Detel D1 Slim review: A very basic feature phone you can gift your grandpa

This one isn't getting any smarter, with limited functionality; But it's got a great on-battery time that can last a week or thereabouts. Go ahead and buy it for grandpa -- he'll love it

Photo: detel-India.com

Detel, a home-grown mobile handset and accessories brand known for its ultra-affordable feature phones, recently launched the Detel D1 Slim with a 2.8-inch LCD screen, caller blacklist, wireless FM and sound recording facility for Rs 1,199. The dual SIM gadget has a microSD card slot too, that supports storage chips of up to 16GB capacity.

Since it's a feature phone, the most you can do with it is make calls and send SMSes. Well almost. It does have built-in music and a video player for multimedia playback. So while you can't store large multimedia files such as songs and videos on the device due to its limited internal storage, you can insert an external storage chip in the microSD card slot to store such content.

On the front, the phone’s 2.8-inch screen covers the upper half and the alpha-numeric keyboard covers the rest. On the back, there is a big speaker reminiscent of older generation Chinese feature phones that were in demand due to their loud music playback capabilities. In terms of audio output, the speaker is loud but lacks clarity.

Powered by a 1,500 mAh battery, the phone comes with power saving mode, which allows extended usage on a single charge. Like most feature phone, the Detel D1 Slim has a good on-battery time. It works for almost a week on a single charge, when used for attending call and messages. However, playing music on phone speaker brings down on-battery time.

The phone supports five regional languages, apart from English and Hindi. It comes in three colours -- blue, gold, and rose gold.

With feature phones getting smart and supporting high-speed internet, the Detel D1 Slim seems to be an obsolete gadget. However, if you are looking for battery life, calling and messaging only, this phone might not be a bad deal.