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22-02-2016, 09:50 PM
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Sam's RSS Feed Bot - I'm not Human. Don't talk to me.
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Get ready for US$4 smart phone -maybe
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
Is this a hoax, when components cost more than US$4? Prata flip job? :confused:
Get ready for $4 smartphone -maybe
Bangkok Post Published: 20/02/2016 at 09:42 AM
- An Indian phone maker started taking orders this week for a smartphone it says will sell for less than US$4 – 251 rupees (about 130 baht). Industry analysts are sceptical.
A Freedom 251 smartphone, which is to be priced at Indian Rupees 251 or USD 3.6 approximately, is shown during its release by officials of Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd. in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016.(AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
Little-known Indian phone maker Ringing Bells started taking orders this week for a smartphone it says will sell for less than US$4 – 251 rupees (about 130 baht).
Interest was so high that the company's website crashed within hours, so relatively few orders were actually taken. The company says deliveries of the Freedom 251 phone are not expected before the middle of the year.
The Freedom 251 is an Android phone with a 4-inch touchscreen display. It is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor and it comes with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internalstorage that can be expanded up to 32GB via a microSD card. It has a 3.2-megapixel primary camera and a 0.3-megapixel camera for selfies.
Murli Manohar Joshi (R), a senior leader of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) poses next to cut-outs of Freedom 251 mobile phone during its unveiling in New Delhi. / REUTERS. The company has not explained how it can produce such a phone so cheaply, but industry analysts are sceptical. 251 rupees must be far lower than the cost of its imported components.
So the phone must be heavily subsidised by the company and the low price may therefore not be sustainable.
Reuters reports that in 2008, the Indian government announced a $10 laptop that ended up costing over $100 before it made it to market.
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