandable Memory : Upto 32 GB via a microSD card.
• Front Camera : 0.3 MP
• Rear Camera : 3.2 MP
• Screen Size (Display) : 4″ Inch with a resolution of 540 pixels by 960 pixels.
• Battery : 1450 mAh
• Price : 251 Rupees Only
• Dual-SIM 3G capable phone. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM. Sensors on the phone include Proximity sensor.
• The Freedom 251 smartphone ships with a number of apps pre-installed on it like Women Safety, Swachh Bharat, WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube.
• The phone will come with a standard warranty of 1 year. According to the company’s website, “this warranty of the product extends for a period of 12 months for the host unit, 6 months for battery and charger, and 3 months for earphone commencing from the date of purchase.”

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  Ringing Bells Freedom 251

The Freedom 251 looks like yet another iPhone clone, not only on the exterior (complete with the circular home button) but even the app icons appear like a rip-off of what’s found on iOS.

The phone also appears to be a rebranded version of another phone marketed in India by New Delhi-based Adcom. The Adcom Ikon 4 (listed on a number of online shopping sites) shares the same looks and specifications as the Ringing Bells Freedom 251, including the appearance of the Apple-like icons.
The YouTube video shows the NDTV gadgets.com  review of Freedom 251.

Concerns over the Cheapest Phone : Is Freedom 251 A Scam

At an event presided by BJP MP Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi in New Delhi on Wednesday Feb 17, 2016, India’s Rs. 251 smartphone the Ringing Bell Freedom 251 was officially launched. The themes of Digital India, Skill India, and Make in India were given a lot of importance at the launch event, as the potential use cases of the phone to empower citizens in rural and semi-urban areas were highlighted. Ref: NDTV Gadgets 

The launch is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for “empowering India to the last person, transforming India’s growth story”, the Noida-based company said. “The phone will be popularly priced at under Rs 500…this event and launch stands as a true testimony of success of the latest initiatives taken by the Government of India,” according to a media invite sent by the firm. Well its good to know heart is in the right place but it raises so many questions and/or concerns.

The company did not share too many details, but stated the although the chipset will be imported from Taiwan at present, the rest of Freedom 251 would be made in India; the goal is to make up to 75 percent of the hardware in India by the end of one year, and to raise this to 100 percent over time, said Ringing Bells President Ashok Chadha. To accomplish this, the company is looking at investing in two manufacturing plants – in Noida and Uttaranchal – immediately as a pilot project at an estimated cost of Rs. 500 crore, with a targeted capacity of 5 lakh units each per month, with a goal of having five manufacturing centres in total over time, Chadha added.

Ashok Chadha, president at Ringing Bells, tried to explain the so-called business model of a phone,with a manufacturing cost of Rs. 2500, that seems to be retailing at a loss. In his words: “If you look at the Indian market, it is at 2-crore units a month. If you take 30 per cent of that, then you achieve economies of scale. Because of this economies of scale, we reduce the cost of the phone by around Rs.500. “First, we reduce around Rs.400 on the Rs.2,500 price by getting a duty exemption.” And to top it all off, Ringing Bills is trying to beat India’s leading ecommerce sites.  “Many players want to use our e-commerce platform to sell their products, so we make up the remaining Rs.700-800.”

Currently, the other cheapest smartphones available in the market are priced around Rs 1,500. Last year, DataWind had announced that it is teaming up with Reliance Communications to launch the world’s most affordable smartphone, priced at Rs 999. The phone is yet to hit the market.

Buying a phone in the US or Europe on contract essentially involves the operator giving away the smartphone to you in exchange for your commitment to pay a certain amount in usage fees every month for a determined amount of time. In 2013, Reliance Communications offered a similar scheme  where it would give you an iPhone 5s at no upfront cost along with a usage plan that gave you unlimited calls, texts and data, although you would have to pay a rather high monthly fee for two years.

All phones sold in India must be certified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Getting this certification done is both time consuming and expensive. However, it appears that the BIS registration of the Ringing Bells Freedom 251 has not been done, as it is not listed in the list of manufacturers registered by BIS. This means that if the phone is a new device made by Ringing Bells, then it has not been certified as safe for use in India.

