Reliance Communications (RCom) in tie-up with Samsung Mobile launched the Samsung Galaxy i899 mobile phone for its CDMA subscribers with the handset promising to offer an wireless internet service experience.

The handset works on Android platform.

“The launch of Samsung Galaxy i899, Smart Phone, is in line with our strategy to offer next-generation services with unmatched  voice clarity, hi-speed wireless data network access and ultra-fast application downloads on India’s largest and only nationwide CDMA mobile service   to Reliance Mobile customer,s” said Vrajesh Shelat, Head of Handset & Data Services, Reliance Communications.

The handset offers easy access to popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, YouTube as well as Gmail, GTalk and Google Maps. It has a 3.2” AMOLED touch-screen, a 3.2 megapixel camera, a media player and expandable memory upto 32GB and comes preloaded with features such as phone, email, text messaging, Wi-Fi, HTML web browser and more.

“Empowering Reliance Mobile customers to access work and personal information on the move in addition to a host of fun applications, the feature-rich Samsung Galaxy i899 is a powerful, smart and stylish communication device that would redefine the Smartphone user experience in the country,” Mr Shelat added.

Announcing the launch, Mr. Ranjit Yadav, Director - Mobile and IT, Samsung Electronics stated, “With this association we hope to target a large consumer base of Reliance Mobile subscribers by offering them the feature rich Galaxy i899 – India’s first CDMA Android Phone. Applications from the Android Market can be easily downloaded and installed on to the Galaxy  i899 very fast,  thereby opening up an entirely new world of applications for the mobile phone users , which they can further customize as per their preferences. Consumers can also enjoy enhanced experience of several data speed dependent applications on the Hi Speed Data network of Reliance Communications. With this launch, we have considerably strengthened Samsung’s CDMA portfolio in the Indian market.”

The model is priced at Rs.19,990 and is available as a bundled offer with Reliance Netconnect Broadband+ 10 GB for 1 month for prepaid subscribers and 15 GB per month for 2 months for postpaid subscribers.