Idea enters 5.5-inch display smartphone segment

Ultra II is priced at Rs 12,500 and has an 8 MP front and 2 MP rear camera coupled with LED flash

Mobile operator Idea Cellular announced its entry into the 5.5 inch display mobile phones by rolling out dual SIM 3G-based Android smartphone, Ultra II, in the country from Andhra Pradesh today.

Equipped with Quad core 1.3 GHz processor, Android Jelly Bean 4.2 and 1GB random access memory (RAM), Ultra II comes with a 2500 mAh battery with a download speed of 21 Mbps. It has an 8 MP front and 2 MP rear camera coupled with LED flash.

The phone is priced at Rs 12,500 and is available in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Goa, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, UP West and East, the company said.

Idea has tied up with mobile device manufacturer Alcatel for sourcing this model to India.

For first-time smartphone buyers, it today introduced ID 1000, a 3G-based Android Jelly Bean 4.2 OS smartphone. It comes with a 1 GHz dual core processor, built-in social networking sites and an internal memory of 4GB, which is expandable to 32 GB. It is priced at Rs 5,400.

With these launches, Idea now has 15 smartphones in the 3G category, said Ramakrishna B, chief operating officer, Idea, Andhra Pradesh.

He said the new launches would help draw users towards data consumption, particularly the 3G services.

For the company, data consumption contributed 10 per cent to the total revenues till January. “The data usage  segment revenues grew 100 per cent this year from around 5 per cent last year. We expect the trend to continue next year,” said Ramakrishna.