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.

Comments

Already running a $50 phone.

[Wdomburg]

I'm actually using a $50 smart phone right now. A Microsoft Lumia 635 that I picked up on Amazon for $49.99 off-contract. Specs are about right - 4.5" 854x480 screen, 512MB ram, 8GB storage, no front camera, 5MP rear camera. It does have a quad-core Snapdragon instead of a Mediatek or Allwinner, but clocked at 1.2GHz, and actually does have an LTE radio and Gorilla glass (the two reasons I bought this instead of the 535, which is newer and has 1GB of RAM).

Know what? It's a perfectly serviceable phone. I bought it as a spare to use while I get the screen on my Moto G replaced, and in a lot of ways I actually like it better. Windows Phone actually runs surprisingly well on modest hardware.

Re:Already running a $50 phone.

[scream at the sky]

Have you ever used Windows Phone 7 or higher?

I bought an HTC HD7 ages ago, my only intention was to learn how to use it, in order to sell it, and then flip it a month later. Greedy commission salesman, and such.

I used it for 2 years, and replaced it with a Lumia 1020 when it died through no fault of it's own, gravity is a cruel mistress.

I cannot stress this enough, I *loathe* Microsoft, I have been a Debian user since 2001, until I bought a Mac in 2012, and I am still using that 1020, daily, because it just works.

No, there aren't as many "apps" for it, but the apps that I give a shit about are all there, web browsing, messaging, maps, email, twitter, facebook. And they just work, easily.

Microsoft got Windows Phone right.

Re:Already running a $50 phone.

[Tough Love]

Microsoft got Windows Phone right.

That may be (or not) but Microsoft's brand has negative value. Nobody buys Microsoft except by force.

Re:They forgot something

[rainer_d]

And updates.
Oh wait, they don't even get delivered to $500 phones in time.
And few people care.
I bet the car-industry has wet dreams about the status-quo of security in the mobile handset industry:
No more recalls, no more consumer-advocate groups calling them out. No law-suits.

Re:They forgot something

[jiriw]

Possibly these $50 phones will get better security update support than most $500 phones-with-hardware-vendor-goo. Simply because the operating system on these will be provided directly by the operating system manufacturer (Google) and by contract no vendor-goo will be allowed.

My phone got pretty much every update between 4.0 and <current release> and I expect to receive updates promptly for quite some years to come. By the way (if you didn't get enough hints), this phone (and my phone of choice) is a Nexus...

There is only one other significant party in the smartphone market that has the same edge... but the phones they make are too locked down for my personal taste. So I only use those when I have to... at work for testing purposes. (I write app software for both iOS and Android.)

Microsoft already did it

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:How to make a $50 phone

[OrangeTide]

As an original developer for the Kindle, I can say with some authority that I know how zero and negative margin mobile devices work.

The OS was right, everything else was wrong.

[Kenshin]

I agree. Microsoft got Windows Phone right. The OS is excellent

They were just years late to the party, decided to go home and change their underwear the moment they got to the party (the WP7 vs WP8 fiasco), found out they didn't actually have any friends (app developers) at the party, and they brought a prostitute (Nokia) as their date.