Dumb and the dutiful

Nokia 100 (Rs 1,199)

No one does dumb phones better than Nokia. Sturdy, solid, easy to use and reliable, the Nokia 100 is the perfect example of a good dumb phone. In the small plastic body are packed a 1.8-inch LCD screen, an alphanumeric keyboard, and a solid 800 mAh battery that can easily give you up to seven hours of talk time, up to 26 hours of music playback and up to 840 hours of standby time. You can use the very loud speakers to play out tunes from the in-built FM radio. And for a supposedly dumb phone it even has a pre-installed calendar, a speaking alarm clock.

Videocon V1575 (Rs 1,499)

Videocon’s V1575, available in both black and red, is a good piece of equipment for its price. While it shares many of its features like the capacity to hold two GSM SIMs and the 2-megapixel camera with its many cheap colleagues, it is also special because it boasts of a 2.4-inch TFT screen and, more importantly, a full qwerty keyboard like a high-end Blackberry. And for that price along with the surprisingly good build, you get the Opera browser, and built-in social networking apps, mobile tracker, voice changer, auto call record etceteras. The pitiful internal memory of 68.2MB can be expanded up to 4GB using a microSD card.

Micromax X104C (Rs 989)

From India’s most successful mobile phone manufacturer Micromax, comes this very cheap dumb phone which wants to prove that you can be a sub-thousand rupee phone, but can still have some character with a cute body, and a beautiful back. The X104C boasts of a 1.79-inch TFT screen good for use even in bright sunlight on top of an alphanumeric keyboard with easy-to-use soft keys and the capacity to hold two GSM SIMs. At 92g it is very light on weight but still manages to pack an 1800mAh battery that promises up to seven hours of talk time. The 26KB internal memory can be expanded up to 4GB using a microSD card. The 0.3 megapixel primary camera on the back is capable of video recording and has a multi-shot mode.

Samsung Guru 1200 (Rs 999)

This is the kind of phone that Samsung used to make before it got famous with the Galaxy line of smartphones. At 65 grammes, the 1200 is as light as a phone gets. It has the usual 1.5-inch TFT screen which by now seems to be common in budget phones. Samsung boasts that the alphanumeric keypad is anti-dust. The battery is a small 800mAh affair which is supposed to last eight hours on 2G talk time and 800 hours on standby. Along with the now mandatory torch you find in almost all budget phones, you also get an SMS memory that can store 500 messages, and a phone book memory that can store 1,000 contacts.