"for one, it’s running an outdated version of Android that may make it vulnerable to hackers"
Then I went to check what version it actually runs, and it's 4.4/KitKat. I do not have any phone with a version more recent than 4.4 (and that's the case for everyone I know). In fact, my phone is only running 4.4 because I went through the trouble to look in Russian forums for custom ROMs for it, since the manufacturer didn't get it beyond 4.2. My phone is a not very popular model, but even for some former flagships the only way to go is to get custom ROMs e.g. on XDA. Sure, I (and my friends) could get a new phone... but we are not interested in changing phones before they are even out of warranty (2 years in Europe).
This is no surprise: Google's statistics[1] indicate 4.4 is still the most used version. Cheaper phones being launched with older Android versions doesn't help, that's true, but these cheaper models are good enough for many people. And to be honest, the features (and change in looks/functionality) introduced in the later versions do not interest me much. If only Android had an update policy more similar to Windows and some Linux distros, where you stay with a major release but get security updates for it, for a sane amount of time...
I'm not sure why the writer mentions this. (It's probably an excuse to link to another Vice article.) The Android version number in itself isn't a good indication of the phone's vulnerability. Stagefright, for instance, was patched for 4.4 in many phones without an upgrade to the API.
An Android phone's security depends on whoever is responsible for maintaining the device's ROM, usually the carrier or phone manufacturer. Samsung, for instance, includes extensions intended to enhance security. Admittedly, for $10 I wouldn't expect much in the way of OTA updates. But except for a few changes to the framework in the way app permissions are handled, the version number isn't the best measure of security.
Upgrades and security fixes were recently de-coupled. Now responsible vendors do a monthly security updates, regardless of version. So if you're on the 4.x or 5.x tree you should be able to get these, OEM depending.
The problem here is that a lot of smaller OEMs will never bother. Google might put mandatory security updates into its next Gapps contract. I guess we'll see.
> the features (and change in looks/functionality) introduced in the later versions do not interest me much.
I think the advances in volta/doze/app suspend for battery life and the 6.0 privacy settings, not to mention the Material overhaul are very big benefits to Android. Android 6.0 is a much more mature OS than the 4.x tree. In fact, I'd say they only recently have reached parity with iOS at this release. I don't get many "I should switch to iphone" feelings anymore. Many of my privacy and battery life concerns were addressed in 6.0 and the 6P is amazing hardware for the price.
Who are the responsible vendors (and ultimately we're talking about carriers)? This would be at the forefront of my decision of which Android phone to buy. If only there was some sort of alliance to update Android devices reliably.
Officially Google still provides security patches for Android 4.4 but there is not much information on what this means in practice. How many OEMs actually make use of this and provide security patches for 4.4 devices?
(source: https://source.android.com/security/overview/updates-resourc... - "Android security team currently provides patches for Android versions 4.4 (KitKat), 5.0 (Lollipop), and 5.1 (Lollipop MR1). This list of backport-supported versions changes with each new Android release.")
Google themselves dropped the Nexus 7 v1 from security support a while ago, after having updated it to 5.1.
I am not here to sell iPhone but the number two reason I left Android (I was a Windows 5 mobile user, then Android, with a flag ship model, for ~2 years) is because you can only get the latest from custom ROMS. If Google takes customer service really seriously, Android will be amazing. I feel like Nexus is just a gimmick more than a real thing that Google cares about.
My number one reason is simply the fact iPhone is built and sold by one company. This is a plus and a minus, but in the long run, amortize cost makes that a bigger plus than a minus. My experience so far, iOS devices can live up to at least four major OS updates. That's at least 2 years. I think my iPhone 3GS lasted about 4 years before I switched to iPhone 6 (at that time the power of 3GS was simply too slow to handle map and instant messaging).
You get a similar experience with the Nexus devices... I'm currently using a OnePlus One, which hasn't been bad, but considering switching to a Nexus 5X mainly so I can switch carriers to Verizon.
I used my Nexus 4 for over 2 years and it received regular updates (5.x lagged a little though). Also, the Nexus devices are pretty well supported via CyanogenMod.
