[Micromax Canvas A1] avinash60:
Shipment and Availability:

Ordered the device via amazon yesterday and it seems that they have a sufficiently well stocked fulfillment center- after ordering the device at 12AM, it shipped by 6:30AM of 16th September. The delivery estimate shows up as Friday, 19th by 8PM (Free shipping) for me.

Official website to buy the device from:

http://www.amazon.in/Micromax-Canvas-Android-Magnetic-Black/dp/B00NEFFWF6

The offers that Amazon is bundling with the device for the initial (limited?) period are:

1) Coupons worth Rs.2000 (they send these by the 20th of October to the email you register at amazon. Correspond to Watches, Handbags, Backpacks, Shoes, Sunglasses, Fashion Jewelry and Clothing)

2) Strontium 8GB MicroSDHC Memory Card (Does have a 4.5 rating on Amazon page, so hopefully it is reliable. Also, the phone accepts microSD cards upto 32GB in size- the total onboard space is only 2.5GB after all the OS and Google apps installations. Given that apps cannot be moved to SD card right now, additional apps take up this pool of space).

3) 10% Cash Back on State Bank Debit & Credit cards. (Also takes time to process, expect the cash back to come in by the 30th of November- I used SBI CC to buy the device; will keep a lookout on when this goes through).

4) For Airtel users, free software upgrades and app downloads for 6 months. (200MB of data per month for 6 months, Android updates do not count towards this data limit so hopefully the Android L update will download on the Airtel network without messing with this upper limit.

Airtel's website says:

Source

Evidently, there are a lot of conditions here and I am a little wary of the wording- it seems pretty certain that the data is useful only for App and OS updates and wouldn't be useful for any other purpose (browsing etc.). Also, seems to be valid only with prepaid phones.

Will have to check this and get back. More details on Airtel's website. Quoted below:

5) Up to Rs. 10,000 in Amazon.in Gift Cards for lucky customers, ends September 21st. Winners to be announced on October 1st.

Note:

Google also offers 35GB of cloud storage on drive in addition to the 15GB space you get with the google account. Make sure to register your device with the google account you want this to be credited to.

Reviews, Unboxings etc.

In an effort to get reviews from across the internet and from users on XDA, here are a few to start with:

Times of India (First impressions):

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...droid-One-smartphone/articleshow/42559430.cms

Indian Express:

http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/mobile-tabs/micromax-canvas-a1-review-for-the-price-android-one-is-a-good-experience/

Unboxing and Overview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4FID2teHeo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7La-DJAzA0

Brief review of the Spice variant of Android One:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ7Uy81tEWw

Comparison of the three Android One devices:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpmyFCh4MK0

Comparison of the Redmi 1s and Micromax Canvas A1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNoL1-f_NXE

An overview of the Android One devices (Since all the three release day devices sport the same set of hardware specifications):

http://www.digit.in/mobile-phones/first-impressions-android-one-23914.html

Benchmarks:

From Digit:

http://www.digit.in/slideshows/android-one-benchamarks-micromax-a1-performace-camera-quality-1.html

The overall responsiveness as well as multitasking CPU score is higher on the Micromax in comparison to the Moto E as well as the Xiomi Redmi 1S. The GPU however is a different story. In spite of the lower pixel count, the Mali 400 GPU has a lower score in comparison to the other two phones. Xiomi beats the device by a good 40% higher score on the synthetic test.

Issues:

1) The device does not support USB OTG out of the box. (Source)

2) The camera app and any other application that requires handling of picture or video files fails to save them without the presence of a microsd card in the card slot (Source via BGR)

3) Obviously, the entire GPL headache with Mediatek- Let us hope the partnership with Google compels them to release the CPU kernel sources so that we may have some android development on the forum. This would help so many devices that have been released in India over the past year.

Edit: Good news is that Google is making some inroads here. They released the 4.4.4 kernel sources on 17th September 2014.

Other Information:

1) An interesting interview that NDTV had with Sundar Pichai on the future and goals of Android One:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOsXUq49hFY

2) The android one website:

http://www.android.com/one/

3) The original I/O reveal of Android One:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wnljlMvXIc