Indian smartphone vendor Intex on Friday, listed the Aqua Dream II entry-level smartphone on its website at an MSRP of Rs. 7,190 ($115). The handset will be offered in three different color options, namely Black, Champagne and Silver, and will replace the first generation Aqua Dream smartphone, which was launched by the company earlier this year. While details about the phone’s availability is still up in the air, it is expected to be sold at local brick and mortar stores as well as through online retail outlets in the coming weeks.
Coming to hardware specs of the newly launched device, the Aqua Dream II features a 5.5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. The smartphone comes with a Spreadtrum SC7731 chipset under the hood, which has a quad-core processor clocked at a frequency of 1.2 GHz. The smartphone carries 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage, which can be extended further by up to 32 GB with the help of a microSD card. The phone will run Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box and carry a 2,300 mAh battery, which will reportedly be able to deliver up to 10 hours of talk-time and up to 250 hours of standby time.
Coming to the connectivity options available on the phone, the Aqua Dream II includes support for 3G, GPRS, EDGE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, micro USB, and Bluetooth, but misses out on 4G LTE. It measures 157 mm in length, 79 mm in height and 7.9 mm in thickness, and weighs 171 grams. As for the imaging options found on the handset, the primary camera on the rear of the device comes with an 8-megapixel sensor with autofocus and an LED flash, whereas the secondary selfie-cam found on the front of the smartphone, comes with a 2-megapixel sensor. The default camera app on the phone comes with features such as HDR, automatic scene, Panorama, continuous shots, color effect and freeze frame display.
With a number of Chinese smartphone brands flooding the Indian market over the past year with affordably-priced value-for-money devices, established incumbents like Samsung have been feeling the heat. It remains to be seen how well Indian vendors like Intex can match up to their Chinese counterparts in the increasingly competitive Indian smartphone market, especially at the entry and mid-levels.