Beyond that, the Motorola phones since Google bought and sold off mobility have been well received as well, the Pure line should see updates for at least 2 years.
If you stay away from Samsung, LG, and other vendors trying to get you to upgrade every year and favor those not tethering to a specific carrier's upgrade model, you'll have better luck.
No need for millions. I've spent $15 on adwords once, and since them I get letters from Google twice a year, with phone numbers I can call for support and a coupon.
Exactly, upgraded my Galaxy S4 to the Google edition ROM and was tired of having to hack at it every time I wanted to updated. You shouldn't have to buy phones direct from Google to get the cleanest and purest android experience.
My iPad 3 is limping along on its last leg after iOS 9 but I'm pretty sure it lacks the RAM necessary to run Safari smoothly on the newest update. Still works but not smoothly.
I wanted a Samsung phone but a pure Android experience. Not all those Samsung and AT&T mods. Shouldn't have to buy a phone direct from Google to get that.
> I wanted a Samsung phone but a pure Android experience
That's Samsung's fault.
> Shouldn't have to buy a phone direct from Google to get that.
Oh, I completely agree, but Samsung doesn't want to simply provide OEM Android because they think that the add-ons distinguish them in a crowded market.
> Apple is a hardware company Google is not.
But Apple's limited hardware offering is why they can guarantee you such a pure Apple experience. The equivalent exists in the Google ecosystem. It's buying one of the phones directly from the Google Play store. The only difference is that in the Apple ecosystem there isn't choice, so you don't get to see better hardware spec'd phones that run IOS, while in the Android ecosystem you do.
I think Google cares about the Nexus line but to me it seems like they aren't doing what Microsoft is doing with the Surface line (forcing quality via unbridled competition). Nexus seems more like a prod towards the "right way" since it's a partnership with manufacturers.
For a lot of people, having "newer" software isn't really a goal in itself. I'd rather have the "second to latest" version of Android than the "latest" version of iOS.
Even with a Nexus device this is far from straightforward. With a $10 walmart phone I doubt even Wifi would work properly-- let alone GPS, bluetooth or cellular data service.
Smartphones are close to achieving 'commodity' status as far as I'm concerned.
I just paid $60 (no commitment/contract) for a Lumia 640 (it was a gophone, which works fine on my regular AT&T plan). It's a reasonably fast, decently built phone, and I must say the Windows phone UI is starting to grow on me (and I HATE windows 8/10 on the desktop).
Besides voice calls, I use a smartphone mostly for texting, email, web browsing, maps, music, and the occasional (netflix) streaming video.
A $60 phone can now handle all of these things easily, so I would be stupid to spend more (vanity? status symbol?). If I drop it onto the sidewalk and it shatters, I'll merely sigh, mumble something obscene, and go buy another one. My reaction to dropping a $600 phone would be a bit more... extreme (mostly because I can't afford to replace a $600 phone on the spot).
For me they have been a commodity for quite a while. My main concern is size, it's become rather difficult to find reasonably spec-ed "smaller" phones. Many are advertised as small phones but really aren't (HTC does this over and over). Samsung's Galaxy Mini is getting bigger and bigger with each release. I've never been an iPhone user but before they released their big phones I always saw their small iPhone, their flagship phone no less, as a shining light of reason in a field full of crazy-sized phablets.
I don't mind the phablets, what bothers me is that they're forgetting that some people want a phone that they can use with just one hand. Apparently there aren't that many consumers committed to buying only those kind of phones.
Something in a similar vain that bothers me is the obsession with slimming down phones. I've never owned a phone that was too thick since flip phones and those were still bearable. I don't care if my phone is thin, but I do care that battery life has hardly improved since my original iPhone. Give me a brick that lasts for 3 days
The original Moto G (1st gen, 2013) is still getting updates. Not even just security patches, but even full OS version upgrades. I just got an OTA upgrade to Android 5.1 a few months ago.
That is the last update for the 1st gen which seriously screws 4G owners because M will be released less than two years since that phone's introduction.
