Vodafone has launched its new plan, available to both prepaid and postpaid users, called Vodafone Friends Circle. The much publicised plan allows users to add other Vodafone numbers to their friends list and make local calls to them @ 20paise/min.

However, the ad says that you can add as many friends as you like to this friend list, which does not hold true in reality. The maximum number of friends you can add is limited to 10 for prepaid users. You can change these at your own convenience, but this will cost you Rs.5 for each change. The plan is charged @ 50paise per day.

As for the postpaid users, this might turn out to be quite expensive as the number of Vodafone users that you can add to your list is 5, and each comes at the price of Rs.15/month.

We say: The plan may provide good value for moneyfor a prepaid user, but will also benefit a postpaid user who has majority calling to particular Vodafone number. Also the fact that the plan provides the flexibility to add one or more friends (postpaid) gives it that extra benefit.

We’ve already seen the Vodafone Bonus Cards for Mumbai circle. Now let’s check out the same for Delhi/NCR. The main purpose of Bonus Cards is to reduce your calling or SMS charges for a fixed monthly amount. Here are the details:

• Bonus Card 29: Gets you all local and National SMS @ 29 p /SMS
• Bonus Card 31: Make all Local & STD calls @ Re 1 / min
• Bonus Card 35: Gets you 300 local SMS’s
• Bonus Card 149: Call 1000 Local Vodafone minutes for free.
• Bonus Card 50: Make all Local calls at a flat rate of @ 50p / min
• Bonus Card 110: Make Local calls @ 50p / min & STD calls @ Re 1 / min
• Bonus Card 124: Make Local Vodafone calls @ 10p / min & Local Mobile calls @ 50p / min.

All the above cards have a validity of a month. We would recommend people to consider their needs before they buy such cards. These cards are designed to suit different purposes. Depending upon your usage choose your best bet.

‘Vodafone Tuesday’ is a scheme which allows a Vodafone subscriber to bag two movie tickets and meals at a price of one. Vodafone Mumbai subscribers are using this scheme since long and now it is even being made available to Delhi/NCR subscribers.

This scheme restricted to Tuesdays, will allow Vodafone users in Delhi/NCR to catch movies at all outlets of Satyam (Nehru Place, Patel Nagar and Janak Puri) and DT Cinemas (Gurgaon), and dine at restaurants like Bercos, Tantra, The Rock Café, Little Italy, and many more.

Vodafone Group has decided to launch the BlackBerry Storm smartphone in all its global markets which is a result of the long-term alliance between RIM (Research in Motion) and Vodafone. The BlackBerry Storm is the first ever ‘clickable’ touch screen smartphone and will be available exclusively on Vodafone’s high speed 3G mobile broadband network in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand from next month. (Hope India gets 3G by that time)

The 3.25″ ‘clickable’ touch screen gives users the sensation of actually pressing down on virtual keys, which also lights up when touched. This makes it easy to type texts and e-mails as well as navigate through the phone’s functions. This phone is the most advanced smartphone to date from RIM’s stable and would be positioned globally in competition to Apple’s iPhone, though it would obviously be targeted at business customers. No official pricing details are available yet, but these companies are expected to reveal prices in the coming weeks.

It is not difficult to find similar plans offered by both Airtel and Vodafone under different names. We recently came across ‘Vodafone Talk 249 Bumper Plan’ and ‘Airtel Jackpot 249 Plan’ which are exactly the same plans offered offered to subscribers in Delhi and NCR circle. The details are:

Monthly Rental: Rs 249
CLIP: Free
Free: 500 minutes Mobile-to-Mobile local calls
Calling charge to all other local mobile: 30p/min
Calling charge to all other local numbers: 50p/min
Local SMS: 50p/SMS
STD calling charge to Vodafone numbers: Re 1/min
STD calling charge to all other numbers: Rs 1.50/min

Vodafone recently launched a fully loaded Magic Box handset. The pack is called Fully Loaded Magic Box 527 and is priced at Rs. 3499. As for the handset, it features:

• A VGA camera
• 128×160 65k colour display
• Music player which plays audio format like MP3, AAC, AMR and wav
• Stereo FM radio
• Voice recording
• Bluetooth
• USB charging port
• PC Serial cable
• 1 GB Memory Card (expandable upto 2GB)
• 2 years warranty

This handset comes along with standard Vodafone Magic Box schemes like:

• Prepaid card with lifelong validity
• Free talktime worth Rs 10
• Free callertune for 30 days
• Free Vodafone alerts for 30 days
• Calls to local mobile numbers at 30p/min for 30 days
• Free 200 mins of Nightspeak (from 11 pm to 8 am) to local Vodafone numbers for 30 days

Airtel, Vodafone and RCom have revealed their latest offering from their Blackberry portfolio. They will soon be selling RIM’s Blackberry flagship phone, Bold at a hefty price tag of Rs. 34,990. This is the best Blackberry phone to come out of RIM’s stable and if you’re not so price conscious then you might be able to pick it up from the end of this month, if you’re an Airtel or Vodafone customer or by end of October if you’re under RCom GSM service.

Let’s make it simple and straight. We all boasted about buying the iPhone to our friends and this took an ugly turn on August 22nd. All praises for the phone were suddenly hard to find and all people spoke about was how it would dig a hole in their pocket if they had to buy one.

The only option, take it on installments. A not so great way to sell the unaccepted phone. Here are the details of how Airtel and Vodafone have planned to sell it in their own ways:

Bharti Airtel 

Airtel is offering multiple options to interested buyers. They have tied up with ICICI, HDFC, SBI and Citibank to provide the 3G machine on installments. As for the duration, people can have 3-24 months to pay their EMI’s, which ranges from Rs.1654 to Rs.12033. Click here to check the available options.

Vodafone

Vodafone, on the other hand was only providing a single option to buyers. The duration proposed by the service provider was 12 months. UPDATE: Now the EMI ranges from 3 -12 months. The banks who are partnering Vodafone in this are Axis, Barclays, HSBC and Citibank. Click here to view the updated available options. 

Vodafone users who have problems deciding which plan is best suited for them, have a reason to relax. Vodafone’s new service claims to suggest the best plan for you. Just to check if this could be possible, I sent BEST FIT as an SMS to 111 and waited for their response. 

The only doubt I had was, how could a computer at the other end go through my previous bills, understand my usage pattern and suggest a best fit for me. And all of this in just under a minute. What followed was just what I was thinking. This is what I received: 

Hello! We are sorry, we do not have a recommended plan for you at the moment. Please call us on 111 and we will be happy to suggest the tariff options available.

We would suggest our Vodafone readers to try this out and see what they receive.

PS: I must have got the reply possibly because I already have a truly awesome plan.

Vodafone is trying their hand to make prepaid pricing model to work for postpaid. And thus, they launch a 1year rent scheme in Gujarat. Forget monthly rents as you’ll payRs. 799 as rent for one whole year. But there’s a flipside to it. Here is how:

• Monthly Rent: Nil
• CLIP charges: Rs.50
• Incoming calls are Free
• All local calls to cellphones: Re.1
• Local calls to Fixed Line: Rs.2
• STD calls: Rs.2.4
• Local SMS: Re.1
• National SMS: Rs.2

We say: The adage ‘you get what you pay for’ goes well for this plan. Vodafone cannot milk in the cash with the monthly rent so they jack up calling rates. We think it is justified too. However, with call charges stooping as low as 10paise, one rupee for a call seems expensive and so are call rates to landlines. Though you pay about Rs.66 as rent every month, you aren’t saving anything.

PS: Same Plan is also available at Rs.1099 for 2 Years.