Spice phones

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_i2i_Limited

Spice i2i Limited (SGX: M09) is a Singapore-listed company that provides Voice, Data and Computing services with a leading edge in VoIP telephony service. Since 2004, the company has delivered over five billion voice minutes^{[citation needed]} through a range of voice services to carriers, enterprises, service providers and consumers worldwide.

Following the acquisitions of an Internet Service Provider and an IT infrastructure company in 2006 and 2007 respectively, Spice i2i evolved to become a full fledged IT communications solutions provider^{[citation needed]}. The strategic acquisitions expanded Spice i2i's service offerings to include a utility computing service, IT infrastructure hosting and outsourcing, broadband access, managed network and other network based services.

Since its inception in 1993, Spice i2i has grown to become a global enterprise with a presence in eight key cities spanning Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Cape Town (South Africa) and Sunnyvale, California (USA).



history

Founded in 1993, the company was first incorporated in Singapore under the name of Mediacom Technologies Pte Ltd^{[citation needed]}. In October 1999, it became a public limited company under the name MediaRing.com Ltd. In November 2002, the company changed its name to the present–Spice i2i Limited–as the company evolved to become a full fledged IT communications solutions provider.

Over the years, Spice i2i has grown from its initial ‘dot.com’ business to become Asia’s leading VoIP telephony service provider offering voice services to a wide ranging of customers. The strategic move led to Spice i2i’s services reaching out from Asia to the Middle East, Africa and Latin America in a span of three years.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, Spice i2i took its first step towards transforming itself with the strategic acquisition of NetPlus, an Internet Service Provider^{[citation needed]}. The move enabled Spice i2i to include data capability in its service offering.

In 2007, Spice i2i acquired IT-infrastructure company, Cavu Corp.

 

Spice launches Mi320 for Rs 4,899

The phone is a very basic Android phone with 3.2 inch screen, 2 MP camera, and 650 MHz processor.

Mobile review: Spice Stellar Mi-425

By Anil Satapathy, The Mobile Indian,New Delhi, June 13, 2012 Category: Mobile

Home grown Spice Mobile has recently launched three Android smartphones in its new Stellar series, which includes Stellar Craze MI-355, Stellar Mi-425, and Stellar Horizon MI-500.

We have already posted out first hand review of all the three handsets, but here is the thorough review of the Stellar Mi-425 which is priced at Rs 9,999.









The Spice Mi-425 is indeed a beautiful smartphone with its 4.1 inch capacitive touch display that has a 480x800 resolution. Also, undoubtedly it is one of the best looking smartphones of Spice. To start with, the screen of Spice Mi-425 is surrounded by a thin chrome strip which is further surrounded by a thicker aluminum strip. Apart from that, phone has curved edges and has mate finish pearl white body that looks really gorgeous.

There are two speakers on in the front just above the display with chrome strip and a red tint while the rear speaker just besides the camera panel too have a red tint - this red tint speakers in a white body really stand out well and make it a good looking handset.



It has four buttons on the display and are all capacitive ones. There are two ports - a micro USB unit at the bottom right hand side and a 3.5mm jack at the top along with power button. The volume rockers are unconventionally placed on the left hand top side.

Inside the cover, the Spice Mi-425 has dual SIM slots and the SD card slot, which are placed adjacent to each other just above the battery. Though the phone feels a bit heavy, but it's overall built and body quality enthuse confidence.







The first thing you would notice in the phone is the four capacitive buttons - Home, Menu, Return and Search - at the bottom of the display.

There are five home pages where you can add shortcut icons of applications and widgets as you want. The home page has a nice little tweak by Spice which shows a 3D cube like interface as you scroll between the home pages which look really cute.



Spice has used a very nice font in the Mi-425 which in combination with large icons not only make it gorgeous to look at but aides in searching applications.

Anyway, the introduction of Android 4.0 will bring much more improvements to the user interface.







The Spice Mi-425 comes with a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor of Qualcomm and does most of the tasks quite efficiently. Scrolling the display or be it opening and closing of applications, the processor takes hardly any time. You would not face any problem while playing light games like Snow Board or My Paper Plane but heavy games does take a toll on Mi-425.



However, having said that one should remember that heavy games are meant for the high end mobile phones which have better processors. Further, the 4.1 inch display of Spice Stellar Mi-425 makes it a pleasurable experience to play games and watch videos on this smartphone.

Also, do remember that Android smartphones under Rs 10,000 come with low RAM and processor and are not upgradable to Android ICS and hence this gives Spice Mi-425 a clear advantage over others.







Another highlighting point of the Spice Stellar Mi-425, which also the company said numerous times during its launch and thereafter, is that the phone is upgradable to the latest Android version - the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.



Currently, the phone has the latest build of Android Gingerbread - the Android 2.3.6 version. Please note that not many devices in the sub-Rs 10,000 category come with Android 4 operating system because of the high end hardware requirement of the operating system. So this again goes in favour of the Mi-425.

There is no information on its RAM, but we guess it should be more than or equal to 512 RAM as it is the minimum amount for Android ICS.







Camera feature is something that most of the Indians look at before purchasing a phone.



The Spice Stellar Mi-425 in this section has a very decent specification. It has a 5 megapixel autofocus camera at the back while a VGA camera lies in the front. Further there is a single LED flash to support the rear camera.