IMO, I use a smartphone enough that minor improvements are worth a fair amount. On its own a low light camera and longer battery life might not be worth much. But, add in larger and better screen, faster CPU, etc. and it's worth it.
PS: Then again, I am on a legacy plan 60$/month unlimited data + lots of rollover minutes, so signing a 2 year contract for a large discount seems more reasonable.
This is why my interests have moved to smartwatches and why I'm happy to see the new LG watch having its own 3G/4G modem. I hope the next generation replaces phones all together. I don't need a huge gaming/selfie machine in my pocket for casual communication. Being able to hold up my watch to my ear and have a conversation and texting/emailing via voice is pretty much all I need 95% of the time.
I'm incredibly torn on this subject. I had a $60 phone which was very much "good enough". I lent it to a friend and bought a $600 phone.
I pick up the old phone and wonder why I bought the new phone. Then as I am using it I remember how slow it is. How bad the camera is. How I struggled to keep good battery life. How it was abandoned for updates.
One can absolutely get by fine with a cheap phone. But they are not quite "just as good", in a mildly pernicious fashion.
Also with everything sync to cloud, your new Windows Phone will be exactly same as old, including settings, sms, phonebook, photos, passwords. Bad for privacy, but awesome convenience.
The only thing holding me into the iPhone is the relative camera quality (not megapixel count, quality) of the meaningfully cheaper Androids. As someone with a mild interest in artsy photography but not enough to carry a DSLR, that's indispensable. Sure the Nexus camera is fine for posed group photos for Facebook, but having had a Nexus 6 for a while, I'd feel a need to carry a dedicated camera.
I bought mine directly from Microsoft. It does appear to be locked to AT&T's network, however. That is not an issue for me since I'm an AT&T subscriber.
Most phones in US are tied and branded to a single carrier. You can find an unlocked WP the cheapest being 49.99 and but a more decent spec ones from 99.99 USD. AT&T is the most WP friendly carrier and T-Mobile is a distant second. Verizon and Sprint, are most often not on board since they are CDMA. Hopefully VoLTE will change that.
Most phones in the UK are locked to a carrier, but we don't have anti-unlocking laws like DMCA. There are little shops on the high street that offer unlocking services.
(This is just carrier locking. Anything that changes IMEI is illegal with a maximum 5 year prison sentence)
For $10, I'd use it as an MP3 player at the gym or when out walking... so I don't have to worry about dropping my expensive phone (as I'm prone to do once a month or so). 4 GB would hold more Spotify playlists than I would ever need at one time.
It's amazing that as recently as five years ago, I was paying around $100 for a dedicated MP3 player for exactly this purpose.
I'd have no interest in the "phone" feature... and would never even install a SIM card. I have to believe that many people have thought of this idea, and that has to be a problem for TracPhone since they're probably selling this device at a loss in order to sell phone/data services.
So since it's "Out of Stock" right now, I wonder how many ever were in stock in the first place? My suspicion is that they released a small number of devices as a P.R. stunt to attract publicity. The hope being that some number of people who click the link to check it out will proceed onward to buy one of the "real" devices that isn't being sold at a loss. I'd be surprised if you ever do see this $10 model "In Stock".
TracFone sells a lot of returned/refurbed models. This phone was on sale this spring for $59.99, I'd wager the $10 ones are returns available only when they cycle through refurb.
Problem is, as an mp3 (flac really) player the interface is terrible: for running or biking you really want a player that is small and has physical buttons to click, or alternatively your actual phone so you get communications and statistics.
Carrying a poor player that is not you actual phone makes little sense to me.
It's not as bad as you think. A lot of headphones/earbuds these days have the buttons built in, making it less critical that the device has them. How well this will support the buttons though is a different question.
possible home automation projects:
- ultra cheap smart wifi motion sensor (using the camera) or vibration sensor (i.e. stick it to a window and u can use the accelerometer to detect break ins).
- car GPS tracker (its actually smaller than dedicated ones)
I usually keep older phones that get replaced after 2-3 years so they can be used for similar projects. The most basic are just glorified remotes for all of the various controllable things in my house. Get a wall mount/charger and they make good switches for Hue lights, controllers for casting audio to various rooms, and stuff like that.
