The Avenger 220 Cruise retains the classic cruiser comfort and looks.
The all new Avenger Street range is designed for easy city riding. The
Avenger Street 150 has been introduced to bring the genuine cruiser
experience to the large set of emerging 150cc users.
The Avenger 220 Cruise comes with a liberal dose of chrome highlights
thanks to a new radiator, redesigned side grabs, stylized silencer and
an all new handlebar. The Avenger 220 Cruise comes with a padded
backrest and an optional windshield for easy cruising on highways.
While the Cruise is chrome, the Avenger 220 Street is more stealthy with
a matte black and brushed silver finish. The 150 Street comes in
midnight blue. The Avenger Street has a new, lower and flatter
handlebar for better maneuverability in city riding. The Street series
is all set to take on the city challenges on weekdays and go on long
easy rides on weekends.
The new Avengers come with a brand new insignia, new graphics and
styling cues, improved rear suspension, bright white light headlamps,
clear lens indicators and low slung seats with thicker dual density foam
for superior riding comfort.
The Avenger 220’s come with Bajaj’s trusted 220 cc DTSi engine to
deliver great performance statistics – 19 PS power and excellent low to
mid-range grunt with torque of 17.5 Nm. The bikes come with an oil
cooler to help this hi-performance engine maintain engine oil
temperature & viscosity irrespective of external riding conditions.
The Avenger 150 Street’s engine is a 150 cc DTSi, which has been
completely revised for this bike: it delivers 14.5 PS of power and a
torque of 12.5 Nm which is enhanced at low rpms, making it an excellent
match for the Avenger riding style.
A smartphone at Rs 251 was a jaw-dropping headline. Touted as the
world’s cheapest smartphone, the price point naturally raised eyebrows –
and hopes. Excitement was mixed with skepticism; through the day, there
were more people asking questions than answering them. As our article
went live before the launch, we are back with an update to tell you
about the questions buzzing around and some possible answers.
This is not the first time that controversy has surrounded a new company. Two years ago, social networking platform WorldFloat claimed to have 6 million users and valued at $300 million.
It was nothing but a static page. Freedom 251 clocked 30,000 orders
before the website crashed owing to the massive traffic it received. The
server couldn’t take the curiosity of audience and collapsed against
the flood of 6 lakh hits per second! With a shipping charge of Rs 40,
one unit of Freedom 251 cost Rs 291, so the company collected Rs
8,730,000 before the crash.
Freedom 251 has been trending on social media for the last two days
and has also sounded the alarm to a potential scam. Here are a few facts
that have emerged in the past few hours.
Courtesy – Firstpost
1. A blatant rip-off of Apple: The icons, the home screen. The
entire UI appears to be a rip-off of Apple’s iPhone. When asked about
this, Ringing Bells’ technical head Vikas Sharma admitted they had used
Apple’s icons, saying, “We have used Apple’s icons because Apple hasn’t copyrighted their designs.” It would appear that nobody at Ringing Bells read the news. The folks over at Apple probably do.
2. Website:There are no contact details given on the
website. There’s a contact form instead. The site has most of the
details hard-coded which can, at best, be called amateurish. A simple who is query reveals that the domain was registered on 10 February 2016 and was updated on 14 February 2016: less than 10 days back.
3. Reselling without permission: The product came with Adcom branding, which was hidden by a whitener and overwritten with “Freedom 251”. And Adcom is denying that fact that it is selling or even manufacturing the phone for Ringing Bells.
4. Delivery Date: The delivery date was a good four months
away (as mentioned on a website with no contact details). Another red
flag seems to be the fact that Ringing Bells could have partnered with
an online sales partner like Flipkart, Snapdeal or Amazon for
pre-ordering the phone; all these sites have better scale for handling
huge traffic that accompany pre-ordering. Another option was to put it
up on crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo, Ketto or Wishberry to raise
money to develop the product. They chose to go with their own
not-so-shiny new website.
5. No personal money at stake: When asked at the
press conference held to announce the release of Freedom 251, if the
promoters of Ringing Bells had personally invested in the company, they
stated that the entire capital comprised equity and debt investment. The
promoters, it seems, have very little to lose in financial terms.
6. Cost: Current technology does not allow for a mobile phone
to be manufactured at this cost. The bare minimum is around INR 3,800,
even if it is subsidized. The company has made it clear that they have
not received any subsidy, either from the government or any other third
party for this project. The ‘magic formula’ remains a secret.
7. 650+ Service Centres: Though the site claims to have over
650 service centres, there is no mention of even a single service
centre, and nobody knows which cities they exist in, let alone their
actual addresses.
8. You can buy even half of Freedom 251: The company’s website
allowed users to order 0.5 quantity of the phone for Rs 125. Frustrated
user took the case on twitter and shared the screenshot of booking.
9. More ‘promises’ in the making: While cyberspace is already
aware that bookings closed this morning and social media has been abuzz
about people’s inability to book the phone on the Ringing Bells website,
cyber cafe owners are apparently taking money from people and giving
them a receipt for booking the phone on their behalf, as suggested by
Twitter user Yatin Chawla in this tweet.
Everything you want to know about Freedom 251, the Rs 251 Make In India smartphone
When Steve Jobs launched the iPod, it was one of the biggest launches
in history. He very elegantly pulled it out of his pocket and used the
tagline “1,000 songs in your pocket”.
Ringing bells, a smartphone company which was unheard of till date,
was suddenly in news this week for promoting the idea of a smartphone
with a price tag of Rs 251. Now the fact that the phone is subsidized or
does it really cost this less to make a smartphone so cheap is quite
debatable.
However, at present, screen replacement costs about Rs 2000. While
the debate on the manufacturing costs will go on forever, we have to
admit that a smartphone at a cost of Rs 251 is definitely a steal deal.
Here are few things which you should know about the Freedom 251.
1. One of the best features of the device is that it comes with dual
camera. It has a 3.2MP rear camera and a 0.3MP front camera. A quick
search online will reveal that even the cheapest dual camera phone will
cost a minimum of INR 4,000.
2. One of biggest issues faced by users is that the most low cost
Android smartphones don’t come with the latest operating system.
However, Ringing Bells has solved this problem by releasing the phone
with Android Lollipop. Will it support future updates is something will
all need to wait and see.
3. Freedom 251 does not disappoint in terms of connectivity. When you
get both 3G and 802.11 b/g/n wifi along with GPS one cannot ask for
more.
4. The phone comes with 1GB ram and 8GB internal memory, which is expandable to 32GB.
5. Another big boost are the preinstalled apps for farmers and women
safety. Most women do not have any safety app downloaded on their phone.
Having such preinstalled will help increase women safety and decrease
the rate of crimes against women.
6. Considering a smartphone, the 1450mAh battery is small and would
be enough to last around half day. But do we have the right to complain
when you get a smartphone for INR 251?
