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    Micromax-unit Yu Televentures launches Cyanogen smartphone at Rs 8,999

    Synopsis

    The dual-sim, LTE enabled device will be available on a flash sale model, akin to China’s Xiaomi in India, on Amazon India from January 8.

    ET Bureau
    Yu Televentures, a wholly owned unit of Micromax Informatics, launched its first smartphone with Cyanogen under the Yureka brand on Thursday priced at Rs 8999

    India's largest home-bred handset maker is aiming to create a mark in the country’s intensely- competitive smartphone market, the fastest growing in Asia Pacific, with device which has a 5.5 inch HD screen, 2GB RAM, A 53 cortex, Qualcomm Snapdragon processor 615 octa core 64 bit chipset and 16 GB expandable memory.

    The dual-sim, LTE enabled device will be available on a flash sale model, akin to China’s Xiaomi in India, on Amazon India from January 8. Registrations on the Amazon website to buy the device begins on Friday at 2 pm.

    The device features a 2500 mAh battery and also has a 13 megapixel camera.

    Rahul Sharma, co-founder of Micromax and Yu Televentures, said that Yureka, the new smartphone brand, will be focused on today’s youth besides tech enthusiasts and geeks, who like to keep abreast of new technologies and innovation. "Tech enthusiasts will be able to use open source that the company will share to customized the device according to their requirements from the ground up, while warranty will remain intact," he told ET.

    The specs that are amongst the first in any device globally, will enable the phone to be ahead of the competition as it will provide faster processing, better download speeds even in patchy areas and the A53 cortex allowing low power consumption, meaning the phone will last longer on a single power charge.

    One of the world’s top 10 handset maker, Micromax has an exclusive partnership with US-based operating system maker Cyanogen for making CyanogenMod the OS base on the new device.

    Vikram Natarajan, VP of Global Partnerships & Distribution at Cyanogen told ET that the new devices that will come out from Micromax’s stable will focus on personalization, performance, security and privacy, aspects he feels are the most relevant for customers in these sectors.

    With a new operating system which is used by over 50 million devices across 250 smartphone models, Cyanogen may well be a challenger to the dominant Android OS, the company claims.

    "We believe that we have a serious shot at getting a respectable market share," he added when asked whether Cyanogen can become an alternative to Android, despite being based on the same OS. "We're enhancing stock Android and taking it to a different level."

    Recognizing India's potential with the smartphone market likely expanding exponentially year on year to about 80 million devices in 2014, as per IDC, Natarajan said that it was the apt time for Cyanogen to enter India.

    In 2015, the company will introduce more devices and features which cofounder KIRT McMaster said will be Android and mobile firsts. Some of the features include blocking of spam or unsolicited phone calls, finding and wiping data off the device if lost, encryption of the device besides enhancements on camera, securing apps, making phone usage more intuitive.

    Features in the phone also allow users to save game scores, levels and setting on all apps get saved on the cloud, besides sync of data across different devices. Yureka device users will also be the first ones to get Cynogen L update, Sharma added.

    Micromax becomes the second company after Lava to launch a second brand alongside its existing brand. Lava launched Xolo earlier this year, which only sells smartphones.
    ( Originally published on Dec 18, 2014 )

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