4 ms·

The realities of a $50 smartphone

33 points by Pamar 11y ago

noir_lord 11y ago
So make the $100 device and get governments to subsidise them, you could give a hundred million $50 subsidies for $5bn (or more like 7-8bn once you get the pork and ancillary costs out the way). Access to the internet and even feature phones has radically altered lives around the world.
- bdcravens 11y ago
  Who pays the subsidies? The most obvious would be the target country, but I suspect that the reasons that make those the best recipients of the phone are the same reasons why the government wouldn't be able/willing to subsidize.
- jayess 11y ago
  There are plenty of android phones available for around $50 now. No need to subsidize. For example: http://www.amazon.com/BLU-S410a-Unlocked-Smartphone-Touchscreen/dp/B00J7Y90RO/ http://www.amazon.com/BLU-S410a-Unlocked-Smartphone-Touchscr...
  - Avshalom 11y ago
    Right $50 means a 4" screen and 2-4 year old hardware. It might not be glamorous but it damn well ought to be able to browse the internet and run an office suite.
    - johnchristopher 11y ago
      I have a 5 year old laptop crawling on its knees when browsing Wired and some other sites heavily loaded with way too much JS and subsequent http calls. XP+office 2010+20ff tabs are running fine on it but forget about win7/8.x and more than 2 tabs.
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      I regularly scan for second hand Motorola smartphones, like Moto G 2013. see http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/sss?excats=20-102-41-27-5-1&sort=rel&query=moto+g http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/sss?excats=20-102-41-27... I didn't read the details, but lots of ~40$ ones. A 1st gen Moto G is very potent.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    Yep. I've seen occasional blowout sales on older models in the $20 range.
  - lazylizard 11y ago
    http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1GB-8GB-Version-Teclast-X70-3G-Intel-SoFIA-X3-C3130-64-Bit-7-IPS-Screen-3G/32384978877.html http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1GB-8GB-Version-Teclast-X70-3... was 15% of a couple of days ago..
drb311 11y ago
Amazing what 50 bucks can buy. Are smartphone manufacturers really as naive as the story suggests, churning out phones at a loss in the vain hope of future profit? I know they're in trouble but they're not THAT deluded, are they?
- tdkl 11y ago
  The one who makes most of the profit in this case is Google, be it Play Store revenue, or data collected. I'm actually beginning to feel bad for the Android vendors.
  - aikah 11y ago
    > The one who makes most of the profit in this case is Google And Microsoft do who basically gets money on every Samsung and HTC Android device because patents. And let's wait the conclusion of Google vs Oracle case, it might be a game changer. If Oracle wins , it won't be so easy anymore for Google.
    - lgleason 11y ago
      I really hope that the Oracle VS Google thing might encourage Google to release a new official language for Android that is not Java.
      - joshuapants 11y ago
        I'm surprised Google hasn't made a bigger push with Go on Android. It seems like there's some rudimentary support, so maybe it's on the way.
  - jorgecastillo 11y ago
    >I'm actually beginning to feel bad for the Android vendors. I don't, I think I paid a fair price for my smartphone (LG-D280f) considering all the crap it comes bundle with (which I can't uninstall) and that I'll never get operating system updates. Even so I still like LG smartphones. I even recommend this brand!
aikah 11y ago
> As mobile networks kill off phone subsidies, users might now begin to appreciate just how much their new smartphone really costs. The article doesn't really speak about Apple, but Apple has a much bigger problem than Android. How many people are going to pay 800$ for a hand phone + cost of data plan ? This might be a huge opportunity for Microsoft and WP but they need to up their game when it comes to the qualities of apps. I also strongly believe that if WP sdk was supported on Mac and Linux it would have been a bigger hit. But that's my opinion.
- tdkl 11y ago
  > How many people are going to pay 800$ for a hand phone + cost of data plan ? Depending how much you value your time, privacy and what you get for the money. Lets be honest, the only reason Google, FB and similar companies are racing for the next 6 billion people without phones/internet to subsidize them one is to get their data.
- blowski 11y ago
  If price was the only determining factor in which device people buy, then Apple wouldn't be able to shift $2000 laptops when there are plenty of $250 options. The reality is a lot more complicated, and I suspect Apple will continue to do absolutely fine.
  - aikah 11y ago