In the past I'd see low end devices for $50 or less but $10 is honestly hard to believe. Even if all you use it for is a handful of desktop widgets that turn things on/off that's already cheaper than some regular remotes and switches, much less ones that give you information and can be customized to look however I want or perform different tasks.
yeah $10 is kind of crazy, probably subsidised prize. I keep my older phones too, have been using old android devices as Airplay receivers for music, hooked up to speakers in different rooms.
Would be nice to use them for voice control too, I am hoping Amazon will release some Alexa apps/APIs that are not tied to specific hardware
The problems start once your package is in their warehouse. Sometime they increase the price, sometime they keep asking for more and more proofs of identity, income, address. Sometime they refuse to accept documents not verified in an US embassy in your country. If you refuse their demands they keep/steal your package. Just go on a few review sites and search for Shipito.
I think it uses GSM. But even then, it'd probably still be worth it simply as an ARM-in-a-box-with-wifi-battery-screen-and-input-device. I've been wondering about the hackability of a cheapo Sony Ericsson featurephone, available in the UK for about £10, for much the same reason.
With this thing, I'd much prefer to wipe Android from it completely and install a custom Linux (or BSD) distribution, to get more control over how it works. Unfortunately, while this is most likely possible, by the time it gets stable the phone will probably have vanished from the market. The profit margin on these cheap devices is so slow it only takes a tiny market shift to drive them into unprofitability.
I've been stalling on a project to run Debian on the Nexus 4 - maybe an older device would be easier (?). It's Qualcomm, so maybe the same serial-over-headphone jack trick works [1]
I am, right now, trying to beat a Nexus 7 into running stock Linux. I am failing.
Looks like Ubuntu, Bodhi and something else all came out with distros for the N7, and then all gave up on them. The only current one is Ubuntu Touch, which is a total dead loss. (They've disabled apt-get...)
At the moment I'm trying to run a Debian userland in a chroot, and it's not working particularly well. If only Android supported virtualisation!
It depends which Nexus 7, but your path will be something like mine: get a kernel running (even if it doesn't complete booting), get libhybris [1] working, get userland working.
You're going to need some kind of serial-out for this.
What are these devices like for hacking with / and or attaching to other electronics? What is android like for these sort of uses as opposed to, say, a Raspberry Pi (or Arduino)?
I'd love to use something like this to monitor the water in a tank on a hillside. The battery + the Cell connectivity + (potentially) the camera would be perfect. (I'm sure there are suitable solar phone chargers that would work with it too)
I think the biggest advantage of a micro-controller (like Arduino or an MSP) or prototyping microcomputer (like the Pi or BeagleBone) are control of GPIOs from a reasonably high-level language. At least for my applications. serial and parallel ports on PCs used to give you some functionality similar to this too. But smartphones lack that for the most part (the best you can expect is typically bluetooth comms with a separate device).
If you need remote logging, the 3G Particle Electron boards (particle.io) should be released soon, which I'm pretty excited for.
More importantly, the power usage typically is/can be a few orders of magnitude less, especially when you can control the power state of the IC and wake it up with an external interrupt. I have a weather monitoring station that works off of two AA batteries for 12-16 months at a time.
It depends a great deal on whether it's possible to unlock the bootloader. Unfortunately, many of these cheap phones are loaded with the carrier's software. They don't want you to uninstall it, so they don't let you unlock the bootloader, which would enable you to modify the system partition on the device. This means you can't do much with it unless someone discovers a vulnerability that grants you root access.
He wouldn't need to load a custom ROM just to make and install an app that monitors a few peripheral sensors (all of which should be accessible via the Android SDK).
True, but he specifically mentioned the RbPi and Arduino in his comment. This makes me believe he's interested in more functionality than what is offered by the standard API.
Well, it's running Android, so all you'd need to do is make an Android app to do this. Android SDK is pretty powerful even without root access, so what you're wanting to do shouldn't be a problem from a software perspective (now, whether the hardware is appropriate, I have no idea).
