Newsletter
The Indian smart phone market is a fiercely contested market for handset manufacturers, and it’s getting particularly heated in the budget segment. With Google’s Android One partners (Spice/MicroMax/Karbonn) and Xiaomi’s Redmi 1S providing better than average hardware for affordable prices, there’s a lot of choice for the Indian consumer. Panasonic has just unveiled yet another option though with it’s T40 smart phone, coming in with a price of Rs. 5,990 ($97).
What does the T40 have to offer? Well, it has a 4-inch IPS display with a resolution of 800 x 480 (WVGA), and is powered by an unnamed Quad-Core processor that is clocked at 1.3GHz. At this price range, it’s quite likely that the CPU is manufactured by MediaTek, based purely on the proliferation of their chips in budget smart phones. The usual 1GB of RAM is present and internal storage is limited to 8GB although this can be augmented by up to 32GB thanks to the included Micro-SD card slot. The cameras follow the usual budget smart phone formula, offering up a 2MP camera on the front and a 5MP camera with flash on the rear. There is also the customary 3.5mm headphone jack. A 1500mAh battery is present and while its definitely a little on the skinny side, considering the rest of the hardware it should just manage to get through the day.
As is common with handsets aimed at the Indian market, FM Radio is present, along with Dual-SIM support. The Panasonic T40 includes the usual Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi and GPS features. Which means as you can probably already tell, the T40 doesn’t support LTE networks, although that’s probably not a big deal when considering the target market.
On to the software, and the T40 is running Android version 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box, it’s always nice to see a new phone running up-to-date firmware at launch. Carrying on the software theme, the T40 comes with several applications pre-installed including Gesture Play+, Music Cafe and Pop-i Player.
At Rs. 5,990 ($97), does the Panasonic T40 carry enough appeal when compared to its competitors such as Xiaomi’s Redmi 1S or the Android One handsets? Let us know your thoughts on Panasonic’s latest budget smart phone at out Google Plus page.
