Can recommend only for the basic features. Review on Karbonn KC470

I bought this mobile in Wavetel Chennai in February 2010. Have used it for about 7 months now.I purchased this product because I was having CDMA and GSM sims for optimising call costs and availability of networks, so I needed a CDMA+GSM dual sim phone in a mid-range budget and the options were few.I chose this brand over the others because of a compromise between price and features and availability of handset in local market.

First the good points, 1. It can operate CDMA and GSM sims simultaneously without having to switch off.2. Network Reception is good.3. You can switch between modes - GSM only, CDMA only, or both.4. Battery life is good. Battery capacity is a generous 1200mAh. Easily lasts 1½ to 2 days with moderate calling and music.5. Music player is basic, no EQ control. If you simply want to listen to music without too much fiddling, this will serve the purpose.6. FM reception is strong. I can't believe I got reception from Srilankan FM channels, but surprisingly the ones from my city were having weak signals. I wonder how that is.7. Phone battery gets charged quickly.

Here come the negatives:1. Absolutely pathetic excuse of a camera. No flash. No autofocus. Photos can be barely seen in camera, let alone be printed. Videos have a frame rate of 3 fps. Can you believe it? If you watch a video shot by the phone camera, you will feel like you are watching a very fast slideshow of photos.2. If you are used to typing fast text messages, this phone can make your life hell. absolute deal-breaker for whoever are fond of texts. It can accept only 1/2 keystrokes per second. So for a typical text of 160 characters you will take anywhere between 80 and 160 seconds. after a few fast keystrokes, it all goes awry and only the first letter in the key is input.3. In CDMA mode, max characters per text message is 160. not so in GSM.4. Ear phone quality is pathetic. Not too surprising.5. Phone RAM is very negligible, loading photos shot by phone camera itself takes a very long time.6. Loudspeaker is ok for calls, but for music it is not loud enough.7. No airplane mode.8. No PC Suite, can't connect to PC directly via USB. 9. Proprietary charger, old model pin type. Can become damaged very easily.10. Can't set custom alert tone for SMS. Have to choose from what is inbuilt.

If what you are looking for are basic features in a dual sim GSM + CDMA handset, this is somewhat recommendable considering good battery life and good reception. However, the more features you start to look for, the lesser the recommendability of the phone.I personally thank you for honouring my review with your reading time. Kindly do let me have the pleasure of knowing what you thought about my review or how you felt about this product/service. If you are looking to buy this product/service, how did this review help your decision to buy or not buy?