Very exciting to see $10 pocket supercomputers in ubiquitous retail, but surely this is a just a loss leader? Wouldn't the patent transfer payments alone put this underwater?
Has anyone traced the origin of this model? Is it remaindered stock from somewhere (and therefore a sunk cost)?
OK, I understand the value of hyperbole here and there, but calling this a supercomputer is akin to calling it a floodlight because its screen glows, or a space heater because its back gets slightly warm when charging.
The smallest/cheapest thing that can hyperbolicaly yet somewhat reasonably be called a supercomputer nowadays IMHO is a PC with several beefy GPUs.
With 1/4 the number of physical buttons, a crucial feature for many people. I bought an ebook with a touchscreen and there is nothing more frustrating about it than not having physical buttons for page navigation.
ZTE has made several phones for carriers that have sold for $10 over the past couple years without contract. They are locked to the carrier and require airtime purchases.
No contract needed but unless an unlock is available, you are stuck with their minutes/data rates.
Target stores had "Brightspot" which is a T-Mobile mvno and it went under, but they had $10 phones with these same specs last year at this time.
Give me a tablet this cheap and I'm ordering 10 of them, to finally hang touchscreens in every room of my home and wire them up to an LCARS interface.
(Actually, I recently had an opportunity to get some tablets for $8/piece from a bank that was getting rid of the equpiment, but unfortunately me&my friends got outbidded by some company :<.)
EDIT: any source for tablets that are less than $40 / piece and decent enough to work as wall-hanged touchscreens (doesn't look like total crap, is able to run Android and some apps while connected to Wi-FI without getting unresponsive) would be much appreciated.
You can get decent tablets in China for $30-40. Not like a few years ago when everything low end was crap. Except cameras which usually isn't very good still. Of course it's hard to know what you are buying unless you have it in your hand. The cheap ones are usually mediatek, allwinner or similar.
It really just depends. If you only plan to use it for a handful of widgets to control things, low res is often just fine since you're dealing with relatively large, simple "buttons" and nothing small or info-dense.
There is a certain 'rub' when people compare two pieces of technology.
While it's certainly true that the cpu/memory are faster or better than an iphone was 8 years ago.. and at such a low price.. when people compare specifications they always lose perspective on build quality.
It's very hard to quantify that from a product data sheet, but if this thing was built like a early 00's Nokia, then it would be worth a lot.
But for $10, do you need a smartphone at all? why not grab one of those "burners" that have a battery life of 2 months which additionally can survive some abuse?
I understand that for $10 people should curb their expectations, but the title is comparing apples to oranges.
"$400 smartphone from 8 years ago with high build quality vs $10 phone now with unknown build quality"
> when people compare specifications they always lose perspective on build quality
This isn't being sold as quality at all though, and I think that most people will be well aware of the build difference between this and an Apple product or similar.
That are talking about what it can do when working, not how long it will work for.
> But for $10, do you need a smartphone at all?
As has already been mentioned, for some a mobile phone is their only Internet access so a cheap device with something approaching modern smartphone features could be quite a boon for those in that economic category.
Also for the slightly better off they are a good choice for kids. It might keep from trying to grab your phone (though they'll still want your's for the better games a higher spec device can play), at the price it doesn't matter as much if they break the thing, and if you disable network access (or just don't put a SIM in at all) so they just use WiFi it'll not cost any extra beyond the initial price.
They would also be useful as an emergency spare, for when you need one (due to loss or damage of your main phone) and a less capable burner isn't sufficient.
I guess non-profits that work with homeless people, at risk youth, domestic abuse victims, war zones etc will find creative uses for this. Another example would be Syrian refugees arriving in Europe.
Can't really take spec literally anyway. Even at equal build quality, that phone does not need to work in a 2007 environment. The original iPhone in 2008 could run everything that was available in the App store with almost the best experience. There is going to be more tradeoff with this phone which is also going to be compensated with an order of magnitude larger ecosystem.
