Android One Phones Now Available in India; Coming Soon to More Countries With New Partners

The search engine giant stressed that the launch of the first few Android One smartphones - the Karbonn Sparkle V, Micromax Canvas A1, and Spice Dream Uno - is just the beginning of the company's much-anticipated Android One journey.

(Spot the difference: Micromax Canvas A1, Karbonn Sparkle V, and Spice Dream Uno)

The new Android One handsets - the Karbonn Sparkle V, Micromax Canvas A1, and Spice Dream Uno -are already available from their respective online retail partners in India from starting Monday, while the smartphones will be available in physical retail stores by early October.

Notably, the Monday's Android One launch in India was Google's biggest event held in the country in a long time.

(Also see: Android One Was Conceived With India in Mind, Says Google's Sundar Pichai)

Google also announced new hardware partners for the Android One program, which include, Alcatel Onetouch, Asus, HTC, Intex, Lava, Lenovo, Panasonic, Xolo, and chipmaker Qualcomm. The Mountain View giant revealed that it expects "more high-quality, affordable devices with different screen sizes, colors, hardware configurations and customized software experiences."

The company revealed it intends to expand the Android One program to more countries including Indonesia, the Philippines and South Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the program will add more countries next year, added the company without naming the countries or markets.

(Also see: Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon in Battle for Indian Android One Market)

The Karbonn Sparkle V, Micromax Canvas A1, and Spice Dream Uno bear similar features hardware specifications, as well as "features particularly important to Indians" - dual SIM card slots, a FM radio tuner, and a microSD card slot for additional storage. Google apps such as Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Search, and Google Translate will come preloaded on the phones.

Apart from those listed above, common specifications of the Micromax Canvas A1, Karbonn Sparkle V, and Spice Dream Uno include: a 4.5-inch (480x854 pixels) IPS FWVGA display; 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek processor; 1GB of RAM, 4GB of inbuilt storage; expandable storage support via microSD card (up to 32GB); a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash; a 2-megapixel front camera; Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, GPRS/ EDGE, 3G, and a 1700mAh battery.

In related news, the company also announced that in the coming weeks the YouTube app will get offline video playback in India, allowing users to store videos via Wi-Fi on their Android device, and watch them later without data connectivity.