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The Realities of a $50 Smartphone
An anonymous reader writes: Google recently reiterated their commitment to the goal of a $50 smartphone in India, and a new article breaks down exactly what that means for the phone's hardware. A budget display will eat up about about $8 of that budget — it's actually somewhat amazing that so little money can still buy a 4-4.5" panel running at 854x480. For another $10, you can get a cheap SoC — something in the range of 1.3Ghz and quad-core, complete with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS radios. A gigabyte of RAM and 4 gigabytes of storage can be had for another $10 or so. Throw in a $2.10, 1,600 mAh battery and a $5 camera unit, and you've got most of a phone. That leaves about $9 to play with for basic stuff like a casing, and then packaging/marketing costs (some of which could be given freely, like the design work.) Profit margins will be nonexistent, but that's less of an issue for Google, who simply wants to spread the reach of Android.
That BOM missed the $60 for patent licensing from the 3G pool.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Well, $50 buys a lot especially in the world of Chinese smartphones. The Doogee X5 (http://www.doogee.cc/news_detail/newsId=252.html) will be released shortly, and it will cost $49.99 for the base model. It is surprisingly capable with a Mediatek MT6580 quadcore SOC, 5" HD 1280x720 display, 3G radio, 5 MP camera, etc.. The base model has only 1 GB RAM and 4 GB ROM, but for another ~$8 you can upgrade to the 8 GB ROM version. There's even supposedly a higher-end model that is 4G-capable with a Mediatek MT6735 SOC (a very capable 64-bit model), and though the price of this 4G-capable model has not been revealed yet, it will probably be in the ~$75 range.
In the 3rd world of USA Walmart! The Lumia 635 is usually less than $50 and quite a decent smartphone, in fact, the only one I use until the 640 came out which is $20 higher and has a display polarizer for sunlight, larger display and a front camera. Did I mention the 635 and 640 are both quad core, LTE devices? Oh yeah, they are.