    But Apple doesn't shift that many 2000$ laptops , and laptops aren't a fashion accessory unlike cellphones. Most Macs aren't subsidized either.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    I wonder how many of those laptops are paid for by employers? Most of the people I know who pay for their own laptops do not have Apples.
- eli 11y ago
  The carriers the previously offered phone subsidies are more than happy to offer financing (typically at 0%) for the cost of phones now. Nobody has to spend $800 up front if they don't want to.
eliben 11y ago
This is awesome, as long as it actually gives these people access to the internet rather than to the monstrosity that is internet.org
leke 11y ago
$2.10 for a battery, eh? Well aren't we getting shafted for replacements.
- fnbr 11y ago
  I suspect there's a vast difference in quality between the batteries used here and those used in, say, the iPhone 6. I might be naive, but I doubt that Apple is gouging consumers that badly.
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    For $2.10, the battery certainly won't be state of the art. Probably bulky and low capacity.
    - ValentineC 11y ago
      I've worked as customer service at one of these budget phone companies before. The batteries are decent — I've had my fair share of battery bloating for certain models, but the battery life is definitely comparable to the bigger brands.
      - joshuapants 11y ago
        > the battery life is definitely comparable to the bigger brands Sure, but the budget phone also isn't pushing a quad HD screen and a beefy processor. The runtime may be similar, but that doesn't mean the capacity is. I did a quick straw poll by looking at some budget Android phones against some flagships and it seems like the budget batteries are about 1000mAh less than the flagships. In a bigger case. So, bulky and low capacity.
        Menge 11y ago
        > it seems like the budget batteries are about 1000mAh less than the flagships But the flagships I'm aware of have non-removable batteries which is not a fair comparison as swap-ability has pay offs that make up for all the plastic and more robust circuit designs.
chatmasta 11y ago
You can get an iPhone 4 for around $50. Seems like a perfectly adequate smartphone to me.
- fnbr 11y ago
  Can you still buy them newly produced, or is that the cost for old inventory? I believe it's the latter, which is an artificially low cost- it doesn't reflect the cost of manufacturing, but rather is the highest price that the market will pay for an outdated phone that phone companies already have in inventory.
  - pen2l 11y ago
    Not to mention, Apple products past three generations are unusable. My old iPhone 4S phone is so slow that it's practically unusable.
    - Yhippa 11y ago
      Why is that? I booted up an old iPod touch that was based on the iPhone 4 and that thing is unusable. I would have thought it would degrade gracefully and still run as performant as it did with the old software on it but it runs so slow it's unusable.
      - pen2l 11y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    Probably not even new old-stock iPhones, but actually used ones. I wonder if e-cycling old high-end devices by refurbishing them and selling them to low-income markets isn't a better choice than ramping up manufacturing on necessarily crappy phones.
crusty 11y ago
This is still a thing? Now I'm curious; what did it cost Nokia to build the Lumia 520 (or 521) that I paid $35 for new from ATT about a year ago (no plan/no strings, since unlocked for free) and just read this article on. And just to inform HN readers who may have no realistic concept of what kind of personal financial decisions are made by people that these phones specifically target... Dual SIM phones are big sellers in developing countries, so add another $1 for that or whatever (note that it's mentioned in the "Display: $8" photo of the Android One but not in the article). Dual SIMs aren't for the globe trotters out there, although very useful in my experience, but many if not most of these people will be on prepaid plans and without phone credits at times. The dual SIMs let users leverage different promotional calling/texting structures to reduce costs. As well, data for prepaid users is purchased in blocks of data size or time, so being able to switch off the connection to one SIM or the other offers another cost management tool.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
luck87 11y ago
I develop on Android for a local business company. In my experience, I have worked with a wide range of devices and most of them have specific problems or bugs documented on internet. Most company use low-cost hardware (it is not well supported or it is not accurate) or customize Android system in strange ways: the result are bugs. So I am glad to reduce price, but I don't want to reduce the quality.
bakar112 11y ago
$50

