Served very well in India 2014
587697
This is a great, no frills phone. I bought it for a trip to india where I would need to communicate with my father within India. Got a SIM card and it worked great. Lightweight, kept charge for days and days unless I talked for an hour or more, then needed some recharge. Incredibly, when I called home to the US I was told the sound quality was better then usual with my iphone. It will flash you back to ten years ago with its primitive texting, but great for travel. Oddly came with everything in Spanish, but i somehow got all commands converted over to English.
1883824
I've never been to India and don't expect that I will go but I feel in a small way that I've been there. The descriptions along with correct names and Indian terms were top notch. It was almost as good as the "Best Marigold Hotel" movie. You could feel the angst of this young college student readapting to his cultural heritage. Not a riveting story line but way better than a travelogue.
1708845
Wow, incredible device in the midrange pricing range.

This turned out to be much better than I had anticipated. I spend a lot of time in Europe, and I used to plug my US T-Mobile SIM card in my iPhone 4S when Stateside, and put its EU-sibling in my Nokia N9. When going overseas, the SIMs would swap phones. That way, my iPhone would always be my primary device to avoid racking up roaming charges eclipsing the national debt of certain countries, yet I would remain connected on both numbers.

But although the N9 was great for a while, when Nokia chose to steer itself off a cliff by going Windows phone something else had to come instead. Yes, I did buy a Lumia 800, but I found it infuriating to use. I really tried to like it, but I couldn't. It looked like the N9, but that is where the analogies ended short from both being good at holding down paper. The N9 had to come out of the drawer again, but its total lack of apps made it no better than a feature phone albeit with one tenth of the battery life.

So, not having used a Motorola since the Dynatac, this was quite a surprise! It is really fast, the screen is gorgeous - sharp with rich colors, the device is thin enough, the camera is quite ok, battery life is quite good, it is light enough, and, the phone is not too ugly. It is not an iPhone 6, which I did consider, but at one fourth the price I think it is certainly a lot better than you would expect. It's a black plasticky slab, but not worse than any Samsung out there.

The camera low light performance is a bit better than the iPhone 4s, but the imaging algorithms are a little worse in bright light. Onboard memory is only a few gigs, but I stuck in a 32GB micro SD card I still had laying around and memory is no longer in short supply.

It does not support LTE, but I tested download speeds north of 10Mbps and upload a little less than half that on a Finnish network. I assume it does not do HSPA-DC, which can give you here about 25Mbps down, but 10Mbps covers all my needs.

It came out of the box with Android 4.4, but it apparently is Android 5 capable.

It is good enough for me to start considering if I should reclassify my iPhone to secondary device and make this the primary one.
2035228
I recently read this book during my first trip to India.  Having limited exposure to overseas travel, the experience was a bit of a sensory overload. Adiga's novel helped tie it all together and gave me some insight into the study of contrasts that is moden India.  From the rural villages and the urban slums to the luxury high rises and Western styled billboards, India is is a constant juxtaposition of wealth against poverty and old versus new. This novel does a brilliant job of capturing that juxtaposition and the costs one must pay to satisfy the ambitions of upward mobility and the promise of Westernization.
3444480
I bought this book in India last year and my daughter (then 8 years old like Avantika) enjoyed it a lot.  Obviously it's not how most people in India live (the family is upper-middle-class, at least) but it has plenty of distinctively Indian aspects both in the plotting and the language.  The drawings are excellent.
1291647
Good product at good price. US charger plugs into this adapter and the adapter plugs into Indian Power Outlets. The adapter holds firmly on both ends and feels great in hand. I recommend this to everyone who travel to India.
4894680
I have used one all year this year and it has served me well and held up beautifully. Very happy with this product and will order again for 2013 and beyond.
4632407
I bought this unit recently for my father in India. I really loved it when it arrived at my end. Nice form factor. Good looking. Nice sound. Very pleased with the product.
1249504
have used this for about 2 years; usually once a month, mainly for brown rice and lentils, for use in indian cooking.  works quite well and quickly.  we adjust the settings to get the most coarse flour.
338505
It is an inspirational story for anybody (not only for Indians). He proved that with dedication, focus and deterministic one can able to achieve what they wanted. Though he did not enough resources on his hand he could able to provide great results for India and surprised the world.
All Indians are indebted to him for his efforts.
4251540
Did OK this year.  They made some much needed inprovements in the oil depletion allowance section.
3101377
I have read many books describing the life, culture and natives of India. Being an Indian, I must say that this book was not only a good narration of India but also came close to real India on many aspects. The collection of essays is great and covers many aspects with interesting and ammusing language. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested to know about life in India.
1231890
I am trini and represented the hindi portion of my trini culture at a world fair. This piece was a part of any entire ensemble that allowed me to drive a great look home without serious commitment (actually getting it pierced) because that would be more expensive, painful, and my career doesn't allow it. Definitely worth the buy.
4060103
Dalrymple does an amazing job of describing India and the Delhi in particular - it's somewhat difficult to describe what goes on in India without sounding like a bit of a buffoon or ugly Westerner but Dalrymple paints a pretty accurate picture without sounding condescending.  I liked this enough to read other books on India he has written.
3086042
It's really great.  I used the phone in India and it works really good.

Thanks,

Suguna Reddy
1481819
In A House for Happy Mothers, Amulya Malladi tackles some of the moral and ethical issues surrounding surrogacy programs in India. Priya, an American born half-Indian, and her native Indian husband Madu, are living the perfect life in Silicon Valley, save a child or two. After several miscarriages, and considerable strain to their relationship, they try one last time, via a surrogate in India. The baby is genetically theirs, but growing inside the womb of Asha, a poor but proud mother of two. Asha has been coerced into this by her family as a way to help secure their financial future and provide a better education for their gifted son, but struggles to remain detached from the life growing inside her.

This book explores all of the questions that surrogacy in a poor country raises. Yes, its providing a large sum of money to someone who probably lives on $2 a day, but at what cost? There is a lot of shame associated with this practice, and the women must pretend it never happened. They must go through all the toils and discomforts of pregnancy and labor, without the gift of a child at the end. We also see some characters coming back for a second or third time, as either the money was squandered initially or because for a poor person, there is never enough really.

While there is a very hopeful and uplifting message to this book, having just read and watched A Handmaids Tale and its forced surrogacy program, its hard not to see some parallels. Apparently there are more laws in place now to help protect the surrogates, and efforts have been made to eliminate some of the worst offending baby mills, but its easy to see how this is a situation still ripe for exploitation.

Finally, I listened to the audio version of this book, and it is wonderful! The narrator, Deepa Samuel, does an amazing job with literally dozens of different characters voices. She manages to create a unique Indian accent for each one, and her performance was truly stunning. This is definitely a book worth listening to.
1274909
I found this book captivating. Since I work with more than 20 Indians and one Pakistani, I was able to discuss the events in the book at length with them. One of my friends' father barely escaped death on one of the trains fleeing Pakistan. He and his brother have bullet wounds to show. The Pakistani's father also narrowly escaped death while leaving India for Pakistan. Two of the Indians decided to read the book with me. All agree that the book is accurate. It was very emotional for me to read of the atrocities and understand the personalities involved. My Indian friends experienced even more intense emotion as the read of the experiences of their parents.
  One of the other customer reviews stated that the book made Montbatten look too good. My Indian friends disagree. Montbatten was a great man. The book might have underrated him, if anything.
  The book also shows several sides of Gandi that most Westerners are not exposed to. He is still a great soul, though.
  This book will change you. At least read the first 100 pages before you make a decision -- it'll draw you in.