Micromax has now declared that they will be launching its Superfone A80 model for Rs. 8490. You may ask what is so special about this clearly low-end Smartphone (judging by the price tag at least). But Superfone A80 may very well put India in the world map, Smartphone-wise. Apple is known to have revolutionized voice recognition and control through its Siri. Google was eager to catch up on it. As a result, the Android makers came up with Google Now, their own digital personal assistant. Now Micromax plans to give the two stalwarts of Smartphone industry with similar voice assistant Asha.
New Micromax Android phone
The specifications of Superfone A80 serve the innovative Aisha well. It has a 9.25 cm capacitive touch screen display of resolution 11.86 x 6cm, mounted with Gorilla Glass covering and IPS panel. It runs on Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread), which is surprisingly sophisticated for a phone priced well below Rs. 10,000. The Smartphone is powered by a NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor clocked at 1 GHz. It has a primary snapper of 5 MP, decked with flash and several camera settings like night vision setting, multi shot option, camera sensor and multiple video recording formats. Internal memory runs up to 8 GB, which can be expanded up to 32 GB externally. Bluetooth 2.1, USb 2.0 and a 2500 mAh Li-on battery, that promises talktime up to 3 hours and standby time of 250 hours, makes it a great phone even without the incentive of Aisha. It also has acceleration and gravity sensors.
According to a statement released by the company, “The users can connect with the people, businesses and activities that are important to them with AISHA if they need to check the weather conditions and for example all they just need to ask is ‘What is the weather in Delhi’ and AISHA will respond saying ‘The weather will be sunny.’ To start using AISHA, an internet connection and a Google account is required. Once the internet connection has been configured on the phone, just tap on Aisha to bring up the Aisha interactive screen and you can start issuing voice commands.”
Aisha will help you carry out simple tasks like running a Google search, make calls, check on the latest stock market trends. You can read related news from a particular location, browse horoscopes, recipes and whatnot. Some more complicated tasks like language translations, sending messages, asking about missed calls, weather, date, time and general knowledge is also supposedly in Aisha’s repertoire.
Of course, the whole phenomenon of voice assistant has just caught on and it is inevitable that every Smartphone company would like to spring their technology in the market. However, for cutting edge technology like voice recognition, glitches are bound to crop up. Just like users often struggled with Apple’s Siri, Micromax’s Aisha is bound to pose some problems. We only hope it will keep updating and modifying the software and make it the ultimate digital personal voice assistant.