33 points by Pamar 11y ago

So make the $100 device and get governments to subsidise them, you could give a hundred million $50 subsidies for $5bn (or more like 7-8bn once you get the pork and ancillary costs out the way). Access to the internet and even feature phones has radically altered lives around the world.

bdcravens 11y ago
Who pays the subsidies? The most obvious would be the target country, but I suspect that the reasons that make those the best recipients of the phone are the same reasons why the government wouldn't be able/willing to subsidize.
jayess 11y ago
There are plenty of android phones available for around $50 now. No need to subsidize. For example: http://www.amazon.com/BLU-S410a-Unlocked-Smartphone-Touchscreen/dp/B00J7Y90RO/ http://www.amazon.com/BLU-S410a-Unlocked-Smartphone-Touchscr...
- Avshalom 11y ago
  Right $50 means a 4" screen and 2-4 year old hardware. It might not be glamorous but it damn well ought to be able to browse the internet and run an office suite.
  - johnchristopher 11y ago
    I have a 5 year old laptop crawling on its knees when browsing Wired and some other sites heavily loaded with way too much JS and subsequent http calls. XP+office 2010+20ff tabs are running fine on it but forget about win7/8.x and more than 2 tabs.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    I regularly scan for second hand Motorola smartphones, like Moto G 2013. see http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/sss?excats=20-102-41-27-5-1&sort=rel&query=moto+g http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/sss?excats=20-102-41-27... I didn't read the details, but lots of ~40$ ones. A 1st gen Moto G is very potent.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  Yep. I've seen occasional blowout sales on older models in the $20 range.
- lazylizard 11y ago
  http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1GB-8GB-Version-Teclast-X70-3G-Intel-SoFIA-X3-C3130-64-Bit-7-IPS-Screen-3G/32384978877.html http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1GB-8GB-Version-Teclast-X70-3... was 15% of a couple of days ago..

drb311 11y ago

Amazing what 50 bucks can buy. Are smartphone manufacturers really as naive as the story suggests, churning out phones at a loss in the vain hope of future profit? I know they're in trouble but they're not THAT deluded, are they?

tdkl 11y ago
The one who makes most of the profit in this case is Google, be it Play Store revenue, or data collected. I'm actually beginning to feel bad for the Android vendors.
- aikah 11y ago
  > The one who makes most of the profit in this case is Google And Microsoft do who basically gets money on every Samsung and HTC Android device because patents. And let's wait the conclusion of Google vs Oracle case, it might be a game changer. If Oracle wins , it won't be so easy anymore for Google.
  - lgleason 11y ago
    I really hope that the Oracle VS Google thing might encourage Google to release a new official language for Android that is not Java.
    - joshuapants 11y ago
      I'm surprised Google hasn't made a bigger push with Go on Android. It seems like there's some rudimentary support, so maybe it's on the way.
- jorgecastillo 11y ago
  >I'm actually beginning to feel bad for the Android vendors. I don't, I think I paid a fair price for my smartphone (LG-D280f) considering all the crap it comes bundle with (which I can't uninstall) and that I'll never get operating system updates. Even so I still like LG smartphones. I even recommend this brand!

aikah 11y ago

> As mobile networks kill off phone subsidies, users might now begin to appreciate just how much their new smartphone really costs. The article doesn't really speak about Apple, but Apple has a much bigger problem than Android. How many people are going to pay 800$ for a hand phone + cost of data plan ? This might be a huge opportunity for Microsoft and WP but they need to up their game when it comes to the qualities of apps. I also strongly believe that if WP sdk was supported on Mac and Linux it would have been a bigger hit. But that's my opinion.

