Get your Indian Landfill Android One handsets - they're only SIXTY QUID Three Indian manufacturers have signed up to make Android One budget handsets in India and the devices have been launched today. The Karbon Sparkle V is 6399 rupees (£64), runs KitKat 4.4, has a 1,700mAh battery, 1700mAh removable battery, 5MP rear and 2MP front cameras, quad core 1.3GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM with a slot for up to …
Google will be able to dictate a minimum set of standards for forthcoming Android handsets.
Embrace, extend, extinguish. RIP, AOSP.
$100-120 would have bought someone a a relatively low spec Android phone for quite some now. What's the big deal here? I guess it brings some form of software quality assurance to the One products which might have been missing previously but that's about it.
I agree, it's a pretty decent spec. It's a bit tight on system RAM but there are apps to let you store most of a program on the SD Card. No 4G? I don't get any trace of 4G out where I live.
It's not so different from the phone I use now, and the Google backing means that the hardware level will be useful for a while. It's a good enough smartphone to sell the idea, and cheap enough it's not wasted if used like a dumb-phone.
A micro SD slot in a cheap Google-backed phone as standard? What will the next general of Nexus 7 have?
I think you're mixing up RAM and online storage.
RAM is what the OS uses to "think". Storage is like your hard drive. It's where things are installed or stored. SD card is your "hard drive"
1GB is a wonderful thing to see... For ages we've seen budget phones shipping with JB or KK and 512MB, which is impossibly low for those OSs to operate effectively.
1GB will actually give the OS a chance without it having to resort to terminating everything else just to open Facebook!
Dual SIM was very common even when I lived there 10 years ago - I'd never heard of it in the UK. It was driven IIRC by the byzantine roaming tariffs that covered state to state calls, which could get horribly expensive, particularly as incoming calls were charged. While some states cover huge areas, others don't, so crossing state lines is common, and there were also some examples of calls between some carriers not connecting to others in places as they tried to enforce an especially unpleasant lock in on a seemingly random basis. So even in your own state, SIMs from two carriers was sometimes a good idea.
I wish they were more common here. It drives me barmy swapping SIMs going to Germany twice a month for the sake of cost, but having to carry another phone 'just in case' for the other SIM.
Yes, this widens Google's base and makes sure Android continues to grow market share globally. But at the same time, this means a validated basic standard of product quality, on the latest OS, for regions that otherwise had a large percentage of people priced out. connectivity is good for local business development, and it means better choice for consumers. And it means more development for Android apps if it opens up new customer bases. Choice is good, and yes that benefits Google. Turns out companies aren't charities, but complaining when companies try to make money is like complaining about the tide coming in. Why not just accept that sometimes it's also a good news story?
The makers must be making some profit on these too.
So proves the point that all the Samsungs and Sonys have been ripping us off for ages. When others can churn out such good phones, and with more features (Dual Sims, good speakers etc) at £ 60, the Samsungs want to charge £600 . ( 10 times the Indian/Chinese price - ditto Apple). Greedy bastards.
Are they offering us 10 times the phone? OR 10 times a better phone ?
I can change to different models at least 6 to 8 times (for the price) during the lifetime of a 2 year contract here, and still be better off, with bragging rights to boot.
Thanks Google, for laying bare the stitch-up by the big boys.
Go figure.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/04/cote-divoires-tech-solutions-local-problems/
Their tablet has local spec to resist water splashes, humidity heat & dust. The point is that with android you can pick the features that matter locally & save costs on stuff that are less important to the bottom end of the market.
It maybe 'landfill' - but if your market is at the 'landfill' level it fits perfectly.
A quick trawl of the prominent online tat-emporiums reveals MTK6582 Mali-400 based phones can already be had for a fair bit less. One with a similar spec to these three; Generic English language Android KitKat, 4.5" 480x854 IPS but an 8MPixel rear camera is currently advertised at £49 delivered.
If one is prepared to drop down to the PowerVR based, but still quad core MTK6589, then £35 secures a 4" 480x800 but otherwise similar model.
Is the extra cash worth a few software updates from Google?
I would be immensely happy to see Canonical specifically targeting their OS at these ultra low-cost phones.
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