The iphone has taken more than a year to be finally available across the counter in India. Though the iphone was illegally available in India for quite sometime now - but as predicted in my article way back in May, it's released by Airtel.It will soon be available on Vodafone too. But the prices quoted by Airtel seem to be really off the mark - Rs. 31k for a 8GB model and Rs. 36k for a 16GB iphone 3G is simply "NO VALUE FOR MONEY". The iphone has so many drawbacks and yet it is so highly priced for all the hype that is created. I read that Airtel has said it has had too many bookings and it will be difficult for it's dealers to keep pace.
Com'on folks why should one be so dumb to take a product that is almost double the price for the features. There are simply superb phones with much better camera and other features from Sony Ericcson, Nokia, HTC and others. The very high end phones are only priced at Rs. 30k+ from these market leaders and I do agree with their prices on that.
Most high end phones now sport a 5MP camera, a large memory which can be expanded and made much larger, WiFi support, full screen browser, in-built GPS, etc. Most of the above features simply don't exist in the current iphone 3G and yet it is priced so high!! The iphone for once lacks a decent camera, no bluetooth support for transfering files, the list simply goes on.... All that it has is a very intutive interface, multi-touch sensitive screen, motion detection to tilt screen accordingly.
I am sure we'll have the second hand ones hit the market soon for atleast 50% of the original price. Let's wait and watch.