Now coming to the quality of the pictures taken, the Spice Stellar Mi-425 looks good and are not watered down as said by many. We have also uploaded some pictures taken with the rear camera of Spice Mi-425 on The Mobile Indian's Facebook page, you can check those out to judge yourself.







Now this is also a big criteria for anyone before buying a smartphone and especially those with Android operating system.

The Spice Stellar Mi-425 comes with a 2000 mAh battery which looks excellent considering the fact that most of the smartphones come with batteries less than that but the huge battery has also increases the weight of the Mi-425.



The 2000 mAh battery, which can be called humongous for a smartphone, does not delivers as it is expected. True, it can last a whole day with average usage but if you are planning to play games on it for around half an hour and keep WiFi on for one hour or so to view videos on YouTube and browsing, than you have to be ready with your charger.

However, a user with average usage involving couple of minutes of talktime and few minutes of WiFi/3G browsing, will be satisfied with the battery of Mi-425. It is not out rightly bad but considering that it is of 2000 units we expected the Mi-425 to give a better result on this front.

So Spice Stellar's battery life can be termed as average if not worse.







Spice has provided Netqin security app with Mi-425, again which is marketed as one of the USP of this device. The security solution will be available for free to users for first six months of purchase. The app not just provides anti virus, but also offers anti theft and a vault to keep your private photos, videos, call logs and docs safe from people who can have access to your phone.



The Netqin app also offers data management and keeps you updated on how much data you have consumed and you can also put a cap on data usage according to your bill plan, which will prevent bill shocks to you.

Upon the expiry of the six month free period, you can still use the app, but virus database will not get updated unless you pay for the app. While it is a good inclusion, we call this marketing gimmick as the app is available for a limited time and one need to pay for its usage beyond six month, so it is not as big a deal as Spice would like us to believe.







Its speakers are loud for a smartphone and the voice doesn't crack at as one raises the volume. The headset provided along with Spice Stellar Mi-425 is also of good quality.



The Spice Stellar Mi-425 comes with the usual features like WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS etc.







To sum it all, the Spice Mi-425 is indeed a very good phone considering the combination of features for such a price. It is faster and bigger than most of its competitors, apart from the fact that it looks good too.

Yes, the phone has few down sides like its low viewing angle that makes it difficult to see videos as you tilt the phone. Also, the WiFi connection frequently disconnects once the gets locked though it shows fully connected. It is also a bit heavy but the bigger battery also contributes to the longer operation, though we expected a slightly better battery life.



Nonetheless, these are very insignificant cons considering the specification Spice is offering and thus Spice Stellar Mi-425 is highly recommended. We would like to review it again after it gets Android ICS upgrade to see how it battery life improves.

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Mobile review: Spice Stellar Mi-425 Specifications
Network
Operating System	Android 2.3 upgradable to Android ICS
Dimensions
Display	4.1 inch capacitive
Input Method	Full touch
Processor	1 Ghz Snapdragon
Memory	512 MB RAM, 140 MB Internal, expandable by 32 GB
Connectivity	WiFi, Bluetooth, USB port, dual SIM
Multimedia	Multi format audio, video player, FM radio
Camera	5 MP autofocus rear, VGA front, LED flash
GPS	Yes with A-GPS
Additional features	Free Netqin mobile security for 6 months
Battery	2000 mAh
Warranty	1 year
Price	Rs 9,999

Spice launches Stellar series of Android smartphones

Press Trust of India, June 08, 2012

Spice launches 3 new Stellar series of Android smartphones in India

Spice has launched Spice Stellar (Mi-425), Stellar Horizon (Mi-500)  and Spice Stellar Craze (Mi-355)  new Android smartphones in India. Spice has partnered with NQ Mobile to provide security software solutions for these devices. These phones would come with Netqin anti-virus  that promises protection against virus, data loss, theft, and financial security.



The Spice Stellar has 4.0-inch  (800 x 480 pixels)capacitive touchscreen display and has 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with 245MHz GPU. It runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread phone), which is upgradable to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It has 5MP auto focus camera with flash and secondary VGA camera,   512MB RAM, GPS / aGPS and  32GB expandable memory. It has 2000 mAh battery with up to 7h of talk time and up to 120 hours standby.

The Spice Stellar Horizon features a 5.0-inch touch screen display, Android 4.0, 1 GHz Dual Core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with 300 MHz GPU. It has 5MP auto focus camera with flash and secondary VGA camera.

The Spice Stellar Craze comes with 3.5-inch touch screen display , 800 MHz processor, 5MP camera, VGA front-facing camera, Dual SIM,   and runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread which is upgradable to Android 4.0 ICS.  It has 1420 mAh battery.

The Spice Stellar (Mi-425)  is now available for Rs. 9,999. The Spice Stellar Horizon (Mi-500)  and Spice Stellar Craze (Mi-355)  are priced at Rs. 11,999 and Rs. 6,499 respectively. These phones would be available by the end of this month.

The Stellar series of phones would also come with 100 MB free  data per month for Aircel customers for a period of 1 year.  These phones would be available across India through more than 50,000 retail points including the 750+ Spice HotSpot retail network and Saholic.