It is still amazing that technology has evolved to the point of finding a similar phone 2 orders of magnitude cheaper. Especially when you think of all the stuff that were going on at the time of the iPhone like the OLPC. Good reference point also to compare with today expensive technologies that ship with subpar performance, like all those "smart appliances" that cost thousands and offer ridiculously small performance, or car entertainment systems that even in luxury cars can be beaten by a 10$ phone.
> But for $10, do you need a smartphone at all? why not grab one of those "burners" that have a battery life of 2 months which additionally can survive some abuse?
Sometimes you don't need a smartphone with decent specs, but you'd still like to use Whatsapp, Uber, etc.
At the same time, much of the value of a smartphone comes from connectivity and software. A first generation iPhone is a 2G device trapped at iOS 3. Fit and finish are nice, but if I had to use either of these two devices, I know which I'd choose.
Of course, this is fundamentally a "look how far we've come in a short time" article.
As for "why not grab a burner", many of the people who will buy this device won't have internet at home (assuming they have a home--a recent Harvard study showed that 40% of the homeless in Boston had a smartphone), so internet access through a smartphone has huge value.
A colleague uses this site with a class set of iPods on the open College wifi (clean feed/walled garden).
A cheapo device of this nature would allow access to pdfs of lessons and socrative quizzes whenever for the minority of teenager students who do not get Internet access at home or have a device of their own. The 'slush fund' could stretch to one of these if they can use wifi.
However people set their expectations on the price paid in many cases. So while a direct feature by feature comparison will not work for those who are up on this type of technology the vast majority of potential customers won't care.
As ten bucks combined with prepaid cards this phone is astounding. If not a loss leader think of it this way, anyone could buy these with phone cards and hand them out like candy
I buy low end smartphones (~$25 off-contract) and I couldn't be happier with them AFA my own use. Sometimes you need whatsapp or what not to coordinate or want to run some other basic apps.
My only negative would be that the touch screen accuracy is sometimes subpar which is a real hindrance when trying to find a starter smartphone for tech curious retirees.
The title says the $10 phone has better specs than original iPhone, not better build quality, and I wouldn't presume people mistake specs for design tolerances.
Is that 10 dollars as in 10 dollars, or 10 dollars plus a 2-years contract for phone and data that sums up to something like 500 dollars (as it is with the iPhone)?
Obviously in the latter case the money is made on the contract, not on the phone.
I have this phone, or the predecessor? Yes, the carrier is TracFone. For $100, plus tax, you get 1000 minutes for 365 days. You need to buy the lousy phone, but it's cheap.
It's fine if you just want a cheap phone. I only use it for calls, because that's all I've been able to do with the phone. So, even though it has Internet access; I haven't got it to work.
Oh yea, you need to unlock the screen whenever you call, and the touch screen software has a bug in it. It's hit it miss if you can access the answer button.
That said, if you don't have much money, or hate paying huge monthly bills--this phone plan is fine. The phone is chitty. I have a iPhone 4, and an android I use at home. Both are not with a carrier, but work for my needs.
Will I buy another year's worth of minutes--maybe? I like not paying a monthly phone bill to some company that I really never cared about, and only frustrated me, for years, with their rediculious billing practices.
WOW I appreciete you get somewhat bad deals teclo wise in the USA but even that bites. In the UK can get for £10 (7.50 for 3 months) unlimited calls/text and...data.
Kinda messed up, still even for the UK that phone is a steal price wise.
In the UK can get for £10 (7.50 for 3 months)
unlimited calls/text and...data.
I've never noticed a deal that good; indeed most providers don't offer unlimited data at all and the one that does has a fair use policy and doesn't allow tethering [1].
Where should I look to find unlimited data, calls and texts for £10/month?
In the UK are the advertised rates for the monthly plans accurate? Here in the USA, every advertised rate has an asterisk next to it with a lot of fine print. I pay 50% more per month than the advertised rate after all the fees they tack on.
First of all, the Sales Tax is tacked on when you buy a phone, and in the case of subsidized phones it can be more than the advertised cost of the phone..
As far as monthly bills:
1) there are a number of legally mandated taxes that are added on.
