The
Freedom 251 smartphone has created a lot of buzz, and while people are still
waiting to get their hands on the device, others are not leaving the
opportunity to take a dig at it. A spoof website has been created with the
address — freedom651.com — with the intention of poking fun at the world’s cheapest smartphone. The webpage is an exact replica of Ringing
Bell’s website, but the text
have been changed to things like, “Freedom 651, India’s most affordable smartphone by Doesn’t Ring a Bell.”
The folks
behind the website have changed the name of the smartphone to Freedom 651,
which is priced at Rs 651. The Buy button has been changed to ‘Don’t Buy Now’ and deliveries are promised after 10 years via drones. There are other funny elements including
stuff like the Freedom 651 has been made from components found on Mars, which
is the reason it is cheap, it runs on Android Zucchini, the company’s customer care number is 0420-420420, and how its service centers
are only found on Mars.
The ‘About Us’ section of the spoof
website mentions that it is indeed a ‘parody website with no intentions of making a smart or any other smart
move towards making one’ The Social media links
on the website direct to a ‘Places near Pune’ tourist information page on Facebook,
seemingly created in late 2010.
Ringing
Bells has managed to garner a lot of publicity by launching a smartphone for
only Rs 251. While much of this seems fishy, the Noida-based company continues
to promise delivery of 50 lakh handsets by June 30. Despite having received
over seven crore registrations, it only plans to sell 25 lakh units online, and
another 25 lakh units via offline stores.
The
government and especially the telecom authorities continue to be wary and have
ordered an investigations into this matter. Their concern is how a 3G
smartphone that costs more than Rs 2,300 to manufacture in the first place is
being sold at such rock-bottom prices.
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