With an eye on the emerging 3G markets. Idea Cellular, India’s 3rd largest mobile operator launched the Aurus 4, a dual-sim, 3G  smartphone in India. The smartphone is priced at Rs 8,999.

Idea said that it plans to sell the new Aurus 4  through its own retail and service outlets across major 3G markets, Gujarat, Maharashtra & Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Kerala, UP West & East, Haryana, J&K and HP.

Idea Aurus 4 features a 11.4 cms (4.5”) TFT display with 16 m colors. It runs on Android Jelly Bean (4.2) and is powered by a 1.3 GHz dual-core processor.It sports a 5MP primary camera along with video calling facility and 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera. It packs in 1800 mah battery and also offers long hours of talk and idle time.

It comes with 4GB of inbuilt storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD card and 512MB of RAM.

Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer, Idea Cellular said, “The young and savvy youth of India has a huge appetite for content on mobile, but is deterred due to highly priced smartphones in India. Idea is bridging this gap by offering 3G smartphones packed with high-end features at relat4ely low price. Idea Aurus 4 is the latest addition to our growing portfolio of 3G devices which is enabling a large base of Idea users experience 3G for the first time in India.”

Aimed at the youth the Aurus 4 is the latest addition in Idea’s popular Aurus series of 3G smartphones which the company said are rich in features and smart on price.

Idea in the past launched number of 3G phones including  ULTRA, the company’s first smartphone in the 12 cms (5”) category. It said that it sold over 6 lakh devices from a dozen models in the 8.89 cm (3.5”), 10.16 cm (4”) and 11.43 cm (4.5”) categories, in the Indian market.
 
Idea Aurus 4 key specifications

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
4.5-inch TFT display with 480x854 pixels resolution
1.3GHz dual-core processor
512MB of RAM
4GB of inbuilt storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD card
5-megapixel rear camera
0.3-megapixel front-facing camera
Dual-SIM device (GSM+GSM)
1800mAh battery