Aircel teases iPhone 5 coming soon to India - Pre-Order Now

With the launch of the iPhone 5 looming close in India, mobile phone carriers have begun teasing the handset. Aircel was one of the carriers that officially launched the iPhone 4S in India. The mobile phone services operator has now put up a teaser page on its site indicating that the iPhone 5 handset is coming soon.

As of now, there is no information on prices available or specialised tariff plans available. However, this all should change closer to the date of launch, which is scheduled for November 2, 2012.

iPhone 5 gets teased on Aircel website

Mobile operators Bharti Airtel and Aircel on Monday began taking pre-orders for Apple's much-awaited iPhone 5 ahead of its retail debut in the stores on November 2.

Both operators opened preorders starting at Rs 45,000 for the 16GB variant while the 64GB model has been priced at Rs 59,500 according to the listings in their website, and have also promised to ship the product within 7-8 days. In comparison, the iPhone's direct competitors such as Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X are available in India for about Rs 35,000.

Here is a quick look at the highlighted features of the iPhone 5:

• 4-inch, 326ppi Retina display at 1136 x 640 pixels,
• GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, LTE and Wi-Fi
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD recording, 720p front-facing camera
• 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions

For those interested in purchasing the iPhone 5, the base model, the 16GB version will be launched at Rs 45,500, the 32GB version of the iPhone 5 will be available for Rs 52,500 and the 64GB model for Rs 59,500. These prices are more or less on par with the previous generation iPhone 4S, when it was first launched in India.

Ingram Micro has recently announced that it will offer the Apple iPhone 5 at leading trade stores and retail outlets across India beginning on Friday, November 2. It was recently reported that in order to expand its user base in India, Apple will start selling the iPhone 5 through specialised distribution companies. Apple has tied up with Ingram Micro Inc, which is a large US-based distributor of technologies, as well as Redington India Ltd, a local distributor with 12,000 smaller partners across the country.

Made entirely out of aluminium and glass, the iPhone 5 weighs 112 grams, and is 20 percent lighter than the iPhone 4S, and is the thinnest iPhone yet at 7.6mm. Apple has chosen to debut iOS 6 with the iPhone 5. The new OS includes Apple's own Maps app, an updated version of Siri and lots more. Overall, the new iPhone has been upgraded in almost all respects.

Siri has also been updated and new features include support for more languages, easy access to sports scores, restaurant recommendations and movie listings; Siri and Facebook-enabled apps like Photos, Safari and Maps; and Shared Photo Streams via iCloud.

Safari has also received a major update – the ability to go full screen on the device by touching the arrows on the corners. Another major feature of the new Safari app is the ability to sync tabs between the desktop and iOS versions of Safari. This new feature is called iCloud Tabs. The new Mail app has also received some updates, including the ability to mark people as VIPs and the ability to flag certain mails for follow-ups.