Lava Iris N320

Available now
27th November 2012

Lava is an Indian mobile phone company, selling products mainly in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa who specialise in making low cost but highly functional and attractive devices such as the Lava M30.

The new Lava Iris range consists of a pair of Android handsets, the Lava Iris N320 (covered here) and the very similar but slightly larger Iris N350.

The Lava Iris N320 has a 3.2" 320 x 480 pixel capacitive touchscreen display (the N350 has a larger 3.5" display of the same resolution). Inside is a 1GHz CPU with 256MB of RAM, on the back is a 2 megapixel camera with LED flash. There is 160Mb of internal flash storage expandable via a microSD slot. In addition to the standard Android media playback there is an FM radio.

This is a dual-SIM device, but unusually for an Android smartphone it supports GPRS/EDGE and WiFi connectivity only, and not 3G. The N320 support GPS and also has a gravity sensor and proximity sensor. Bluetooth and USB connections are also supported.

The operating system is only Android 2.3.6, but to be honest this is a pretty decent version of Android and it works well on low-end devices. Despite the lack of 3G data, you will be able to do almost everything that every other Android phone will do.

Inside the Lava Iris N320 is a 1400 mAh battery capable of powering the handset for up to 4 hours talktime and 16 days standby time. The handset measures 112 x 60 x 12.5mm and weighs 115 grams.

The Lava Iris N320 currently retails for around Rs.4000 in India (about €56 or $72) which is incredibly cheap and easily makes up for the somewhat basic feature set. The Iris N320 is available to order now, and more details on this range can be found on their website at lavamobiles.com.