Initial thoughts on the Karbonn A9 and Spice Mi-425:
Bought the Karbonn A9 from infibeam.com for 8999 and Spice Mi-425 for 9999 from saholic.com (with a free 8 GB card). Buying experience from saholic.com was not that good but that is for some other post
Both are solid phones and I really like the VFM factor that both of them offer. Both of them are re-branded chinese phones from the same company (K-Touch). One look at both the phones and you can easily say they are made by the same manufacturer.
Design:
When seen from the front, both the phones look exactly the same (bar a slightly bigger display on Mi-425). The back on the A9 is slightly more glossier and much better IMO than on the Mi-425. A9 is(feels) both thinner and lighter than it's competition. A9 definitely feels more premium'ish of the two.
Hardware differences:
Both are very identical in specs with three major differences:
a. Mi-425 has a 4 (4.1?)" display compared to 3.8" on the A9.
b. Battery on Mi-425 is 2000 mAh compared to 1600 mAh on the A9.
c. Mi-425 has a measly 140 MB of internal storage compared to A9 that has ~ 1 GB.
Display:
Cost cutting is pretty evident here on both the phones. Colors appear slightly washed-out. Due to a bigger screen with the same resolution (800X480), text/font clarity does take a beating on the Mi-425 due to lower ppi. Also to my naked eye, colors appeared slightly better on the A9.
Having said that I believe it's great that the phones offer WVGA resolution display (800X480) at this price-point.
Software:
Both run identical versions of Android (not surprising since both the phones are made by K-touch). Both offer some sort of customization with Karbonn offering a Smart Browser and some other apps and Spice offering Spice Gang, amongst other custom apps. Not a big difference here at all. Infact, both phones come with the same launcher with identical dock icons. Everything except the default screen transition animations is the same.
Spice has promised an upgrade to ICS, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that.
Performance/Experience:
Again, both of them are very identical in performance. I haven't used Spice much as yet, so can't really comment on the internal storage (or rather the lack of) but I guess people who download a lot of apps/power users will not be too happy. Both the phones need a SD card before you can take a photograph or download an app through Play store. So, I am assuming that all apps are installed directly on the SD card.
As mentioned, I haven't had spent enough time with the Spice yet, but I should mention that there was a glaring issue with the A9's proximity sensor. The screen would go off on dialing or accepting calls and would never come back on. On most occasions it turned back on only after a few minutes and at time I had to remove the battery and hard-reboot the phone to get the display back. Going by a XDA thread, I am not the only one who had this issue. Luckily, someone over at XDA shared a small tip to hardware reset the proximity sensor by going into the service menu. I did not face any issues once that was done.
Camera/Battery:
A9's camera is average and that is to be expected. You need a sd card before you can take a photograph. Battery life on A9 is pretty decent. It lasts for slightly more than a day on medium to medium/heavy usage. Battery life and camera on the Mi-425 are untested.
Closing thoughts:
Though Spice does have a slightly bigger display and as such, a bigger battery, I like the A9 more than the Mi-425. It feels good in the hand(thinner and lighter), has a slightly more premium look to it and the display does appear slightly better to my naked eye.
Some comparison pictures/videos that I have taken from my Galaxy Nexus
https://plus.google.com/116549132957261731607/posts/Gb6oWnq13GM
https://plus.google.com/116549132957261731607/posts/3SDZzjUGXwa
Guys, if you have any specific questions or things you want to know, feel free to ask.
