Videocon V6200 Ducati mobile phone � Tough rider Review

For a price of almost Rs. 12,000, the Videocon V6200 phone does come at a huge premium for the Ducati branding. The phone is solid, and does offer some interesting new features. However, buying a phone at this price, which lacks a smartphone OS, may not be the best deal.

After the Ferrari, Porsche and Hummer branded phones have arrived in the market, surely the most ardent motorcycle enthusiasts must have been feeling left out. However, fret not, because Ducati is here. Videocon launched the V6200 mobile phone, and this one is an official Ducati licensed product. That is probably where the dollops of ruggedness and the tinge of sportiness came from.

 

However, while it may have the big name branding, the phone needs to be worth the price tag it sports. In a price sensitive market like ours, people are mostly looking for the best deal, and not the flashiest brand. Let’s see if this phone delivers according to the potential.

First Impression: Tough nut to crack

The V6200 comes packed in a huge box. Apart from the phone and the usual gamut of manuals, wired headset, charger etc., there is an Adventure Flask for water (or even any intoxicating liquid you may desire!) and an arm band. The phone and its entire package seems designed to appeal to the sort of people who are the adventurous kind- love biking, trekking etc. And the rugged build of the phone is aimed straight at that. 

[RELATED_ARTICLE]Take the phone out of the box and the rugged design will immediately get your attention. The screw frame body is the single biggest reason, probably. Four in the front and four at the back, and you may begin to think the phone should come with an AK-47 assault weapon! The side panels are pretty congested. The right side panel has the LED dedicated key at the top, the MiniUSB port and the SIM-Card slot in the middle and the Camera hotkey at the bottom. Flip over to the opposite side panel and find two dedicated keys- rear MFD management and GPS navigation app. The rear panel has the tiny secondary display. This one switched between various modes- display date time day, compass, ambient temperature, altimeter etc. On the top panel is the Dual LED torch, which may come in very handy on a dark night! Back to the front of the phone, where the action is! The 2.4-inch TFT display is accompanied by a 12 key traditional keypad and multidirectional navigation keys.  

Performance: Phone, Fun, Sports modes

The V6200 mobile phone may look like a run of the mill mobile phone, but it has just so much more. Move beyond the rugged exterior to see that the same thing is carried through with regards to apps. For an “outdoor” phone, the Map My India app brings on board the navigation maps, with lifetime validity. The interface of the phone starts with three home screens- Phone, Fun and Sports. The phone mode shows up with the address book, call history, messaging, file manager, profiles, WAP browser and settings. Switch to the fun mode, and this carries all the multimedia you have on the phone, media players, access to the camera and the camcorder and FM Radio. However, it is the Sports mode which has the unique stuff- the Barometer, Pedometer, Altimeter, UV Ray sensor and the Digital Compass. Undoubtedly, the phone has a lot of features. However, the division of applications into three preset “screens” may make navigation a bit of a stressful task for some.    

As a phone, the V6200 is a bit of a mixed bag. The keypad is extremely comfortable to use, with the keys not only of a pretty good size, but also well-spaced out. With all the shortcut keys on both side panels, and a good keypad, the key bit is pretty well sorted out.  Add a pretty okay screen to this and the combination just seems to work. Even though the resolution is quite basic (240×320 resolutions), the display is quite visible even in bright sunlight. The dual display at the rear

[RELATED_ARTICLE]The call quality however is a tad disappointing. Even in areas when the signal strength was at maximum, the quality was not up to the mark. There were a lot of random disturbances which kept invading a conversation. The in-ear speaker needs to be set at a volume which balances audibility as well as clarity.  Too loud, and the sound tends to distort. Same is true for the hands-free speaker, and the wired headset. A better voice chat experience is what was expected from the phone, even in areas which have very strong cellular signal reception. On the bright side, the 1030mAh battery will last about 3 days on a complete charge cycle under the normal usage pattern of voice and text usage.

The 2-megapixel camera is just a basic snapper which you can use for clicking the plainest of pictures and pretty amateurish videos. The pictures are clear and not noisy, which is a good thing, but lack the color depth and vividness which a higher spec camera would have offered. Videos are just viewable. Fast moving scenes look jerky and any change in lighting forces the camera to readjust to the changed light. Essentially, the 2-megapixel camera does not do the Ducati phone justice.

For a price of just under Rs. 12,000, the Videocon Ducati phone does cost a lot for a device which essentially does not fall in the smartphone category. The OS is proprietary type, does not look very classy and the phone specifications are basic. For this much, you will not get a Ducati, or a similarly branded phone, but can get a pretty powerful Android phone. There is no doubt that the V6200 is a solid phone with lots of very interesting features, but for me, that somehow alone doesn’t justify the price.

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Vishal Mathur

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