Apple re-launching iPhone 3GS in India for Rs 19,990

Yes, you read that right. According to cellphone dealers, Apple is "re-launching" its two-year-old iPhone at a price of Rs 19,990 in India. The move is likely to counter cheap Android smartphones that have flooded the market recently. This particular version of iPhone will come with 8GB internal storage.

Manish Khatri, a mobile dealer in Mumbai, tweeted on Friday evening that shops had already received stock and the phone will be available from Saturday at the said price with one year official warranty. In Delhi too, several dealers said they had received stock of iPhone 3GS (8GB) on Thursday evening.

iPhone 3GS was originally released in June 2009. It has a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen (320 x 480 pixels) and is powered by a 600Mhz processor. However, as it happens in the case of Apple products, the hardware specifications can be misleading when it comes to performance and usability.

Apple's latest iOS version 4.3 supports iPhone 3GS and that makes the phone a worthy opponent to similarly-priced Android devices that have better hardware. Apple has also said that iOS 5 will work on iPhone 3GS though it is likely that not all features will be supported.

At the price of Rs 19,990, iPhone 3GS will directly compete with Samsung Nexus S , a phone that saw its price fall by over Rs 6,000 to touch Rs 19,999 a few weeks ago. Nexus S, which runs on Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread, has a 4-inch capacitive screen. It is powered by a 1Ghz processor, packs 512MB RAM and comes with 16GB internal storage.

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Apple iPhone 4 launched in India

Apple's iPhone 4 hit store shelves in India on Friday, nearly a year after the next-generation version of the popular smartphone was rolled out worldwide.
Mobile phone carrier Aircel launched the iPhone 4 with a new pricing model, allowing customers to recover the upfront cost of the smartphone on select plans over 24 months, the company said in a press release.
Aircel will charge 34,500 rupees for iPhones with a 16 GB capacity and 40,900 rupees for the 32 GB model, it said.
Bharti Airtel, India's top mobile phone carrier, also launched the phone.
The iPhone 4 boasts a higher-quality screen and longer battery life than the previous model.
With more than 800 million mobile subscribers, India is the world's second-biggest market for mobile phone services and is also the fastest-growing. But smartphones are estimated to account for just over 5 percent of the mobile handset sales.
Indian carriers have recently started rolling out high-speed third-generation (3G) mobile networks, which is expected to boost sales of smartphones.

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