ChampOne C1 smartphone launched at Rs 501, another Freedom 251 in the making?

A company by the name of ChampOne Communications has announced the ChampOne C1 smartphone at a price of Rs 501. Now we aren’t surprised with the price as we’ve seen similar super cheap smartphone announcements in the past. These include the Namotel Acche Din , Docoss X1 and who can forget Freedom 251 ? ChampOne Communications is said to be a certified company with MCA India. Their first-ever smartphone comes with the ‘Made in India’ tag but will it actually start selling and shipping the smartphone is a separate story. The device will feature a 5-inch HD IPS display and will be powered by a MediaTek MT6735 1.3GHz quad-core processor paired with 2GB of RAM. There will be 16GB of onboard internal storage along with a microSD expansion slot supporting up to 64GB cards. There will be an 8MP rear facing camera along with a 5MP front facing camera to take selfies. One feature that really sets the smartphone apart is the fingerprint scanner, something which was only seen on smartphone priced at Rs 6,000 and above. The company says that the price is only promotional and once the smartphone is launched, it will be priced somewhere around Rs 8,000. Interested customers can register themselves on ChampOne’s website for the flash sale which has been up since 22 August. Once registrations are done, customers get a chance to buy the smartphone for Rs 501 on the first flash sale slated for 2 September. The offer is available only for Cash on Delivery. We went to the company’s website and noticed that apart from the smartphone, there is also an Android based smartwatch that will be launching soon.  There was also a message that “We are facing technical issue with our payment gateway partner [Ccavenue (Avenues India Pvt. Ltd.)]. You would not be able to register for the application for next 24 hours. We sincerely regret for your inconvenience and would try to get it fixed as soon as possible. Thank you for your support..”