Is impossible to produce a smartphone with the specifications of the Freedom 251 at under Rs. 251, and the Indian Cellular Association thinks so too.  Expressing concern over the launch of a smartphone at price as low as Rs. 251, mobile industry body ICA has written to Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to get into depth of the issue, saying the rate could not be below Rs. 3,500 even after a subsidised sale. The bill of material (BOM) value for a product like this when sourced from the cheapest supply chain cost approximately $40 (Rs 2,700). And this, when translated into retail price after addition of applicable duties, taxes and with distribution and retail margins would be at least Rs. 4,100 while the product is being sold at Rs. 251. He further added that even if the product is sold at lower margins in an e-commerce type subsidised sale, the final consumer price cannot come below $52-55 (about Rs. 3,500-3,800).

The company may be willing to sell the phone for less than its manufacturing cost, but then more questions arise as to who is paying for this subsidy. It could’ve been the government, although the company has confirmed that this is not the case

Aakash Tablet

Freedom 251 reminds one of Aakash Tablet. So What happened to Aakash Tablet?

Aakash was an Android-based tablet computer promoted by the Government of India as part of an initiative to link 25,000 colleges and 400 universities in an e-learning program. It is produced by the British-Canadian company DataWind. The tablet was officially launched as the Aakash in New Delhi on 5 October 2011. Commercial version of Aakash was marketed as UbiSlate 7 . The Aakash 2, codenamed UbiSlate 7C, was released on 11 November 2012.  It’s official website is www.akashtablet.com.

The Aakash tablet was one of the biggest embarrassments of the year. Instead of a home-grown device that could deliver great value for students, we got a tablet whose touch screen worked inaccurately and with lag, one that was so slow that most apps wouldn’t work properly, and worse, it needed to be reset fully after a few hours of use. The project was transferred to IIT Bombay in April 2012, and in mid-2013 it was decided that Department of Electronics and IT would take it forward.

DataWind PC 7SC Tablet With Free Internet Access was Launched in India in Dec 2015 at Rs. 2999, and is available for Purchase Via Snapdeal

Things to remember before you buy the Freedom 251

1. A general rule in life – if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
2. Ringing Bells is an unknown brand with no track record in electronics, so it’s difficult to ascertain at this point what the quality of the final product and the after-sales will be like.
3. The company says it may take up to 4 months for your unit to ship.
4. There seems to be no kind of return policy on the website, though it does say your Freedom 251 unit is covered by a one-year warranty.

How to book Freedom 251 mobile

Ringing Bells says bookings for the Freedom 251 will reopen on Friday.The steps to book your Freedom 251 mobile are given below. We were able to book it on Friday morning, 19 Feb 2016, at 5 am.

1. Go to the official website freedom251.com.
2. Click on Buy Now button.
3. Enter your Name and Address details.  Ringing Bells is charging Rs. 40 for shipping Freedom 251 so the total you will need to pay is Rs. 291.
4. Accept the terms and conditions and click on Order Now .
5. You get a screen which confirms your order. No money is asked.

On Thur morning, 18 feb 2016,People who logged on to freedom251.com complained that not all transactions where going through. In fact,the site itself crashed for sometime on Thur morning. Ringing Bells President Ashok Chadha Goel while talking to NDTV’s Rajiv Makhni, said number of hits was as much as 63 lakh per second, which was more than the payment processor or server could handle. But only that over 30,000 units have been sold, less than what many other brands have been claiming to sell ‘within seconds’ despite much higher price tags.  At the launch, Ringing Bells has said that if the number of orders crosses 2.5 lakhs, the company will have to stop taking further orders.

Go to the official website freedom251.com. Click on Buy Now button

 

Enter your Name and Address details.  Ringing Bells is charging Rs. 40 for shipping Freedom 251 so the total you will need to pay is Rs. 291. Accept the terms and conditions and click on Order Now .

You get a screen which confirms your order. No money is asked

Earlier, the company had stated that all registered customers on the site will receive an email within 48 hours of placing their booking with the payment options. The company has now confirmed that it has not sent out the payment emails to anyone else who registered – “we were working out details of cash on delivery, which we are announcing now, so we will be sending emails to the first 2.5 million people who registered with the site – less 30,000 – to give them the option to pay online or when they get the phone,”

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A smartphone priced at Rs. 251 will go a long way in connecting every Indian, and like the previous government tried to take computing to the masses with the Aakash tablet, the Freedom 251 has the potential to realise the ‘Digital India’ vision. Freedom 251 Smartphone raises More Questions Than Answers. What do you think of Freedom 251? Did you order one? Why or Why not?