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MORE AND more people have begun to carry two phones, and often two numbers for personal and official use. I also run into queries on whether...

MORE AND more people have begun to carry two phones, and often two numbers for personal and official use. I also run into queries on whether two SIM cards can be carried in one phone. Yes, it’s possible with a dual SIM card holder, a device worth Rs 200. The downside is that only one line works at any given time. So you need to switch your phone on and off every time you shift the line. If you want to use both the lines simultaneously, you need to carry two phones.

Till a few years ago, Daewoo offered DX20 with dual SIM capability, but it failed to take off. Today, a number of such phones are available, but in India you only get the Wind Duo 2000 from an obscure company called WND Telecom, and another phone from CECT, a Chinese major. Two new entrants are the Spice D88 Dual Sim Phone and the Samsung Duo.

The phone from WND Telecom looks like a school project, with two phones stuck back to back, both of which can be charged at the same time, but lack in features. Another new, but yet to be released, model from WND Telecom is the Atom Duo. Though it will cost about Rs 15,000, I would want to stay away from these back-to-back phones.

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CECT has also packed two phones into one but has designed it tastefully. It looks like a regular smart phone and the software lets you choose the SIM card you wish to use. The phone book reads and searches entries from both the SIM cards, but sadly, it has no labels or a model number to tell you about the manufacturer.

The phone has a touchscreen display which makes it look like an expensive device. Only when you look at the screen do you realise that it is a dual SIM phone with a signal bar for each SIM. To choose a line for an outgoing call, you can either press the green button for SIM1 or the B button for SIM2. Handling incoming calls is easy, but you can only take one call at a time. At about Rs 10,000, it’s a great phone but limits you to two GSM connections.

What if you had a CDMA and a GSM connection? The answer lies in the phone launched recently by Spice Telecom—the stylish Spice D88 Dual. It takes two SIM cards, one of the GSM variety, the other a CDMA. It reportedly comes for Rs 10,000, but I couldn’t find it easily in the market.

The last option is from Samsung, called Duo. Though available only if you are buying a Tata CDMA connection and already have a GSM connection, it offers a GSM/ CDMA option. It costs Rs 11,000 and you can also use it as a Dual GSM or a Dual CDMA phone, not necessarily as a GSM/CDMA option.

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Though all the phones share the same problem—if one line is busy, the other call is dropped—future versions will find a way around it. As far as price and convenience go, these are a great pick, but with a major dowside. If the instrument develops a fault, both your lines are out of coverage, and a dead battery means that even with two lines you are unreachable.

Gagandeep S. Sapra is the Chairman and CEO of System3 group of companies.gagandeep@system3group.com