At Rs.8,990, Samsung Galaxy J3 smartphone to woo bikers in India

In a bid to woo millions of two-wheeler riders in India, South Korean electronics giant Samsung on Thursday launched 5-inch Galaxy J3 smartphone with "S-bike Mode" for bikers that will enable them to ride uninterrupted every time it is turned on.

Targeting the mid-price market and extending its portfolio of "J series" smartphones, the device is available for Rs.8,990 exclusively on Snapdeal from Thursday.

The "S-bike Mode" works in harmony with a NFC-enabled sticker that enables the device to automatically reply to callers informing them that they can "call again later time as the person they are trying to reach is riding a bike".

With this, riders can simply concentrate on their riding and stop worrying about checking notifications on their phones or answering phone calls while they are in the middle of the road.

"While studying the consumers' phone-usage behaviour, we realised that incoming calls are a major distraction to bikers. We are happy that we have come up with something that will benefit millions of two-wheeler riders," Asim Warsi, senior vice president, Samsung electronics, told reporters here.

To activate the mode, the user just needs to "tap" the Samsung J3 smartphone to the NFC-enabled tag which can stuck on the fuel tank or the helmet.

In case of urgent calls, the caller can press "1" to notify user about the urgency of the call and the rider will get the message of "urgent call" on device's screen.

With this, the device activates a "motion lock" feature that restricts the rider to pick call while he is driving. As soon as the rider comes to a halt, the phone allows the user to take the call.

"The device has been equipped with NFC hardware to activate the "S-bike Mode" with a single tap on the NFC-enabled tag that will be shipped with every unit. The technology is designed by the engineers in India," Dipesh Shah, senior vice president, Samsung R&D Institute India, added.

The Samsung Galaxy J3 comes with a 5-inch touchscreen display and is powered by 1.2GHz quad-core processor assisted with 1.5GB of RAM. The phone packs 8GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128GB via a microSD card.

The dual-SIM (micro-SIM) phone is packed with an 8-megapixel primary camera and a 5-megapixel front shooter for selfies.

The Galaxy J3 runs on Android 5.1 and is powered by a 2,600mAh non removable battery. It measures 142.30 x 71.00 x 7.90 (height x width x thickness) and weighs 138.00 grams.

The device comes with a faux leather back panel and is available in black, white and gold colours.

The J3 will also have Ultra Data Saving (UDS) mode which was launched in September with other J series phones last year, for saving upto 50 percent of data over mobile network and wi-fi.

The company is also offering special offers for Vodafone users. They will get twice the data on select internet packs for a period of six months.

(Sourabh Kulesh can be contacted at sourabh.k@ians.in)