Apple re-launching iPhone 3GS in India for Rs 19,990

Yes, you read that right. According to cellphone dealers, Apple is "re-launching" its two-year-old iPhone at a price of Rs 19,990 in India. The move is likely to counter cheap Android smartphones that have flooded the market recently. This particular version of iPhone will come with 8GB internal storage.

Manish Khatri, a mobile dealer in Mumbai, tweeted on Friday evening that shops had already received stock and the phone will be available from Saturday at the said price with one year official warranty. In Delhi too, several dealers said they had received stock of iPhone 3GS (8GB) on Thursday evening.

iPhone 3GS was originally released in June 2009. It has a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen (320 x 480 pixels) and is powered by a 600Mhz processor. However, as it happens in the case of Apple products, the hardware specifications can be misleading when it comes to performance and usability.

Apple's latest iOS version 4.3 supports iPhone 3GS and that makes the phone a worthy opponent to similarly-priced Android devices that have better hardware. Apple has also said that iOS 5 will work on iPhone 3GS though it is likely that not all features will be supported.

At the price of Rs 19,990, iPhone 3GS will directly compete with Samsung Nexus S , a phone that saw its price fall by over Rs 6,000 to touch Rs 19,999 a few weeks ago. Nexus S, which runs on Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread, has a 4-inch capacitive screen. It is powered by a 1Ghz processor, packs 512MB RAM and comes with 16GB internal storage.