Micromax had recently
launched its A116 Canvas HD smartphone with huge
fanfare. The company had started taking the pre-booking of the
smartphone on February 14, 2013 and it was expected to start retailing
in the market shortly after that. However, the delivery of the
smartphone has now got delayed due to 'procedural issues'.
Speaking to
NDTV Gadgets, a Micromax spokesperson said, "The Micromax Canvas HD
A116 was the first device in the world to be launched on Mediatek's
MT6589 Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 chipset. Like any other first device
it took a while to scale up on its commercial production."
He
further went out to share, "We made a sale of 3,000 odd devices as part
of a Valentine Day offer, and because of the unprecedented consumer
response we did a pre- booking of about 10,000 devices."
When
quizzed in regards to by when the consumers who have pre-booked the
smartphone will be able to get their hands on the smartphone, the
spokesperson commented, "We are delivering these pre-booked orders on a
'first come first served' basis." It is expected that the consumers who
have pre-booked the device will be able to get their hands on it by
March 22, 2013. The company has also indicated that before the end of
March 2013 customers across the country would be able to purchase the
Canvas HD from the open retail market.
Not only is the shipment
of the smartphone been delayed but its price too has been increased
from Rs. 13,999 to Rs. 14,499. Micromax's retail partner Snapdeal.com
has issued a statement on their Facebook page in regards to the increase
in cost. In this post, the deal site has attributed the changes in
custom duty as the reason for increase in price.
Snapdeal.com has
apologised for the delay and has indicated that customers, who have
already pre-booked the smartphone, will be able to get it for the
original price of Rs. 13,999. The company is also giving a carry case
worth Rs. 700 free to all customers who have pre-booked the Micromax
A116 Canvas HD as a gesture to thank people for their patience.
Snapdeal.com
also shared that if for any reason the consumers do not want to wait
for the A116 Canvas HD, then it would refund the booking amount at the
earliest.
Just to recap, the Micromax A116 Canvas HD comes with a
5-inch HD IPS screen that sports 1280x720 resolution and a colour depth
of 16.7 million. It is powered by MediaTek's MT6589 quad-core processor
that clocks 1.2GHz. The smartphone runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) out
of the box.
It packs in a 2000mAh battery. Micromax A116 Canvas
has an 8-megapixel rear shooter with LED flash and 4X zoom and a VGA
front camera. Other features of the smartphone include 1GB of RAM and
4GB of internal storage, which can be expanded to up to 32GB via microSD
card. It is a dual-SIM smartphone, which supports GSM frequency on both
the SIMs.
Micromax A116 Canvas HD in pictures