Written by Umang Saini
on 

Trillion

First congratulations to Flipkart for launching a new white-label brand of mobile phones. It is designed and engineered by Smartron, a Hyderabad based hardware company.

The choices that went into making Billion Capture+ device relied on treasure trove of consumer data which Flipkart has. It is to meet “Indian smartphone buyers’ biggest needs”. They leveraged this understanding and crystallised into their first offering of Capture+, under Billion brand. I went through their product page and few unboxing videos. I haven’t used the device or gone through detailed reviews. For me following are hits and misses -

Hits

  1. Price, price and price - It’s a compelling price
  2. USB-C with QC 2.0 Fast charging

Good

  1. Mid-tier chipset
  2. Storage Expandibility
  3. Android 7, Nougat
  4. Reasonable f1/2.0 aperture, 13MP color + monochrome dual camera setup

Misses

  1. 18:9 Immersive screen
  2. Chipset - Newer 2017 chipsets 630/660 would have raised the longevity of this phone and updates.

Confusing

  1. AI powerd IoT
  2. Roadmap - How serious are Flipkart and Smartron in terms of long term commitment to Mobile hardware market

Stretch Goals

  1. Outstanding camera F1/1.8 or larger, better sensor. Color + Monochrome setup hasn’t proved itself sufficiently in mainstream, and not sure how it impacts the time to process the images.
  2. Customer Service and Warranty - Robust user experience will depend on how they are treated during support.

Mobile hardware business is a tricky one, brutal competition and incredibly fast paced. A single weak point can wipe out entire product or company. The industry is full of such examples.

Indian customer is much more difficult than what the data says about them. Hopefully Flipkart finds the right product.

Best, Umang p.s - Not a fan of the brand name, and the device name. Not sure if data-mining was a part of naming the device/brand.