No value for money. Review on Samsung C5212

C5212 was the only choice I had in the <5K price band for a dual SIM.

I wanted a dual SIM to try out my pre-paid and post-paid connections and found this affordable at that time.

Now I see this phone is on the higher side of the price point since there is nothing in it that calls for such a high price. This should be priced around Rs. 2500 only.

disappointment 1 - if you use headset (but not listening to radio/music) you can't hear the incoming ring in your headset. So if you are in noisy place, and you want to hear an incoming call, you have to either keep it on vibration mode (heavy power consumption)

OR

keep the radio on(again power consumption) so when the call comes in, the radio will stop playing in the headset and you might know that a call is coming in, in case you can't still hear the phone ring in all the noise around.

disappointment 2 - I was at the service center of Samsung to get my headset replaced - the headset stopped working in one ear. I heard at least 10 people complaining that the service quality and assurance is very poor. The service center keeps the handset with them for days together and does not return it back on time - and no clear information is given why there is a delay.

In my case, I was in warranty so I got the headset replaced immediately since I didn't have to leave the phone there.

disappointment 3 - manual hardware switching between SIMs.

this feature is not at all useful. It should be a feature on the software to switch between SIMs as the earlier SpiceGold D88 had, but in this case, you have to physically switch between SIMs to make calls which, if you forget, leads to calls being made from a number you don't want everyone to know about or you want to screen from for e.g. your boss...

Would have preferred a software SIM switch where on the screen you can select with the keyb

disappointment 4 - not too important but nevertheless...call recording is absent. it is very important in some cases to get the call recording feature available so that you can record a call, esp. when you call up service centers and forget to take name of service agent. With experience of my earlier LGKB220 which had this feature, I was expecting this phone also to have it. but unfortunately, I had to buy the phone to discover this, since the dealer didn't demonstrate me the working till I bought it.

There is nothing great about dual sim if you don't get

a. long life on battery when both SIMs are on - unfortunately, the quality of battery per piece varies significantly and hence some consumers might get a battery which lasts longer while for others it might not.

b. regular usage of both SIMs

c. software switching between both SIMs

not a good choice for a dual SIM though the name makes us want to depend on it.

have to try the Nokia dual sim and see the same features match.

I always crib about absence of a universal charger with mobiles and this phone added to that woe. None of these phone companies are able to come to a consensus on having a universal charger - not only in view of convenience but also to prevent too much e-waste.

Unfortunate but this message I need to share with everyone that one has to promote reduction of e-waste and only consumers like us can raise a voice against this practice of companies which are generating their own designs of chargers leading to inconveniences when it comes to charging a phone if you have  forgotten your charger.