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New “Android Go” phones show how much you can get for $100
- hajile 9y agoI don't get the RAM requirements here. I can buy a 1GB DDR3L chip for around $6.20 (and closer to $5.50 per 1000). Another layer on the PCB (if even necessary) would only add a couple dollars more. I think even people without much money would pay an extra 10 for 2x the RAM and 1/2 the frustration because things like web pages can't really be optimized too much no matter Android Go's aims. This smells of companies making phones because certain Google execs recommended they do so.
- andrepd 9y agoThese seem underwhelming compared to what the Chinese manufacturers are doing. For example, 100$ can get you one of these: https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_4_(4x)-8608.php https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_4_(4x)-8608.php
- jklinger410 9y agoEvery American phone is underwhelming compared to what Chinese manufacturers are doing. They make all of the phones, actually. You have to pay hella licensing to get a cell chip that works in the west. Then, they sell that phone to the company wholesale. Then the American company upcharges for retail. You can get a Samsung S whatever for 1/3 the price if you don't want to connect to a cell network and don't mind waiting 3 months for it to ship.
- jdietrich 9y agoYou won't get a 4x for that price, but you can get a 5A for under $100. For that price you'll get a Snapdragon 425, 2GB of RAM, a surprisingly bright 720p display and a non-awful camera. I can only assume that these devices will sell for vastly below the listed price in their target markets, otherwise they're going to flop miserably. https://www.banggood.com/Xiaomi-Redmi-5A-Global-Edition-5_0-inch-2GB-RAM-16GB-ROM-Snapdragon-425-Quad-core-4G-Smartphone-p-1239861.html https://www.banggood.com/Xiaomi-Redmi-5A-Global-Edition-5_0-...
- tudelo 9y agoThese phones seem like really good deals... too good to be true? I'm in the market for a cheap phone coming from a moto E 1st gen and these seem like promising options.
- dbspin 9y agoThe Xiaomi phones absolutely work. They're amazing for the price, and very popular as imports here in Ireland. There's always the chance they might have Chinese govt spyware however, as has been alleged with Huawei https://mashable.com/2018/02/14/huawei-prove-phones-not-spying-americans/ https://mashable.com/2018/02/14/huawei-prove-phones-not-spyi...
- cies 9y agoIsn't it nowadays down to: who's spyware do you prefer?
- andrepd 9y agoI've installed lineage os on mine. Availability of lineage is a prerequisite of any phone I can consider buying.
- shock 9y agoMy Xiaomi Mi5 won't power on after 2 months of use. My friend's Mi5 won't power on after less than a year. It seems it's a common problem: google "Xiaomi Sudden Death". For warranty I have to ship it to China, which I knew when I bought it so I'm not complaining, just not recommending Xiaomi in light of the "sudden death" issue. A sample search: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mi+5+not+turning+on&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWmIa949jZAhUKJ8AKHc90DgsQ1QIImAEoAg&biw=2139&bih=1342 https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mi+5+not+turning...
- jdietrich 9y agoI own a Xiaomi Note 4. It's a fantastic device for the price and has given me no trouble at all. Xiaomi's Android skin (MiUI) is nicely designed, performs well and is regularly updated even on older devices. Xiaomi aren't well known in the west, but they're the fifth largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. Depending on your country, you may have to pay import charges if you buy direct from China or Hong Kong. Even with import charges, Xiaomi phones still usually work out to be a good deal. Warranty coverage is limited if you're outside of Xiaomi's core markets, but parts are cheap and readily available if you need to replace a cracked screen or a weak battery. I wouldn't recommend other Chinese brands like Doogee, Leagoo or UMI. The hardware is usually good, but the software is often poor and you can forget about updates.
- taoistextremist 9y agoIsn't Xiaomi subsidized by the government? Hard to compete against that in price.
- gruez 9y agosource? a google search turns up nothing
- bitL 9y agoYou have other manufacturers like Ulefone, Doogee, Leagoo, Wiko, Bq, Archos, Zoji, ZTE, Bluboo, Cubot, Oukitel, Fantec, HomTom, Kazam, BlackView, Elephone, Umidigi, Wieppo, GigaSet, HiSense, Gretel, Nabo, Siswoo, Hafury, Coolpad, STK, Keecoo, Meizu etc. offering better specs than any Go phone. Go just seems like a rebranding of what couldn't sell and got outdated.
