Aiming to tap the affordable smartphone market, Chinese company Itel Mobile on March 20 launched three new smartphones in India — Itel S42, Itel A44 and the Itel A44 Pro.
All the three smartphones come with some interesting features like 18:9 fullscreen displays, 4G VoLTE connectivity, and front LED flash among other things.
The Transsion Holdings-owned company, which had teased a budget-friendly fullscreen display series earlier this month, has launched the phones as offline-only models, meaning that customers will be able to buy these phones from brick-and-mortar stores.
The flagship Itel S42 will face direct competition from the recently launched Xiaomi Redmi 5, while the cheaper Itel A44 will be taking on the Redmi 5A and Micromax Bharat 5.
Itel S42, A44 and A44 Pro Prices
The Itel S42, which is the most premium of the three devices, has been launched at a price of Rs 8,499 and the Itel A44 at Rs 5,799. Both these phones will be available for purchase from March 20 via Itel partner retailers across India.
The price and availability details of the Itel A44 Pro are not yet disclosed. However, the company says that the Itel A44 Pro will be made available at a later date.
Itel S42 Specifications
As mentioned earlier the S42 is the most premium device of the three and it features a 5.65-inch HD+ (720x1440 pixels) IPS display with 18:9 aspect ratio and 2.5D curved glass protection. The device is powered by a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 octa-core chipset along with 3GB of RAM. The handset packs 16GB storage which can be expanded further using a microSD card up to 128GB.
In terms of the optics, the Itel S42 features a 13MP rear camera with phase detection autofocus (PDAF). The front-facing camera is also a 13MP shooter which is accompanied by dual soft light LED flash for better low-light selfies.
The handset features a fingerprint scanner at the back, which the company claims can unlock the device in just 0.1 seconds. In addition, a face recognition unlocking feature will also be enabled on the device via a future software update.
Connectivity options in the Itel S42 include dual SIM support, 4G VoLTE connectivity, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS and Micro USB OTG support.
The Itel S42 is fuelled by a 3000mAh battery and runs the latest Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box.
Itel A44 Specifications
The Itel A44 is smaller than the Itel S42 and sports a 5.45-inch FWVGA+ (480x960 pixels) display with 18:9 aspect ratio. It is powered by an unspecified 64-bit quad-core processor along with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, expandable via microSD card up to 32GB only.
The Itel A44 sports a 5MP fixed focus camera on the rear and another 5MP autofocus camera on the front, both the cameras are assisted by flash.
The company is touting a bike mode with the A44. The face unlocking feature would come to the phone in the future with a software update. Currently, it has a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. The Itel A44 packs a 2400mAh battery. The company claims it delivers up to 240 hours of standby time.
Itel A44 Pro specifications
The Itel A44 Pro is the slightly upgraded version of the Itel A44. It comes with a few improvements.
The Pro variant comes with a 5.45-inch HD+ (720x1440 pixels) display, 2GB of RAM with 16GB storage, and an upgraded 8MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture over the Itel A44. The rest of the specs, including the battery capacity, are the same as the regular model.
