Best Android Phones: March 2011

Continuing with our monthly tradition of listing the best Android phones in the Indian market, here is the list for March. Unfortunately, this month has been rather disappointing as only a few new Android phones were launched. All the good ones we expected after the Mobile World Congress seem to be taking their own sweet time. We expect April to be little less disappointing in this respect.

Phones under Rs. 10,000
While our last month's suggestions still stand true, we would like to make a new addition and that is the LG Optimus One P500. Now technically, the phone is still above Rs. 10,000, but with a price of just Rs. 10,299, we would not want to miss out on recommending this phone based on technicality alone. The Optimus One is a genuinely good Android phone and if you have any qualms about LG, we would suggest you to keep them aside and go for this phone. It would require stretching your budget a little, especially if you were considering one of the Samsung Android phones in this range but we feel it is definitely worth it.

Phones under Rs. 15,000
No changes here. The Samsung S5830 Galaxy Ace is still the best Android phone under Rs. 15,000. Compared to the Optimus One, it has a bigger display, better camera and more powerful hardware, which justifies the extra you pay for it.

Another Android phone worth recommending in this price range is the Dell XCD35. It has a 3.5-inch, 480 x 800 resolution display that is highly rare for a phone in this price range. It runs on a 600MHz processor, which is not as slow as one might think, 3 megapixel camera with auto focus, 3G, W-Fi, A-GPS and runs on Android 2.2 Froyo. This phone costs Rs. 12,990.

Phones under Rs. 20,000 The newest entrant, the Samsung I9003 Galaxy S LCD wastes no time in winning the title of the best Android phone under Rs. 20,000. It has a huge 4.0-inch Super LCD that is almost as good as the Super AMOLED, which is saying a lot. Rest of the features remain identical, save for a weaker GPU, bigger battery and a slight increase in thickness. It is a powerful smartphone with excellent multimedia capabilities. In fact, that large display makes anything on it look good. For that price, it is an absolute steal.  

Phones under Rs. 25,000

Samsung has brought the I9000 Galaxy S back from the dead and has done so at a killer price. The phone is now a good four thousand rupees less and manages to just fall under the Rs. 25,000 price barrier. It was the best Android phone in the market before and although it may not be the best now, it still kicks far too much ass to be ignored. All the things that we mentioned were missing in the I9003, they are all here. While some may argue the point of spending Rs. 5,000 extra for those things but for some the Super AMOLED display itself would be a good enough reason and wouldn't really disagree with them. Good as Super LCD may be, Samsung's Super AMOLED is in a class of its own.

We would also like to recommend the HTC Desire Z here. It may not be as good as the Galaxy S but it has a full QWERTY keypad and that for some may be the deciding factor rather than CPU clock speeds and display technology. It also has HTC's Sense UI, which is possibly the best custom skin that you will find on any Android device. In fact, the integration and customization is so deep, it can hardly be called a skin anymore. Google itself could learn a thing or two from HTC's implementation.