2) There are legally required services (e.g. emergency phone calls, our equivalent of 999) that the phone company is required to provide, and the phone company won't include the costs of these in the advertised price.
3) Whatever the hell else they want to add on as a fee. My provider adds a $10/mo. fee for a smartphone and another $10/mo. fee if the phone is capable of 4g. This means any smartphone that isn't more tan 2 years old will be $20 more per month than advertised.
I end up paying about $180/mo. for two lines with unlimited data where the advertised price is $99/mo. for 1 line and $20 for each additional.
[edit] And if you're curious, this does not include tethering, which would be an additional per-month fee were I to want it.
Wow, Three.co.uk has sim only unlimited data plans with free USA roaming cheaper than T-Mobile is here in the US. Now the only question is if they can bill to a US account for the GBP 5/mo. discount...
I'd imagine your'd want to bill outside to cover you as roaming contact wise, but that may just be me thinking this thru too much.
Still, thought it may be cheaper, which is more messed up and ironically you won't get charged to be able to do 911 calls, or premium for owning a phone that thinks it is smart etc etc.
Crazy but heck, why not offshore your phone provider and teach companies a lesson.
http://www.vectonemobile.co.uk/ I was with Giffgaff who did some nice goodybag bundles but they have somewhat pushed 4G and with that reduced the appeal on bundles and unlimited data.
Vectonemobile runs on the T-Mobile network and been pretty good coverage wise for me over O2's network.
Also if you port your number they give you £15, maybe some other deals - was just happy for cheap PAYG unlimited data myself.
Now worth noting if you have the old deal Three did that allowed tethering then may want to keep hold of that if you use that feature.
This. So much this. The whole "writing software only for the hardware elite" thing is really holding us back as a society. Sure they have money, so they might have some for you. I get that, but it's going to be pretty rotten for everyone when the cash stops flowing and people learn the hard way that you can't redraw 120 times per second on crap hardware.
So this phone is $10 retail. In it you gotta discount amazons margin, any middle mans margin, shipping and logistics, and marketing. Now add subtract to the original manufacturer. The manufacturing has to be few or less dollars, and that has to include raw materials and labor. With such a low price it's very unlikely you have the nicest pays and most environmentally responsible practices.... There isn't enough room for it.
The only plausible way imho is if all the stock to make it was already fabbed and not sold, so either they lose the already invested money or discount it significantly to minimize loss (and it'd still be a net loss)
It's locked to a pay pr. minute deal, so if you use it as a smart device on wifi only you never have to pay anything. Great for people with very limited funds and no access to the internet in other ways (assuming they can get access to a wifi, which you at least can do many places in large cities).
This is why I thought the Android One program was a waste of time and effort. Just by sheer economy of scale, we have a $10 Android phone without any Google intervention. The Huawei U8150 IDEOS ended up becoming a $60AUD locked prepaid / $99AUD off contract phone in Australia at the end of 2011.
Android One was a Corporate strategy, to make sure Windows Phone does not grow as a low-end alternative, and Android getting squeezed from Top and bottom. For what it is worth, I would deem it as successful.
OK, here's the real $9 computer. Screen, USB port, TV cameras, audio, storage, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GSM, all in a nice little package. This could replace the Raspberry Pi in many applications. What does it take to just use it as a computer, with no cell phone account?
Call me crazy, but I keep wondering about the subversion risk of stuff like this. Widespread deployment due to cost, what's needed for espionage included, and always from a country involved in it. Been concerned about the possibility since a HW expert told me most of world's smartphones come from about five or six companies. Talk about concentration of power and opportunity.
I encourage people to spend a bit more on various vendors and encourage what little diversity we can. Not sure what to do otherwise aside from not carrying a mobile.
This headline has gotten this a lot of attention, but why? The original iPhone came out 7 years ago. A computer (and phones are small computers) with specs that outdated are really only priced based on materials cost.
Has anyone been able to play with the phone and see if the bootloader is locked? If one could install Cyanogenmod on the thing, they could potentially keep the phone up-to-date beyond 4.4, provided that someone's willing to develop for the device.
I also can't figure out who the carrier on this phone is.
