Can the iPhone 5 at Rs 45,500 take down Android?

Apple's iPhone 5 will be officially launched in India today, at a starting price of Rs 45,500 the basic 16GB version.

According to Redington, one of Apple's two distribution partners in India, the basic 16GB version of the iPhone 5 will be priced at Rs 45, 500, while the 32GB and 64GB will be priced Rs52500 and Rs 59500 respectively.

This makes it much more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S III which is available on Flipkart for Rs 34,900 and the HTC One X which sells on Flipkart for Rs 34,999.

[caption id="attachment_512159" align="alignleft" width="380"] Reuters[/caption]

The phone will be available in both black and white.

Online retailers like Infibeam and Saholic had started accepting preorders for the 16GB variant of iPhone 5 with an advance payment of Rs 5,000 last week. Saholic had listed the 16GB version for Rs45500 with an estimated shipping date of 4 November.

More from News Analysis

Apple's iPhone 5 has been one of the fastest selling smartphones ever as the company sold nearly 5 million devices in the first weekend itself. India might not be on the top of the list as far as Apple is concerned but the launch of the iPhone 5 has been much awaited.

Key features of the iPhone are: a 4 inch screen with a higher screen resolution of 1136640 pixel which comes to around 326 ppi. That's Retina Display quality for you.

The iPhone5 has the dual-core A6 chip, an 8 megapixel rear camera with a sapphire crystal lens cover for 'clearer pictures' and a 1.2 megapixel front camera. The dock connector is now called Lightning, and is an eight-pin plug.