Freedom 251 is still alive and kicking; deliveries to start in May: Report

tech2 News StaffApr 28, 2016 10:59:59 IST

Now that Freedom 251 has a competitor in what now appears to be a "sub  Rs 1000" category of smartphones, there is some more news emanating from TechRadar that throws some light on the company, which popular media seems to have forgotten.

According to the report, Ringing Bells will begin shipping its first batch of Freedom 251 smartphones to its customers (backers) starting May. Good for the lucky owners who will receive them. For the rest of those who registered and helped build the hype, there has been not a single email from the company. The company was supposed to send across a link to customers within 48 hours. It's been a good two months now. The government did promise to take action if Ringing Bells failed to deliver the Freedom 251 to its 30,000 customers who paid up.

Turns out Ringing Bells wants to keep things hush hush to avoid controversies from building up once again. More over, there is speculation that the smartphone maker is also planning on introducing newer models in the near future as well, which is a bit odd since the first one has yet to be delivered.

Mohit Goel, right, Director of Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd., and Ashok Chadha, left, spokesperson, show a Freedom 251 smartphone (AP)

The last we heard about Ringing Bells, it was Adcom (Advantage Computers) who threatened to sue the smartphone maker over damage to its brand name. The Economic Times reported that Ringing Bells somehow managed to purchase 1000 Adcom smartphones that were priced at Rs 3,600 each and sent them out as a demo pieces to a number of publications and customers, claiming that it was a Freedom 251.

After that a first information report (FIR) was registered on Tuesday against Goel and company president Ashok Chaddha under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as well as the Information Technology (IT) Act on a complaint filed by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya. The court said that the FIR was premature. Post this there was complete media silence about Ringing Bells.

As of today, the company website shows a "bookings closed" status with a note thanking its patrons for their support with no other details. The only sign of hope for its customers is this statement on the homepage, "We are in the process of compiling the emails and issuing these to first 25 Lacs registrations very soon.".

The Docoss X1 smartphone that is priced at Rs 888.

Let's just hope that the country has learned from the whole Ringing Bells fiasco and has not given in to the upcoming one from Docoss. Docoss Multimedia Private Limited from Jaipur has put up ads in newspapers with a promise to deliver a smartphone that features 4-inch IPS display, a 1.3GHz dual-core Cortex A7 chipset, 1GB RAM and 4GB of internal memory (expandable to 32GB) for little under Rs 1,000. Priced at Rs 888, we are pretty sure there's going to be a lot questions being asked pretty soon.