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$30 Unlocked Android Smartphones To Launch in India This Month (factordaily.com)

Several Indian smartphone manufacturers including Micromax, Intex and Lava plan to unveil a slew of Android smartphones priced around $30 in the coming weeks, Indian news outlet FactorDaily reported on Tuesday. These handsets would run Android Oreo Go, a lite version of Google's mobile operating system first unveiled last year. The report sheds light on India's smartphone market: With cheap smartphones, Google and the phone vendors hope to ride the wave of mass scale internet access on mobile phones in India. From a monthly consumption of 20 crore (200 million) GB of data about 16 months ago, Indians now consume over 150 crore (1.5 billion) GB a month making the country No. 1 among mobile data consuming countries. Much of this change is credited to aggressive data pricing plans by Reliance Jio, which launched services in September 2016.

14 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And it's considered a premium phone by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't worry, you'll still be able to gloat from your parent-provided basement.

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  2. Why can't we have these in the US? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is definitely a market for cheap handsets here. Not everyone lives in LA, SF, NYC, or Austin, and has the dosh to buy a new iPhone X or whatever Apple is selling on release date. In fact, most of the country is barely getting by, with the best times in memory all behind them.

    It isn't like phone tech is improving by leaps and bounds anyway. Any phone made recently has a decent front and back camera, and Android makers have decent fingerprint scanners. Hell, Android has had FaceID since around 2013, with the ability for the phone to ask the person to blink, which is a security technique that hasn't been gotten around yet.

    As for CPUs, if apps didn't continue to be such bloated pigs, there wouldn't be a need for octocores on up, with bigger devices needed for more surface area for cooling.

    As for storage, 16-32 gig internal, then a MicroSD card slot. This way, if someone wants 400 gigs of storage, that is easily accomplished.

    None of this is rocket science here. The only thing that really is an obstacle is selling the devices in the US is the fact that companies think every Tom, Dick, and Harry can blow quad digits for a phone... which is not true.

    1. Re:Why can't we have these in the US? by Salgak1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      . . .which is why I use old tech. My current phone is a refurbed Samsung Galaxy S5. With a 64 GB SD card. It does more than I ask it to do, so it's fine. I still really don't understand people who ***insist*** on paying the Bleeding Edge Tax. . .

    2. Re:Why can't we have these in the US? by amalcolm · · Score: 2

      I agree. I bought a second-hand S6 edge about 6 months ago for around £200 from Amazon. It was unlocked and I found a 128GB internal model as not all apps will install to an external SD card (I have LOTS of apps installed, still have ~80GB free). Together with a Virgin unlimited data plan for which I pay £11 a month, I get all I need from a mobile (phone)/computer for limited outlay.

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    3. Re:Why can't we have these in the US? by Dan+East · · Score: 2

      There is definitely a market for cheap handsets here.

      None of this is rocket science here. The only thing that really is an obstacle is selling the devices in the US is the fact that companies think every Tom, Dick, and Harry can blow quad digits for a phone... which is not true.

      What? Have you never visited the prepaid phone section in Walmart or any other dollar store?

      https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/p...

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    4. Re:Why can't we have these in the US? by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      Amazingly, you can get products shipped to the US from other countries! Go to Aliexpress and get a $35 Android smartphone delivered to your door. There are tons to choose from. Even more amazing is you can go to exotic stores in the US like "Best Buy" and get $50 unlocked phones! I know. Amazing.

    5. Re:Why can't we have these in the US? by tsqr · · Score: 2

      I agree. I bought a second-hand S6 edge about 6 months ago for around £200 from Amazon. It was unlocked and I found a 128GB internal model as not all apps will install to an external SD card

      Interesting, but irrelevant. None of the S6 models can accommodate an SD card.

  3. Re:The West is so fucked by bazmail · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nope, not "The West". It's only in the US where people get fisted like that. I pay 30 bucks a month for unlimited data/calls. If I dont like the service I can get a similar deal with 4 other carriers. It's called competition.

  4. Re:Global mobile standard. by bazmail · · Score: 2

    Try UTF-8.

  5. Re:Core? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 2

    Well let *us* not. But remember it's an article written by Indians about Indians for an Indian audience that just happened to be picked up by Slashdot. And it seems crore is culturally a unit predating the colonial dissemination of English in that region.

  6. Re:The West is so fucked by e70838 · · Score: 2

    I am french paying 10€ for 20GB.

  7. Re:The West is so fucked by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Informative

    In the US you also can pay around $45 US for unlimited from multiple providers. So I don't know what he is complaining about.

  8. Re:The important question by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2

    Your suggestion for a minimal install includes Facebook software?

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  9. Re:What's with the stupid units? by _merlin · · Score: 2

    It comes from the traditional Indian names for powers of ten. We follow the French system which goes "thousand" (10^3), "million" (10^6), etc. on powers of 10^3 In India, the first major division happens at 10^5, the "lakh", and it's every 10^2 from there onwards - 10^7 is the "crore", 10^9 is the "arab", then the next ones with special names are 10^15 the "padma" and 10^17 the "shankh". So when you're doing digit grouping, you group every two digits past 10^5, e.g. 1,23,45,678 (yeah, the asymmetry with the last three digits is a bit weird). It's nothing to do with superstition, just different traditional names for powers of ten. There's some info at Wikipedia. Note that India isn't the only country that doesn't think in powers of 10^3 - in Japan, the first major division happens at 10^4 (the "man").