tdkl 11y ago
> How many people are going to pay 800$ for a hand phone + cost of data plan ? Depending how much you value your time, privacy and what you get for the money. Lets be honest, the only reason Google, FB and similar companies are racing for the next 6 billion people without phones/internet to subsidize them one is to get their data.
blowski 11y ago
If price was the only determining factor in which device people buy, then Apple wouldn't be able to shift $2000 laptops when there are plenty of $250 options. The reality is a lot more complicated, and I suspect Apple will continue to do absolutely fine.
- aikah 11y ago
  But Apple doesn't shift that many 2000$ laptops , and laptops aren't a fashion accessory unlike cellphones. Most Macs aren't subsidized either.
- ams6110 11y ago
  I wonder how many of those laptops are paid for by employers? Most of the people I know who pay for their own laptops do not have Apples.
eli 11y ago
The carriers the previously offered phone subsidies are more than happy to offer financing (typically at 0%) for the cost of phones now. Nobody has to spend $800 up front if they don't want to.

eliben 11y ago

This is awesome, as long as it actually gives these people access to the internet rather than to the monstrosity that is internet.org

leke 11y ago

$2.10 for a battery, eh? Well aren't we getting shafted for replacements.

fnbr 11y ago
I suspect there's a vast difference in quality between the batteries used here and those used in, say, the iPhone 6. I might be naive, but I doubt that Apple is gouging consumers that badly.
- joshuapants 11y ago
  For $2.10, the battery certainly won't be state of the art. Probably bulky and low capacity.
  - ValentineC 11y ago
    I've worked as customer service at one of these budget phone companies before. The batteries are decent — I've had my fair share of battery bloating for certain models, but the battery life is definitely comparable to the bigger brands.
    - joshuapants 11y ago
      > the battery life is definitely comparable to the bigger brands Sure, but the budget phone also isn't pushing a quad HD screen and a beefy processor. The runtime may be similar, but that doesn't mean the capacity is. I did a quick straw poll by looking at some budget Android phones against some flagships and it seems like the budget batteries are about 1000mAh less than the flagships. In a bigger case. So, bulky and low capacity.
      - Menge 11y ago
        > it seems like the budget batteries are about 1000mAh less than the flagships But the flagships I'm aware of have non-removable batteries which is not a fair comparison as swap-ability has pay offs that make up for all the plastic and more robust circuit designs.

chatmasta 11y ago

You can get an iPhone 4 for around $50. Seems like a perfectly adequate smartphone to me.

fnbr 11y ago
Can you still buy them newly produced, or is that the cost for old inventory? I believe it's the latter, which is an artificially low cost- it doesn't reflect the cost of manufacturing, but rather is the highest price that the market will pay for an outdated phone that phone companies already have in inventory.
- pen2l 11y ago
  Not to mention, Apple products past three generations are unusable. My old iPhone 4S phone is so slow that it's practically unusable.
  - Yhippa 11y ago
    Why is that? I booted up an old iPod touch that was based on the iPhone 4 and that thing is unusable. I would have thought it would degrade gracefully and still run as performant as it did with the old software on it but it runs so slow it's unusable.
    - pen2l 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
- joshuapants 11y ago
  Probably not even new old-stock iPhones, but actually used ones. I wonder if e-cycling old high-end devices by refurbishing them and selling them to low-income markets isn't a better choice than ramping up manufacturing on necessarily crappy phones.

crusty 11y ago

This is still a thing? Now I'm curious; what did it cost Nokia to build the Lumia 520 (or 521) that I paid $35 for new from ATT about a year ago (no plan/no strings, since unlocked for free) and just read this article on. And just to inform HN readers who may have no realistic concept of what kind of personal financial decisions are made by people that these phones specifically target... Dual SIM phones are big sellers in developing countries, so add another $1 for that or whatever (note that it's mentioned in the "Display: $8" photo of the Android One but not in the article). Dual SIMs aren't for the globe trotters out there, although very useful in my experience, but many if not most of these people will be on prepaid plans and without phone credits at times. The dual SIMs let users leverage different promotional calling/texting structures to reduce costs. As well, data for prepaid users is purchased in blocks of data size or time, so being able to switch off the connection to one SIM or the other offers another cost management tool.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

luck87 11y ago

I develop on Android for a local business company. In my experience, I have worked with a wide range of devices and most of them have specific problems or bugs documented on internet. Most company use low-cost hardware (it is not well supported or it is not accurate) or customize Android system in strange ways: the result are bugs. So I am glad to reduce price, but I don't want to reduce the quality.

bakar112 11y ago

$50