I want to share my experience with Tata Indicom (TI) mobile phone. I scoured this and many other forums before opting for a TI phone.
All those who feel that here is a loyal Tata employee out to defend her company, may be rest assured - I work for a sister company called Tata InteractiveSystems, and want to draft an honest unbiased reportage of my TI experience.
I initially opted for the TI as I got a good deal. In all sincerity, I doubted the service of the company, and retained my Orange phone : a Nokia 2100 (SST model - Sasta, sundar, tikao) along with the TI phone.
First the pros:
TI network is amazing! In movie halls and enclosed areas, when my Orange network shows a paltry notch or two, TI shows a gusty full coverage. Orange pre-paid network is almost always busy - so the TI is heavenly in comparison.
Clarity is also better and of course, the Nokia 3105 looks cute...a ladies phone. Great color display, polyphonic and midi ringtones etc.
TI is cost-effective I pay 2.50 for an STD call from Mumbai to Kolkatta whereas on my Orange phone, I pay almost 3/min for a local call!
Free roaming and home charges while roaming i.e. when I am in Kolkatta I pay 50p/min for local calls to Kolkatta cells.
Gaming You can download some good games from tatazone.com especially if you like arcade games like me. On my TI, I like playing collapse (called Gem Jam on the TI), copter, snake, extreme speed, amongst others.
Cute accessories - I quite like the camera and FM attachments.
Now the cons
TI service is grrrrr... 15 days, relentless phones to their call center and sales guys before SMS was activated. Their call center guys need serious training - every single call I got a different reason why my STD/ISD is not working...one guy even said I had to choose between 3 way conferencing and ISD. That took 3 weeks to activate and all STD/ISD and 3 way conferencing are working fine now.
TI is not fun - It doesn’t have the fun features of, say, an Orange network - messenger (MSN and yahoo) alerts, ringtone composer, downloadable ringtones from almost any site, and alas, you cannot forward ringtones etc. You can only download from the Tatazone site - which is good...however, it has a limited selection of ringtones.
As with all Tata products, safer to skip one or two versions before buying it. I know people who regret buying it, but for me, the honeymoon is still on. On the flip side, I still have my Orange phone...so draw your own conclusions.