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

Posted by msmash on from the next-up dept.

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.

5 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.

    --
    No sig today...
  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. . .

  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: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.