Neo is a Chinese manufacturer known for rolling out quality devices at reasonable prices. One such device in their range was the Neo N002 which hit the shelves last year, but only in China. But this time round, they plan to release a Full HD (1080p) phone, which will be their flagship for 2013. This phone will be available in India via the AndroidGuruz chain. Just like other major Chinese manufacturers, Neo has also gone for the low cost, high performance MT6589 chip for their phone. Since there are many different manufacturers who are providing similar specs for similar prices, Neo has added OTG (On The Go) and MHL (For HDMI video output) functionalities in their phone to stand out from the rest. No other MT6589 phone has shown MHL capabilities yet. Neo have also released a prototype video which shows the phone performing OTG and MHL tasks.
The phone will have a 5 inch screen with a Full HD resolution of 1920×1080, which will offer a very high PPI of 443. The processor driving this setup would be the MediaTek MT6589, coupled with either 1GB or 2GB of RAM, corresponding to the ‘Youth’ and ‘Advanced’ versions of the Neo N003. Also, the Youth version would carry 8GB of internal storage whereas the Advanced version would carry 32GB of storage. The phone will sport a big 3000mAh battery to keep it running for a long duration, and there will be a 13MP rear camera on both versions. While the Advanced version gets a 3MP front camera, it will only be a 0.3MP front camera on the Youth. Other features include OGS (One Glass Screen) panel and Yamaha speakers for music lovers.
Pricing & Availability
The Youth version will be priced at around $160 in China, so we would imagine international customers have to pay around 200-220USD for the same. The pricing of the Advanced version is not clear yet, but it is expected to cost around $50 extra. Now for the availability – earlier it was announced that the phone will hit stores in April but as expected, that did not happen. We expect the phone to be in the retail market by May, and expect AndroidGuruz to sell the phone in India 10-15 days after its release in China, with pricing at par with China. Neo N003 has some competitors in the form of Zopo ZP980, iOcean X7, UMI X2, but Neo is the cheapest among all at this time, with the costliest being the Zopo ZP980.
