Indian Company to Launch $7 Smartphone on Wednesday

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Once considered a luxury product, a smartphone has grown to become a commodity over the years. But on Wednesday, things will reach a whole new level. As part of its attempt to connect every Indian, local smartphone manufacturer Ringing Bells 'with immense support from' the India government will launch an affordable smartphone called the Freedom 251 on Wednesday. The Freedom 251, touted as India's cheapest smartphone -and likely the most affordable smartphone in the world as well - will sport a price tag below Rs. 500 (approximately $7).

The Indian smartphone manufacturer said that it will reveal the exact retail price of the handset and other details like its specifications at the launch event. The manufacturer added the launch event will see the presence of a number of top Indian government officials including Shri Manohar Parrikkar, Union Minister of Defence and Shri Murali Manohar Joshi, Hon'ble Member of Parliament.

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Wow, it is crazy how cheap smartphones has become in India. In Canada, regular Prepaid non-smartphones still cost $50 or more, and the monthly bill for prepaid phones cost $20 or more.
 
alakazam said:
I wonder if it can actually run any apps decently...
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I think the $7 smartphone may run basic apps like web browsers, music and video players decently, but more intensive apps like games, some social networking apps like Facebook, and photo editing apps may slowdown the phone where it becomes unusable.

The smartphone may also be heavily subsidized by India's government where the Government pays 90% of the cost of the phone while the buyer just needs to pay 10% or less of the total cost of the phone sort of like how public school works in some countries where all kids don't need to pay for school, but the government uses tax money to buy books, pay the teachers, and staff who work at the school.
 
This got cheaper than PCs and tvs have become.
 
alakazam said:
Ah... So, if Facebook is too much for it, I assume that messaging apps like Kik, Skype and Telegram are out of the question, right?
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There are sometimes lightweight versions of the same app made for slower phones. Facebook has Facebook Lite which is lightweight version of Facebook made for slower phones which are mostly found in poor countries. But, Facebook Lite is not as nice looking, and maybe missing some features like notifications, video chat, and voice chat.
 
Massacre said:
This is first time hearing a 7 usd smart phone. I bet there are less features in this one.
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I think there would probably be less features like MicroSD Card slot, front Camera for taking selfies, and larger amount of storage like 16GB. But, it may has almost all the features of a regular smartphone.

Walmart sells a LG Prepaid smartphone for $10 , and it even has a 3 Megapixel Rear Camera, and a quad-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 200 CPU which are better specs than most smartphones and tablets which came out a few years ago.

I think India can sell a smartphone for less than $10 because more skilled workers like smartphone factory workers are willing to work for less money like a few US Dollars a day because there is not a lot of good paying jobs in some places in India compared to the US and other countries where most workers get paid better for working in a factory or store which sells smartphones.
 
alakazam said:
Wow! No front camera for selfies? Well, it's pretty useless then. Might as well get a dumbphone just for calling and texting.
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I found a recent article which got posted today about this phone. It now cost $3.66 USD, and does come with a 0.3MP front camera, and other features found on a regular smartphone.

Ringing Bells is selling the phone for Rs. 251, which is about $3.66 in US dollars.

So what do you get for that price? The Freedom 251 certainly isn’t a phone with stellar specs… but it looks surprisingly decent for a phone with such a low price tag:


4 inch, 960 x 540 pixel IPS display
1.3 GHz quad-core processor
1GB RAM
8GB storage (and a microSD card for up to 32GB more)
3.2MP rear camera and 0.3MP front camera
1,450 mAh battery

The phone supports 3G cellular data and ships with Android 5.1 Lollipop software. As NDTV notes, the user interface has been tweaked to make Android look a lot like iOS… and it’s possible the Freedom 251 is just a re-branded version of a different smartphone.
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Source

I wonder if Ringing Bells is just having a sale for the smartphone, and raise the price to a more expensive price like $40 when the sale is over sort of like Black Friday in North America where you can buy a cheap 7 inch Android Tablet for $20 at Wal-Mart, but once the sale is over, the tablet cost $40 or more.
 
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