Cost effective

Here’s the kind of phenomenon that we don’t come across very often— a low price phone that functions really well. Shayne Rana reviews it for us.

Camera
The on-board VGA camera captures images in 640 x 480 pixels. It also supports video recording in 3GP or mp4 format. Settings including a self timer, White Balance adjust, Night mode and Burst mode as well as a few other colour options. The image quality is not bad for a VGA resolution phone camera.

Form
The KP119 has a stylish flare with a shiny chrome border, a large keypad and a five way navigation pad. Its 1.7-inch TFT LCD screen with 128 x 160 pixel resolution and 256k colours is clearly visible in direct sunlight. The volume/zoom keys are located above the hot-swap microSD card slot. A proprietary slot meant for USB (2.0), handsfree and the charger and a dedicated camera key are located on the opposite side. With its 16.6 mm depth, you won't call this a slim phone.

The KP199's proprietal user interface is frienly. Our only gripe is that you need nine button presses to send one message. Most handsets require upto four. The KP199 comes with a Talking Phone feature that reads out numbers when dialling and calls out numbers of incoming calls (not names). It can also be set to call out the time every hour.

Connectivity
The KP199 is GPRS-enabled but doesn't support EDGE. The browser is easy to navigate but you can't download emails. Other connectivity options Bluetooth with A2DP support and USB 2.0.

Media
The KP199's audio quality isn't great, but it is good enough. A quick poll I took on the bundled earphones showed that they aren't altogether uncomfortable. The music player comes with eight EQ presets and music quality isn't bad — the bass was just a bit off and the highs needed some toning down. The phone reads mp3, eAAC+, WMA and WMV, AMR file formats.

FM radio has decent reception while commuting and sounds quite good when you've caught a clear signal. Its FM recording feature also allows users to fix the start and end time of the recorder for a specific channel. Voice Recording option is also available. 3GP and mobile mp4 video playback is perfect for short clips, but not for full length movies.

Verdict
The most impressive feature of this phone is its big 3.7V, 1350mAh battery that just doesn't seem to quit. On full charge, I used the handset for three days with games, camera, music and a few calls and messages included. Talktime came up to about seven hours non stop.

With a price tag of ₹4,219 (at the Mobile Store) and ₹4,390 (price printed on the box) the KP199 is an excellent budget mobile with plenty to offer from media to battery life. It supports up to 4 GB via microSD so you'll have plenty of space for media with that small additional investment.

http://tech2.in.com/go/60782