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Cheap Smartphones Quietly Becoming Popular In the US
An anonymous reader writes: Bloomberg reports that ZTE and its cheap Android smartphones have been grabbing more and more of the market in the U.S. It's not that the phones are particularly good — it's that they're "good enough" for the $60 price tag. The company has moved up to fourth among smartphone makers, behind Apple, Samsung and LG. That puts them ahead of a lot of companies making premium devices: HTC, Motorola, and BlackBerry, to name a few. ZTE, a Chinese manufacturer, seems to be better at playing the U.S. markets than competitors like Xiaomi and Huawei, and they're getting access to big carriers and big retailers. "Its phone sales are all the more surprising because it's been frozen out of the more lucrative telecom networking market since 2012. That year, the House Intelligence Committee issued a report warning that China's intelligence services could potentially use ZTE's equipment, and those of rival Huawei Technologies, for spying. Huawei then dismissed the allegations as 'little more than an exercise in China bashing.'"
35$ on amazon it is a great phone
love is just extroverted narcissism
I've purchased several of their entertainment and networking products before, they are of extremely high quality and aesthetically pleasing as well, at ridiculously low prices. If they step up their marketing presence in the west they could easily dominate. I'm sure that would be met by legal opposition from Apple, Samsung, etc. though, who knows how they would fare against that.
Twinstiq, game news
My smartphone is five years old (HTC Droid Incredible, considered the best phone on the market at the time I bought it). Even though it only supports 3G and will never be updated beyond Android 2.3.4, it still browses the internet at acceptable speeds with a modern browser (Firefox). Smartphones have been at "good enough" for quite some time now.
...there are some other interesting things you can do with your inexpensive smartphone. I have a couple of these:
https://developer.mozilla.org/...
For use in development with this:
http://www.rangenetworks.com/p...
And it may enable SCADA and text message coverage of farms and places that will never get commercial GSM coverage at an incredible pricepoint.
The article does mention, toward the end, the common problem all of these low-cost handset makers have: ZTE has expanded its US marketshare by 50%, but only seen its revenue increase by 4%.
Apple is making plenty of money on smartphones. Samsung is making some money on smartphones. Everyone else is either barely scraping by, or losing money on the category.
Really makes you wonder why they do it sometimes...and why none of the other smartphone makers even seem to be trying to crack the actually-making-money part of the market.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
So, being on a budget, and buying phones for the whole family (wife + 2 teenage kids), a couple of years ago I got us all new phones. The wife and kids needed the closest thing to a status symbol we could afford, so they got Samsung S3's; I don't care and saved like $100 getting the ZTE 9810. My screen is bigger, the battery lasts longer, and everything works fine on it. The only difference was memory (8GB vs 16), which is a problem because I hardly have anything installed and run out of memory really easily (external card helps, but doesn't fix the problem). But on the whole I like my phone just as much as they like their's because I don't care about brand names.
The S3's all have charging problems, too. The mini USB connectors just have a problem making a good connection.
I had to replace one recently - despite plans to get everyone new phones this Christmas, so I opted for one of the cheapest I could get. My wife, the biggest complainer in the bunch, got a $50 phone as a temporary replacement, and isn't complaining.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
ZTE Maven
Pros
Quad core processor
Fast mobile data support (4G)
Cons
Low pixel density screen (218 ppi)
Too little RAM memory (1024 MB RAM)
Battery is not user replaceable
Low-resolution camera (5 megapixels)
The camera lacks autofocus
GSM phone, works only on AT&T and T-Mobile. Other countries are mostly GSM.
Battery is not user replaceable: Throw away the phone if the battery is defective or at end of life? I would not buy a phone that won't allow a new battery.
If it is possible to carry extra batteries, fully charged, there are circumstances where that is convenient. For example, when hitchhiking through Europe, and staying a week or two in a city, it is possible to get a local SIM so that people you meet have a local number they can call.
Don't forget, the top phone brands are all busy neutering their phones by removing all the most useful features, such as an SD card slot and a removable battery. What kind of idiot would pay $600+ for a phone without these basic features (besides an Apple customer)? It's a perfect opportunity for a cheap brand to build a customer base by having these features.
