NEW DELHI: Swipe Telecom, more popular for its budget tablets, has launched its Swipe ELITE smartphone at Rs 5999. The online-only device will be available on Flipkart from August 19. It will run Swipe’s own customised OS called Freedom OS based on Android Lollipop 5.0. Swipe ELITE comes with a 5-inch HD display, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage expandable to 32 GB, a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP front camera. The 3G smartphone has a 2500 mAh battery. Swipe has priced the specs-heavy smartphone aggressively at Rs 5999, thus posing a challenge to Xiaomi’s new Redmi 2 Prime priced at Rs 6999. The Redmi 2, with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage space, costs Rs 5999.
Swipe’s Founder-CEO Shripal Gandhi said the new smartphone was a limited period offering and they will not go for the flash sale model with this phone. “It’s only because of the online model that we can keep the price of the smartphone low. Given the specs and the UI features offered with the ELITE this will be a disruptive budget smartphone in India’s mobile space,” he said at the launch. For Swipe, however, the USP is its new ‘Freedom OS’. Swipe says their UI allows user to customise the phone in various ways, even though it is more of a skin than a full-fledged OS. Freedom OS comes with Swipe Customise which lets users tweak the UI in any way. For instance, the bottom app dock on Android devices, which traditionally has four apps for call, message, camera and email, can be customised to add more icons. Additionally, they can increase the size of icons, change the app drawer customisations and tinker with animations when moving from one screen to another.
The OS comes with in-built themes while users have the option of adding gestures for fixed actions. For instance, drawing a C opens the camera while pinching in can open a predefined app. Plus, Swipe Box offers 100 GB of storage space by aggregating and adding other cloud storage accounts like Dropbox. Swipe Feature is a localised search engine to help users find files, word documents, and apps, within the smartphone. Then there is Assist X which will let user directly call, chat, locate a service centre from the phone, in case of any issues.
