Suspense unveils as Ringing Bells to start delivery of Freedom 251 mobile.

Veil is being unveiled from the suspense created for last five months over the final delivery of Freedom 251 mobile, world’s cheapest smart phone launched by Noida based company, Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd. The world’s cheapest smart phone at Rs. 251 (less than $4) is finally being delivered from 30th June onwards to the people who had registered for it. Its makers, the Noida based startup Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd, say they have made it possible despite allegations from various quarters that such a phone would not see the light of the day. Even an FIR was lodged against the company.

CEO of the company, Mohit Goel, who did not appear publically for a long time, was seen sitting comfortably in his Noida office. He said that company has kept its promise to the consumers. According to him, nearly two lakh handsets are ready to be dispatched from 30th June in the first phase of the delivery. Company will open registrations again after the clearance of all previous bookings.

The company had in mid-February this year planned to deliver 25 lakh handsets before June 30. However, it received over seven crore registrations before its payment gateway crashed within three days. Goel further said that opening the product with such bumper bookings was a mistakes and company should have controlled booking so that a balance could have been made between bookings and supply. Company learned from the mistakes and decided to go silent till it came out with product.

There were many rumours in the market that company has fled with money and blah-blah. Now, with the 4-inch dual SIM is ready for the delivery, the makers feel vindicated. Company will have a loss of Rs. 140 – Rs. 150 per unit but hopes to make profit on volumes. Despite initial losses, company is happy to connect rural and poor segment as part of ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’.

The 3G device has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage and supports external memory cards of up to 32GB. The company has offered an 8-megapixel primary camera with flash, a 3.2-megapixel front camera for selfie and an 1800mAh battery. It runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop).
The phone is available in two colours – black and white – with centrally aligned rear camera and branding on the back panel. It has a speaker just alongside the branding. The device displays the Indian Tricolour when you switch it on. The company has incorporated all the basic Google apps in the handset.

Freedom 251 will be delivered with pre installed fourteen apps which cannot be disabled. The apps have subsidized the cost of the phone as these apps providers have become branding partner of the company and agreed to bear some cost of the device.

The devices are completely ‘Make in India and have been manufactured at Haridwar (Uttrakhand) based manufacturing unit. Company initially targets to manufacture two lakh units every month. The company is also planning to launch a 32-inch high-definition LED television – also called “Freedom” – in the first week of July. These will be the cheapest television sets in India and will be available for less than Rs 10,000. Within two days, the delivery would be made and will be sold online. In comparison, the cost of 32-inch HD LED TV sets normally begins from Rs. 13,000.

With 30th June approaching, phones will be available for public use as claimed by company. As doubts were raised in the market about feasibility of providing such configuration phone at price of 251, company has finally made it possible. What will be future of this device in terms of quality, durability and performance; will take some time to answer on the basis of users views. Till then, hope this phone to make access to people who want all features phone and get connected with ‘Digital India’ like campaigns of the Govt.