Top 10 Popular Mobile Phones for Students

If we ask any college student about the most indispensable thing in his or her life, I am sure for most of them it will be their mobile. Over the last 2 years we have seen a dramatic shift in the mobile usage amongst students because of the following factors.

• Cheap Internet on Mobile (as low as Rs. 99 for unlimited usage for a month) plus Wi-fi access on mobiles.
• Rise of Facebook and Twitter
• Phones with Qwerty keypads for fast messaging and larger displays to consume content.
• Touch screen phones with even larger displays to consume video media.
• Cheaper phones with lots of features
• Cheaper memory to store media and files

Students have been at the fore front of this shift as they have embraced everything that these new mobiles can offer and now the demand from them is pushing the innovation even further.

In this post we highlight the top 10 mobiles popular among students. These mobiles have been selected based on following key requirements of most students:

• Economical (Rs. 10K or less)
• Feature rich
• Possibly qwerty (for lots of texting) or Touch screen
• Expandable memory to store lots of music
• Good multimedia capability
• Social Networking Integration
• Internet Access (via GPRS or Wi-Fi)

While there are many mobiles which satisfy the above requirements, not all have made their mark. This list of popular mobiles has been decided based upon inputs from some students / youngsters and mysmartprice usage analysis.

Nokia 5230 Xpress Music

Nokia 5230 is an entry level touchscreen music phone from Nokia.  It comes with a 3.2 inches TFT resistive touchscreen with a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels. It features Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, 3.5 mm audio jack, and supports memory of up to 16GB. It runs on Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5 and 128 MB RAM. It also comes with a 2 MP camera, A-GPS support, Video Recording and Document Viewer. Overall at its price and with Nokia brand, it’s a tremendous value for money. For students who are looking for economical touch screen phone with good multimedia, Nokia 5230 is an ideal choice. Perhaps that’s why, this phone has been really popular.
Best Price: 6,899

Nokia 5800 Xpress Music

Nokia 5800 was one of the first touch screen phones from Nokia. It was Nokia’s answer to all the highly popular touch screen phones from Samsung and other companies. This phone comes with a 3.2 inches TFT resistive touchscreen with a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels. It supports 3G, Wi-fi and other connectivity. It supports microSD card up to 16GB. Camera is 3.15 MP with Carl Zeiss Optics, autofocus and dual-LED flash. OS is standard Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5 and it supports GPS navigation and comes with Nokia Maps 2.0 Touch. Though its price is slightly higher for students it offers lots of features and comes with the Nokia peace of mind. Perhaps that’s why this phone has been popular with the younger generation.
Best Price: Rs. 12,000

Samsung Corby S3653

When Samsung launched Corby S3653, it became an instant success among students and young professionals. It comes with a 2.8 inch capacitive touch screen with 240 x 320 pixel resolution. It features Samsung’s TouchWiz interface and supports 3 home screens. Camera is 2 MP and works decently well. It was designed with young people in mind and comes with social networking widgets for Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, email, messaging and many other widgets. It comes with office document viewer that supports Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files. Overall for its price it’s a fantastic mobile and hence it sold like crazy!
Best Price: Rs. 5,061

Samsung Chat C3222

Samsung Chat C3222 is a new entry level Qwerty mobile from Samsung designed with just messaging and social networking in mind. It comes with a full Qwerty keypad and an Optical trackpad. Screen is 2.2 Inch and camera is basic 1.3 MP. It comes loaded with applications for Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Email and Messaging. Best part of this mobile is that it’s a Dual SIM mobile. With the success of Micromax Q5FB and Q7, I am sure that this mobile is going to be a big hit among students who want 24×7 access to social networking and friends.
Best Price: Rs. 4,366

Samsung Galaxy5 I5503

Samsung Galaxy5 I5503 and an entry level Android phone from Samsung. It is targeted towards those geeky students and young professionals who want to play around with their mobile, configure it to the core and install apps. It comes with a 2.8 inches, 240 x 320 pixels TFT capacitive touchscreen. It supports 3G, Wi-fi, GPS navigation. It comes with a 2 MP camera and 3.5 mm audio jack. Overall its one of the best entry level Androids available in the market and that’s why it getting popular with techie students and junta.
Best Price: Rs. 8,889

LG Cookie Fresh GS290

LG Cookie Fresh GS290 is LG’s answer to the popular Samsung Corby. It comes with a 3.0 inch, 240 x 400 pixels TFT resistive touchscreen and supports 3 home screens. 3G and Wi-Fi are not available. Camera is 2MP and it comes with video recording and editing. LG Cookie fresh has a good Social Networking integration with a dedicated Social Networking Client. It also features a helpful Oxford Dictionary widget. LG Cookie Fresh comes with inbuilt FM antenna. Going by the price of this mobile, it’s an excellent value for money phone.
Best Price: Rs. 5,299

Micromax Q5FB (and Q7)

Micromax Q5FB and its successor Q7 have been super popular among students and young professionals simply because of all the features offered for such an incredible price. Q5FB was marketed as a Facebook phone as it supported Facebook and other social networking integration. It was one of the cheapest Qwerty phones which supported social networking when launched, and this made it an instant super hit.  Micromax Q5FB comes with a 2.2 inch display, Qwerty keypad, 2 MP camera, Dual SIM, Multi IM and one touch Facebook launch. Micromax Q7 is the successor to Q5FB comes with additional features like Wi-Fi and a new sleek design.
Best Price: Rs. 3,489 (Q5FB)   Best Price: Rs. 3,829 (Q7)

Micromax Bling Q55

Micromax Bling Q55 was another master-stroke from Micromax. An affordable phone designed exclusively for girls with a marketing campaign that was bang on. Bling has become really popular with young girls especially students. It comes with a 2.2 inch display, chic design, Swarovski studded chassis, unique swivel design which makes it really compact when folded, vanity mirror at its rear, which girls need all the time! Apart from this it comes with all the usual stuff like a decent 2 MP camera, FM, music player etc.
Best Price: Rs. 4,629

Lava A10

Lava A10 is another good looking touch screen phone which comes at an economical price. Lava A10 comes with a 3 inch TFT touchscreen with 240 x 400 pixels resolution. This touch screen is IPS which enhances viewing experience. It is bundled with Yamaha PA sound system to enhance the Audio experience as well. It comes in a Sleek Gun Metal Chassis which looks stunning. A10 is also java enabled and supports all java applications and games. It can be connected to a PC via USB cable and and used as a web cam. Camera is 3.2 MP. It is one of the best multimedia phone in its price range and combined with its good looks, it is one the best value for money touch screen phone.
Best Price: Rs. 4,499

Karbonn K10

Karbonn K10 is another cheap qwerty mobile targeted towards students and young professionals. It is similar to Micromax Q5FB and comes with a 2 inch display, qwerty keypad and trackball. It lets you access social networking sites like Facebook and twitter and messaging via eMSN and eBuddy apps. It comes with a 1.3 MP camera and also supports video recording. Best part about this is its price which is unbelievably low. This low pricing has allowed it to sell good volumes.
Best Price: 2,999

Guest Writer : This is Guest Post by Sulakshan, a Hyderabad based entrepreneur running an online pricing site for mobiles and books in India. Please check the Micromax mobile price page available on his startup and let him know your views at Sulakshan@mysmartprice.com