> Has anyone been able to play with the phone and see if the bootloader is locked?
I haven't, but if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say it's locked. Even if it could be unlocked easily, it's not likely you'll find anyone developing for it. It's not listed on the XDA Developers website, which is the authority on Android phone hacking.
> I also can't figure out who the carrier on this phone is.
It's in the first line of the article:
"Walmart is now selling a TracFone-branded LG smartphone that costs $9.82 (it also ships free if your online order total tops $50)."
TracFone is one of the many brands of conglomerate América Móvil, and sister brand of Walmart-sold Net10 Wireless and Straight Talk Wireless. They are MVNOs, leasing spectrum and bands from the major US carriers; I've used Straight Talk in the past on both AT&T's and T-Mobile USA's networks. At one time TracFone was Sprint PCS only, but I believe you can get TracFone devices that use any of the major carrier networks now.
As a dev,this interests me too.I just like buying low end phones to figure out their cost reduction/optimization techniques and figuring out how normal apps would survive on them.
Although ,I think comparing it to the first iPhone is unfair.
It's CDMA, so probably no SIM card, and definitely you can't use it with most other networks. Maybe, maybe Verizon, but probably just Tracfone (likely it's Verizon network, anyway).
Why would you think that? There's no special ROM that prevents Android from loading if the carrier's sim card isn't loaded. It should still work regardless of sim. Edit: It's CDMA, and it would have to identify a network before booting, which isn't going to happen; this phone should work fine on wifi without a carrier plan. Question is, did they disable the wifi or GPS the way some similar AT&T phones did?
And also because I saw Dave Jones do a teardown of one of these things. He tried turning it on with no SIM and it said "please insert SIM" instead of booting to Android.
So does chrome (and android webview which is now based on chrome) on lollipop and above. Where did you get the idea that it wasn't? Go to chrome://inspect on your desktop, you need to have a Chrome version on your desktop that's compatible with the chrome/webview version on your android device, usually this means having the same or higher version number on your desktop.
Kitkat marked the transition of android webview to be based on chrome but it wasn't made updateable.
Lollipop upwards have an updateable android webview which tracks the latest chrome version and isn't very far behind usually.
Why is this news? It's only $10 because it is locked to the tracfone network and the $10 price is subsidized by their rate plans just like the 'free' iphone on at&t is subsidized. The only difference is that there is no contract requiring you to buy 2 years of service.
It's great when people observe what hundreds of millions of consumers buying a product on a regular cycle will do to a market.
So the big takeaway isn't that you can get a cheap mp3 player, it's that technology will rapidly improve and decrease in price once it hits the mainstream. Now if we could only applie this to consumer robotics, genetics, or renewable energy.
But it wasn't really top notch back in the days either. I had a Droid/Milestone and the iPhone just looked and felt like some plastic garbage in comparison to it. It took the Apple til the iPhone 4 it became a real gem and now it seems that they're going back.
At 2 % of the price of the original iPhone, I do think this is somewhat remarkable. Just consider how much is left to the device manufacturing after cost of customer service at sales, logistics, etc.
Then I went to check what version it actually runs, and it's 4.4/KitKat. I do not have any phone with a version more recent than 4.4 (and that's the case for everyone I know). In fact, my phone is only running 4.4 because I went through the trouble to look in Russian forums for custom ROMs for it, since the manufacturer didn't get it beyond 4.2. My phone is a not very popular model, but even for some former flagships the only way to go is to get custom ROMs e.g. on XDA. Sure, I (and my friends) could get a new phone... but we are not interested in changing phones before they are even out of warranty (2 years in Europe).
This is no surprise: Google's statistics[1] indicate 4.4 is still the most used version. Cheaper phones being launched with older Android versions doesn't help, that's true, but these cheaper models are good enough for many people. And to be honest, the features (and change in looks/functionality) introduced in the later versions do not interest me much. If only Android had an update policy more similar to Windows and some Linux distros, where you stay with a major release but get security updates for it, for a sane amount of time...
[1] https://developer.android.com/intl/zh-tw/about/dashboards/in...