Guess i'm an idiot. I haven't ever wanted to put an SD card in my phone because I don't store anything significant on the phone... So far my phone is dying in ways that suggest the battery will outlast the rest of the phone ... I dunno, maybe the battery is replaceable but who cares?
Calling someone an idiot if they don't want the same things that you do is a bit arrogant, don't you think?
Don't forget, the top phone brands are all busy neutering their phones by removing all the most useful features, such as an SD card slot
The SD Card Association already did that, by requiring SD licensees to license Microsoft's exFAT patent or not be able to use cards bigger than 32 GB.
Only devices meeting the CDD (Android's compatibility definition) are eligible to include Google Play Store. One of the CDD requirements is that the user be able to adb install homemade APKs.
"We install the backdoors and trojans on the factory floor ourselves, and pass the savings on to you!!"
Pre-'smartphone' the US market was dominated by whatever cheap crap the carriers could get stamped out for them at lowest possible cost, typically with their specially en-worsened firmware flashed onto it. They wanted something that could be sold as 'free with contract' at lowest possible cost, and there just wasn't much incentive to attempt to use handsets as a differentiatior because all the carriers had access to basically the same OEMs, and consumer expectations were low.
Once smartphones hit, with Apple's AT&T exclusive showing the value of a proper 'flagship' device, and the prospect of getting a customer onto a data plan being very, very, compelling; the enthusiasm of carriers for dumbphones dropped substantially; but they still had exactly the same 'we need an endurable handset as cheap as possible for customers who don't otherwise care' incentive. Since they really want you to walk out with a data plan, they've shifted focus to the low-end Androids and iPhone 5c(if the customer insists), rather than the developing-world-special $20 phones; but they still want to pay as little as possible for those basic shelf-stuffer phones.
Plus, as with computers, the usability of the cheap seats has gotten surprisingly adequate. Still not as good as the ones that cost 2-6 times as much; but it is certainly no longer the case than anything under $200 refutes a loving god if you try to use it.
They blew it a year or two back when Apple announced their new chip had 64 bits, QC was sitting there with only 32 and 64 not on the drawing board. Then they botched their first 64 bit chip, now Apple/Samsung have taken the high end smartphone market. Neither uses a QC chip anymore.
/QC employee '96-'08
// Friends still there tell me it hasn't been fun there for 3-4 years now
/// Best job I ever had. sigh
On the other end, QC just isn't organized to make cheap chips. They have too much management, too much bloat, too many side products that don't pan out (Digital Cinema, MediaFlo, Mirasol, etc).
What's really sad is upper management, starting with Paul Jacobs I suspect, drove the company into the ground. Now they're laying off 15% of their workforce (minimum, speculation is there will be another wave or two after this month's layoff), while Paul and Steve are raking in 8 figure salaries and bonuses.
I've been using a Huawei Ascend Mate2 for almost 18 months. NOT ONE problem. Very little junk added, easy to remove. $300 got me a 6.1" screen, snapdragon 400, 720p screen, 2gb ram, 4,000mAH battery,ext SD card, JB4.3 Laugh all you want at the specs....IF FLIPPIN' FLIES! Most stable smartphone I've ever had. Just updated at the end of June to LL 5.1.1, they skipped KK4.x It goes 3-4 weeks easy without having to reboot to make it "snappy" again, with heavy use, 2-3 days on one battery charge without having to use silly battery "savers". Photos through the 13mp camera are EXCELLENT. Signal (straight talk at&t towers) is as good as any of my previous phones. The size puts some off, but I love the screen. (dell streak 5>galaxy note1>Mate2). This phone turned me off of the locked down, feature stripped, carrier bloated, over priced "flagships" for good!
The swappable battery isn't just for people who burn through their battery in a day and need to swap it. It's also for people whose battery goes bad and they'd like to replace it. With a non-removeable battery, you either need a new phone or have to pay $$$ to have it swapped professionally. With a swappable battery, no problem, just buy a replacement somewhere and pop it in. There's no really good reason not to have it; the Galaxy S5 even manages to be waterproof with a swappable battery.
Would you buy a car where the tires couldn't be changed? It's not like you have to do it often, and some tires can go nearly 100k miles now.