Ringing Bells strikes again, and this time harder than the last time. After a prolonged wait for the shipping of the world's cheapest smartphone – Freedom 251 – the company said it would finally ship the first batch of 5,000 units on July 8. While there is still no word on the shipment of the 2 lakh units that were promised to be delivered on July 6, Ringing Bells launched a series of new products at an event in New Delhi on Friday, including the world's cheapest LED TV and a range of six new mobile devices.
The launch of the new LED TV isn't surprising as the company had confirmed it last month. The new LED TV, called the Freedom 9900, is priced at Rs. 9,990 and measures 31.5 inches diagonally. The company is aiming to start deliveries of the Freedom 9900 by Aug. 15.
Even as Ringing Bells continues to face criticism over non-delivery of the Freedom 251, six new models, priced higher than Freedom 251, have been launched now. Four of the six models are feature phones and have similar specs. The feature phones are named King, Boss, Raja and Hit while the smartphones are called Elegant and Elegance.
The King smartphone has the largest display at 2.8 inches, while the base Hit smartphone has a 1.8-inch screen, along with a 2MP camera and a 1,250mAh battery. The other two models have a 2.4-inch TFT display each, a 2-megapixel rear-facing camera and 32GB storage. The King's battery is 1,800mAh while Boss has a bigger 2,000mAh unit. In terms of pricing, as one can guess, the feature phones cost less than the smartphone models.
The King smartphone is priced at Rs. 899, while the Boss and Raja cost Rs. 999 and Rs. 1,099, respectively. Ringing Bells Hit smartphone is the cheapest model at Rs. 699, but still doesn't match close to what the Freedom 251 offers.
The Elegant and Elegance smartphones aren't much different from each other. The Elegant smartphone is priced at Rs. 3,999, while the Elegance costs Rs. 4,499. In terms of specifications, both phones have a 5-inch HD display, a quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB expandable storage, dual SIM support and an 8MP rear and 3.2MP front camera. The budget smartphones run Android 6.0 Marshmallow out-of-the-box.
The only difference between the two handsets is that the Elegance supports 4G LTE, and has a bigger battery capacity of 2,800mAh. The Elegant smartphone supports 3G bands and has a 2,500mAh battery. The availability of all the six new phones is not known yet.
By looking at the prices of the new phones, it seems Ringing Bells is looking to make profits, which wasn't the case with Freedom 251. According to an Economic Times report, the CEO of Ringing Bells, Mohit Goel, said that the company was making 10-15 percent profit on TVs and the newly launched smartphones.
