Thread: This New Model In Spice D Series-d 90 Mobile Phone

GOING RENTRO,Spice, a pioneer in dual SIM phones in India, has introduced the D90 handset that sup¬ports t,,"o GSM connections. The dual SltV1. functionality is new but the design is not. This latest entrant to Spice's D company has retro looks and is quite a handful. However, the user interface is pretty simple. The body is made up of good quality plastic and the back panel has horizontal assembly of speak¬ers and a 2.0 megapixel camera. TIle phone has a 2.0 inch LCD screen with a speaker above it and the D-pad below. The D-pad has four keys around it namely, short keys for menu and contacts and two calling keys. The direction keys of the D-pad act as short keys for browsing, Bluetooth, MP3 player and message composer. Below it is the alpha numeric keypad with well sized keys, which are comfortable to use. The left panel has the volume rocker and microSD card slot and the right panel consists of the headset slot and the USB slot. The phone comes with an extra battery and a USB cable for USB connectivity.

DOUBLE DHAMAKA,As the name suggests, the D 90 is a dual SIM phone that can support two active GS. connections simultaneously. Since they we the first ones to launch dual SIM phones, II expected the functionality to be sound but were a bit disappointed. The SIMs are depicted as Master (for the main SIM) and Slave (for the secondary SltV1.). There are separate phonebooks for two SIMs and dif¬ferent SMS and MMS inboxes. The dual SIM functionality comes with the convenience of call holding and swapping of calls in realtime. Secondly, in order to change the master and slavc SIM one doesn't have to switch off or restart the phone. There are four modes in which we were able to use the dual SIM options. Slave SIM/ Master SIM, where the Slave SIM becomes primary number but calls can be received on both. Master SIM/ Slave SIM where the Master SIM becomes the primary number and then Slave SIM where only slave SIM works and Master SIM, where only MasterSIM works. 111is gives the freedom of being able to use only one number if required. For dialling the number one can directly choose the number from which the call is to be made. Similarly, the PIM functionality is also very structured; phone gives the option of choos¬ing the SIM in which the number has to be saved. 111e phonebook of each SIM is also dis¬played separately.



MULTIMEDIA RICH ,D90 also has an impres¬sive set of multi¬media fea¬tures. The 2.0-megapix¬el camera gives good results but has no flash. The camera has fea¬tures like delayed timer and multiple shot. The highest picture resolution can be set at I600xI200 pixels and one can also set the image quality to high, normal or low. The camera has night mode option and one can add effects and frames to the pic¬ture. The video quality of the phone is acceptable. The quality of video can be set from low to normal to high to fine. You can also set the recording time ranging from IS seconds to 60 seconds. The phone has a good battery back up. A single charging can last upto three hours of normal talktime. The Spice D90 has a music player and an FM radio. The audio quality in the headset mode is good while on the loudspeaker it is acceptable. The FM radio also has a recording func¬tion but no FM alarm functionality or sched¬ule FM record has been provided. A 256 MB micro SD memory card is available with the handset. The phone supports up to 2 GB memory. The handset has GPRS capabili¬ties and for enhanced browsing experience, Opera Mini Web browser comes pre-loaded on to it. 111e handset scores over others in the same range because of its longer battery life. It has strong security features like the mobile tracker and the panic button, which saves up to five numbers for emergency use. The emergency message can be of 140 characters.

ALTERNATIVELY ,The Spice D90 comes with a price tag of Rs 6,149. Another dual SIM phone in this range is Bleu 670z priced at Rs 7,799.