• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Abhinav Ramnarayan

... are shops with `sleek grey stuff' in consumer electronics. Are the products as reliable as branded ones, and at half the price? It's the consumer's call.

An iPod by any name.

As far as consumer electronics in the entertainment segment is concerned, the customer today has a slew of products and brands to choose from. If you want an mp3 player, you can pick an Apple, a Sony, or a Samsung, to name a few. If you want a television or a DVD player, there are more brands than fingers on your hand to choose from.

However, you might, these days, stumble on the latest gadgets with the most innovative features in your nearest grey market.

eWorld came across a couple of such products. One, a DVD/CD player with a built-in screen - it's a normal DVD player, except that it opens out like a laptop, allowing for portable movie viewing that's a lot more satisfying than the tiny little screen that comes with the video iPod.

The product is priced according to the screen size - available in the 9-inch, 11-inch and 14-inch range. And the price tag is between Rs 7,000 and Rs 11,000, at the retail outlet we visited. It comes with a one-year service warranty.

The battery, which can be recharged, allows for 12 hours of mobile viewing, and of course you can plug it in while you're at home.

Another product we came across in our trip through the dingy bazaar streets is a (supposedly) Sony mp3 player with 512 MB extendable hard disk space, a three-by-two inch viewing screen with video enabled, a 1.3 megapixel camera and video recording.

This four-in-one device is about the size of a cassette tape, if a little thicker, a bit heavy (not advisable to hang it about the neck while jogging, as people do with an iPod Shuffle), but comes at a price of Rs 5,500.

Is it really a Sony product? Two clues we had that it isn't: one, the Sony showroom owners blink bemusedly when you describe it to them (familiar as they are with their branded products) and two, the shop owner who stocks this product laughs in your face when you ask him if it is a Sony. "But it is made in Japan, sir," he says, controlling his mirth.

Gadgets on display at a shop in Chennai.

The price difference between such `grey stuff' and its branded original is often huge.

One product with a confusing identity - the structural design is that of an Apple iPod, but the brand name splashed imperfectly across it is that of a Sony - is the normal mp3 player with 512 MB disk space and voice recording, priced at Rs 2,600. A similar original Sony product, the NW-E505, is priced at Rs 12,990.

The difference in price, and the fact that some of these gadgets seem to work, might tempt the consumer to go for them, but for the ethical considerations.

abhinav@thehindu.co.in

Pictures by Bijoy Ghosh

More Stories on : Piracy | Consumer Electronics | Economic Offences | Brands

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
O2 - it's breath-taking

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line