Airtel and Karbonn launch affordable smartphones

Bharti Airtel and Karbonn, On Thursday, have announced two new smartphones for the Indian market. Both the companies claim that highlight of their partnership is launching smartphones at price of feature phones. The partnership is termed as ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone” and as the name suggests targets the first time smartphone buyers.

Both the smartphones come with similar specifications such as 4-inch WVGA display, run on Android 7.0 Nougat, pack 1GB of RAM, 8GB inbuilt storage, dual-SIM support, and 4G with VoLTE support. However, the A1 Indian is powered by a 1.1GHz quad-core processor and packs a 1500mAh battery while the Karbonn A41 Power is powered by 1.3GHz quad-core processor and packs 2300mAh battery. The Karbonn A1 Indian sports 3.2-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front camera. The Karbonn A41 Power sports a 2-megapixel rear and a 0.3-megapixel front camera.

To get the A1 Indian, the customer needs to make a down payment of Rs 3299 and for the A41 Power; the down payment is Rs 3349. Once purchased, Customers need to make 36 continuous monthly recharges of Rs 169 pack from Airtel. The customer will get a cash refund of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 after 18 and 36 months respectively.

In case the customer does not wish to opt for the Rs 169 bundled plan, they can do recharges of any denomination and validity as per individual requirements. However, to claim the cash refund benefit, recharges worth Rs 3000 must be done within the first 18 months (to claim the first refund installment of Rs 500) and additional Rs 3000 over the next 18 months (to claim the second refund installment of Rs 1000).   

Taking a dig at Jio, Airtel says, "The ownership of the smartphone remains with the customer and there is no need to return the device to Airtel/Karbonn at any point to claim the cash benefit."