Spice Mi-300 Review

Vinod Yalburgi

Over the last few months we have been witnessing a steady climb in the number of 3G touch-screen phones released into the Indian market. Directly competing against the likes of Videocon's leading 3G touch-screen phone - the ZEUS V7500, Spice MI-300 tries to unleash its own potential in terms of feature-rich lifestyle applications. Like its counterpart, Spice Mi-300 also runs on the famed Android 1.6 with the upgrade functionality of Eclair (Android 2.1). The touch UI looks the same, the home-screen and widget applications also match brick by brick with that of ZEUS V7500. Thankfully, the similarities end with the interface and Spice has truly added a bit more spice in terms of lifestyle features that were missing on the ZEUS. Now, let's take a sneak peek into what Spice Mi-300 has in store for the common man and geeks alike.

The Spice Mi-300 is no sleeker than Videocon's ZEUS, but also feels slightly heavier than its counterpart. The astonishing fact is the striking resemblance between the two cellphones in terms of the form-factor, design aesthetics of the LCD screen and the positioning of the buttons & keys. The volume rocker button, the camera button, the 3.5mm audio jack, the USB power port, the power button, the home-screen special function buttons and the call function buttons are all placed on identical locations on both Spice Mi-300 and Videocon ZEUS V7500. The only exception being the presence of the trackball on Spice Mi-300, which was missing on the ZEUS. As if to compete neck-to-neck, the 5MPl camera & the flash LED find their place exactly at the same location on the back-panel of the Mi-300, although in this case the battery compartment is not segregated from the camera compartment. Sliding the battery cover downwards reveals one GSM + WCDMA SIM card slot and one microSD memory slot which yet again copycats the design aesthetics of Videocon's ZEUS.

A thin steel-grey metallic strip decorates the contours of the body and the volume rocker button, camera button and the power button are out-dented on it. The glossy black finish on the front panel and a matte black finish on the back-panel add stark contrast with the dazzling steel-grey strip sandwiched between the two.

Spice Mi-300 has a neat and stylish touch interface. Although, its processing speeds are a bit slower than the ZEUS, it compensates with a rich array of lifestyle applications like: Ibibo, Railinfo, RoadSync, SMS filter, spice sangeet, wapedia (mobile encyclopedia), socially and much more. You could drag the application icons to the home-screen and create as many shortcuts as you desire for quick access. You could also delete the shortcuts by dragging the icons back onto the arrow header on the menu interface. A cute little animation which triggers the recycle-bin icon with a glowing red colour, indicates the deletion process. The other notable feature is the status bar located at the top of the screen which includes: battery status, Wi-Fi signal status, memory card status, SIM-card status and mobile network signal status. Although, you could have up to five customized home-screens, you could only activate one wallpaper at a time, which remains common to all the home-screens. You could also choose amongst a set of Clock widgets for one of your home-screens.

In addition, it incorporates a few technologically interesting features like G-sensor and E-compass which can be calibrated for accuracy. The G-sensor was originally used to align the orientation of photos taken from the integrated camera, to enable the user view the right orientation without tilting the screen. However, it is now incorporated into the accelerometer which adjusts the view, as per the orientation of the display. Also, it could be used to detect vibration shock and falling. At the same time, the E-compass coupled with GPS acts as a motion sensor for directional assistance.

Read on to know the performance, specifications, conclusion, ratings and performance test results in the next page...

• GSM + WCDMA SIM card slot;
• Display: 3.2-inch, Screen resolution: 480 x 320;
• Memory: microSD expandable up to 32GB;
• Battery: 1230mAh, Talk-time: up to 3 hours for WCDMA and up to 4 hours for GSM, Standby-time: up to 250 hours for WCDMA and up to 300 hours for GSM;
• Dimensions: 114.9 x 56.8 x 12.6;
• Weight: 114grams;