MarQ M3 is the first smartphone of its ownership for Indian e-commerce giant, Flipkart. After being tipped for launch last week, the smartphone has now been officially unveiled, and comes to India as a basic smartphone that largely targets first time smartphone buyers with a basic, but essential feature set. This offering, paired with its price point, ensures that Flipkart’s first attempt at a smartphone by one of its subsidiary will rival devices from more established OEMs such as Redmi, Realme and Samsung, among others.
MarQ M3: price and availability
The MarQ M3 has been launched on Flipkart, and will go up for sale soon. The pre-purchase listing has gone live on the site already, which would allow users to compare the phone to its rivals before making a purchase. The smartphone has been introduced at a price of Rs 6,199, including discounts over its Rs 7,999 MSRP.
Key specifications
The MarQ M3 is powered by an octa-core Spreadtrum SC9863A SoC clocked at 1.6GHz, and this is paired with 2GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. There is only one RAM and storage combination that is being offered with the smartphone. Up front, it features a 6.088-inch LCD display with HD+ screen resolution. There is an expectedly thick bezel band around the display, with the chin bezels being particularly thick in size.
The front camera is housed in a U-shaped water drop notch on the display. In terms of the cameras, the MarQ M3 features a 13MP dual rear camera setup that serves as the primary camera of the smartphone. To the front, there is an 8MP camera for selfies and video calls as well. Powering this setup is a 5,000mAh battery that also supports reverse charging to offer emergency backup to a companion smartphone.
Other features of the MarQ M3 include a dedicated key for the Google Assistant, Face Unlock for biometric authentication via the front camera, and camera features such as slow motion and time lapse video recordings. It is also stated to run on Android 10, but Flipkart does not clarify if the smartphone features the ‘Go’ variant of the OS, or the standard one. It is also not mentioned if it will be upgraded to Android 11, at any point.
The smartphone will rival the Realme C series, the Redmi 9 series and the entry level Samsung Galaxy M series smartphones, once it goes up for sale in India.
