Spice MI-270 Review: Android made affordable

After the recent price drop of Spice Mi270, which made it the cheapest Android phone of India, we were getting quite a good number of requests to review the mobile. Although its not a newly launched phone but has grabbed a good attention after the price drop.

As of now Spice MI 270 is selling for Rs 3399. At this price, the phone is not competing only with the low priced Android phones but giving a stiff competition to budget featured phones as well. This is the biggest factor why you may give it a thought before buying another touch screen phone in this price range.

However some big issues like resistive touchscreen and absence of 3G may definitely pull you back from buying it.

To buy it or not, Confused. Let me take you through a hands on review to help you decide over it.

Spice MI 270 Review

Specifications:

• 2.8 inch, 320 x 240 px, 65k Resistive touchscreen
• Android 2.2 Froyo
• Dual Sim (GSM+GSM)
• GPRS, EDGE, Wi-Fi
• 2 Mega Pixel Camera
• Internal Memory: 221 MB, Expandable upto 16GB
• 1000 mAH battery
• 416MHz processor
• View Full specifications

Weak Points:

• Resistive Touchscreen
• No 3G
• Weak Processor

Package contents:

Spice MI 270 unboxed

• Spice Mi-270 handset
• Li-Ion 1000 mAh battery
• USB cable
• Charger
• 3.5mm earphone
• Stylus
• User manual

Design and Hardware

The Spice MI 270 doesn’t look cheap. Its built of sturdy plastic material with a bezel metallic chrome running all around. However, unlike other Android phones, the buttons located below the screen are hardware (not capacitive) buttons. On the left side it has a volume rocker incorporated in to the bezel. The top portion of mobile have 3.5 mm jack and a stylus placeholder. The bottom portion has the charging cum data port and the backside of Spice MI 270 has a camera and a speaker. There is no camera dedicated key so you have to use onscreen controls to use the camera.

Display and Touch

The mobile has a resistive touchscreen which is one of the biggest drawback here. While the screen needs a bit more pressure to register an input, it also doesn’t support features like multi touch, pinch and zoom etc.

Surprisingly the viewing quality (pictue and brightness) of Spice MI270 is quite good and acceptable.

It has bright screen

User Interface, performance and multimedia

Spice has tried to implement a good level of customization here, specially in the menu part. The menu is vertically scrollable with a 3D effect of icons stacked in the top and bottom.

3D Menu

The standby mode (home page) has 4 scrollable screens where you can stack your favorite items so that you don’t nee to enter into the menu to reach the frequently used stuffs. There is no lag while navigating or scrolling the stuffs, however the resistive touchscreen may definitely take some time to get used to.

The Audio quality of phone is quite good while the video quality seemed above average to me. The 2.8 inch screen is not very optimal for movie watching, however it may conveniently be used for watching clips and video songs.

Game playing on Spice MI270 was another major breakdown for me. The phone has a very low processor low processor of 416 mhz, which optimal for playing basic games like sudoku etc. The screen went highly pixelated while playing Angry Birds. When I tried to play another motion based game (speed car), the motion sensor was working perfectly but the game was lagging badly due to the weak processor.

The Spice MI270 comes with a basic 2 Mega pixel with fixed focus without flash. The quality of pics ad vids shot by the camera were below average. See the video sample here and pics sample here.

Verdict, Should you buy?

The super affordable price of phone is only good reason you could think about it. You may consider buying it if you are going to buy any other touch screen for this price range. Unlike feature phones, it comes with an operating system which can be customized heavily with the help of apps.

The web usability of Android is unquestionable. Be it web browsing, emailing, social networking, Android provides them with ease. And the Spice MI270 bring Android to you at an affordable price.

However if you are looking for a heavy duty phone in terms of gaming, multi tasking, battery backup etc, Stay away.