We get our hands on the Penta Smart PS501 smartphone and it fails to impress us.
BSNL, in collaboration with Penta today launched the ‘Bharat’ phone line-up of Android smartphones including the 5-inch Smart PS501 and the 6-inch Smart PS650. We managed to welcome the PS501 into our labs and had some time to play with the device.
Even though we know that a quick hands-on is not enough time to form a complete opinion about a device, we were able to figure out where Penta was going with the Smart PS501. If you are on an absolute budget and desperately want an Android phone, then the Smart PS501 may appear like a heaven-sent option to you. After all, at Rs. 6,299 (on Flipkart) it is one of the least expensive Android smartphones in the market. It looks neat for the price, especially in its white avatar and has a large 5-inch touchscreen along with Android 4.2.2. as its OS. Unfortunately, the looks and the price are the only two things that the Smart PS501 has going for it.
The day or so we spent with the PS501 could be described as frustrating. It runs on a dual-core 1.2GHz processor 512MB of RAM but is ridiculously slow, and that’s just when navigating the interface because things like opening the browser, swiping through the homescreens, all take two to three seconds longer than they should. On the other hand, the screen is very vibrant and bright- things you should expect at this price. The Smart PS501 boasts of an IPS panel but don’t really get your hopes up with respect to its quality based on just that.
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The Penta Smart PS501 also has 4GB of internal storage that can be expanded to 32GB with a microSD card. If you’re interested in picking it up, our advice would be to wait for our complete review because as things stand right now, it doesn’t appear to be a smartphone worth spending Rs. 6,299 on.