Monday, June 3, 2013

Vega Racer 2

So all these years i'd been managing with underpowered entry level phones.. phones with typically 800mhz processors and 256-512mb of ram.. and miniscule internal memory. That was also because i refused to spend more than INR15000 on a handheld device that i might accidentally drop!



My last phone was good. The rough and tough Motorola Defy+ was a good phone.. had used it for a year, but had started to notice sluggishness with some apps like Flipboard and simple games like Temple Run..



so last week i decided to upgrade.. while maintaining the sub 15k budget.. but to get a performance device.



So i started looking at Micromax's Canvas phones.. they seemed like they fit the bill.. great processor, ram, etc.. and then i saw the miniscule internal memory. So finally i got fedup and started doing some research..



Samsung is great.. but they can't be the only big brand that makes great phones in Korea? a little digging and i discovered this brand i'd never heard of - Pantech. Google results showed that they were second to Samsung in Korea.. and had recently enterred the US market.. no on entering India though.



Then after digging up some names for their year old models i found a few promising ones.

went over to DHGate.com and found the fastest of the models available for INR10,000 !



Now it is their 2012 flagship model... which is why it was so cheap... but the thing is, in india Samsung and HTC's 2011 flagship models still cost INR30,000 !!

so basically i was getting a phone that was better than those.. for one third the price!












so i ordered it. and it arrived today.



here are the specs:

Pantech SKY Vega Racer 2 A830S

-Android 4.1

-Dual Core 1.5GHz

-RAM 1GB

-Internal memory 16GB

-dimensions: 68.9mm X 132.4mm X 9.35mm

(4.8" screen)

-NFC enabled.



My Critical eye caught these details:

-back cover is flimsy.. comes off with little effort(like old nokia phones).. will have to keep an eye on it.. might get super loose over time.. can use the yellow bumbper case then.



-main camera is ok.. nothing great.. have to check video quality, but most reviewers have said its nothing special



-since its not gorilla glass(like my Moto Defy) i have to be careful.. this is the first phone i'm putting the protective film on!





all in all seems good for 10k (+1900 for customs duty)



will know what the battery is like in a few days(probably bad, coz they gave me a spare one!)



Here are the extras that came with it(not mentioned on the site or anywhere)







- a mini capacitive stylus,

- a yellow bumper case,

- a green rubber ball with a suction cup thing... that i later figured out was a stand :)





(the manual is in korean)

- a weird telescopic antenna .. need to look this up





i'd already ordered a neoprene cover from another guy, that fits fine.. but i think i'll use that when am wearing trousers and don't want to have too much of a bulge in my pocket.. for daily use will try out the yellow thing.. but most likely i won't use a case :P



it seems to have nfc options.. but i have no way of testing till i find a nfc deployment in some mall or somewhere :P





oh and the shipment was delayed a few days, so i wrote to the seller asking about that.. they promptly replied that they were installing a Jellybean ROM for me :)





more updates to follow.. initial game tests have rocked!







via Inaccessible is Accessible http://my.opera.com/chaitanyak/blog/show.dml/63437722

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