Priced at Rs 2,999, the Celkon Campus A35K lowers barrier for Android KitKat phones

Celkon has joined the likes of Micromax, Karbonn and Lava with the launch of the Campus A35K, its first Android phone to run 4.4.2 KitKat. It’s the cheapest KitKat smartphone in the market, at an eye-popping price of Rs 2,999 and is set to be an exclusive for Snapdeal.   The A35K has dual SIM slots and is powered by a 1GHz processor with lowly 256MB of RAM. We don’t expect performance of the phone to be great, but basic apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter should be accessible without a hitch. We are not really sure how well games will perform on this phone, but we don’t have high hopes.   The Campus A35K features a small 3.5-inch display, with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels, There’s a 3.2-megapixel camera on the back. There’s also a VGA front-facing camera and 512MB of inbuilt storage, and you can add to it with a microSD card up to 32 GB in size. The low internal memory can be an impediment for this phone. In terms of connectivity, you can find Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Micro-USB, 3G, and AGPS, which is fairly standard.   With the launch of low-cost KitKat phones, the Android device market has plenty of options running the latest version of the OS. Our pick of the lot remains the Moto E, which has shown great flexibility in user experience, and also managed to deliver a smooth Android experience, despite the low price. It remains to be seen whether the likes of Celkon can compete with the Moto E, though this particular phone doesn’t seem to have much going for it.