- StudentStuff 9y agoEven compared to a $5 Android Tracfone you can get at any Safeway, these are pretty underwhelming. Why would I pay 12x more and only get double the RAM & LTE compared to a $5 Alcatel Android phone? Essentially the only reason is for modern Android, but its not as though any of these Android phones (except the Nokia) will ever see multiple years of software updates.
- ktpsns 9y agoCan you provide a link to a shop where to buy a smartphone for $5?
- StudentStuff 9y agoSure, I bought a bunch of LG Sunrise phones, but the current offer seems much better: https://slickdeals.net/f/11329603-8gb-alcatel-pop-icon-2-lte-tracfone-prepaid-smartphone-5-free-shipping https://slickdeals.net/f/11329603-8gb-alcatel-pop-icon-2-lte... Brick and mortar only though, and stock varies. I usually power dial all the local stores, then go to the ones with the most stock and clean 'em out. Easy way to get a few dozen Androids in short order. Sadly, at the $5 price point Amazon and eBay will never beat Brick & Mortar stores, as shipping is more than half the cost.
- pulse7 9y agoCrazy if you compare this with Raspberry Pi Zero at $5 - you get: better CPU, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB storage, display, 2 cameras, GSM, GPS, microphone, speakers, battery, enclosure and a charger... if this continues, in 5-10 years you will get a solid machine for $5...
- StudentStuff 9y agoThe Raspberry Pi Zero is a board of compromises. Look at what the OrangePi Zero is in comparison, then wonder why Broadcom couldn't compete with two guys in Shenzen on features, price or getting their hardware mainlined into the kernel.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pezdeath 9y agoOr just what Motorola has done with their E series
- changechan 9y agocan they be flashed with a custom rom and still be usable? 10 years ago I had half a dozen firefox browser open with hundreds of tabs, now I can barely have one or two with a dozen tabs -- same with mobile, I buy the cheapest phone and do the minimal I need, but sometimes I need a special app and I expect it to work a year later and not get hung up on required upgrades and then get locked out with a useless phone. I just want a phone I can buy and not worry about evil corporations forcing me to upgrade or that it will be slower then stuff I used 10 years ago.
- bebna 9y agoCan one "downgrade" a normal android to go? Would be interesting to see what it does to your battery runtime, for people like me, who use their phones mainly for different forms of text messaging, some news browsing and some once in a while google maps routing.
- StudentStuff 9y agoDoubtful, this seems to just be another soon to be orphaned Android variant (like Android One). Uninstalling Google Play Newsstand and most of the other Google Crapware should get you close, perhaps replace Google Play Services Framework with microG to save a few hundred megs of space?
- Grazester 9y agoGo apps are stripped down version of their normal counterpart. These stripped down versions are smaller in size and maybe be optimized for slower internet services. Android Ones is still going well in places like India but Google usually has a say in what hardware is used on Android One phones as they push the updates for these devices. With Android Go any hardware can be used.
- StudentStuff 9y ago> Go apps are stripped down version of their normal counterpart. They're slightly smaller, but the update model is still a total mess. You can never uninstall the baked in Google Apps, and updates are extremely bulky (basically storing a 2nd copy of each Google app). > Android Ones is still going well in places like India The #1 & #2 non-Apple phone manufacturers are totally uninterested, and Xiaomi (the current Android One leader) is effectively banned from India after spying on millions. Nokia, the #3 phone manufacturer (excluding Apple), is showing tepid interest in Android One: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/25/hmd-android-one-nokia/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/25/hmd-android-one-nokia/ But yet they're also bringing back FirefoxOS since low performing Android devices at high price points aren't pushing great volume: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/26/kaios/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/26/kaios/ > With Android Go any hardware can be used. Sounds like a great way to orphan a device with no software updates!
- leke 9y agoWill these phones still run the regular android apps like Duolingo, Memrise, Telegram, Brave, BaconReader...?
- StudentStuff 9y agoThat is the idea, but with only 8GB of internal storage, using Progressive Web Apps for things like Reddit would be best.
- tudelo 9y agoHah. I have a phone with 5GB (probably marketed as 6 but I don't remember) and you really can not have many apps installed at once. Add to it the fact that if you run something like Spotify it will cache like 1GB of data over a few days. I have something different every week. As a bonus, it keeps my home screen free of almost any icons...
- StudentStuff 9y agoIt almost certainly has 8GB of storage, but Android + Google Apps eats a bit under 3GB of space. Worst part is, when you update those Google Apps, the version of Gapps your phone shipped with isn't deleted :(
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoThey key is to get a phone with microSD support. Then Spotify and other apps can put their data on the card and relieve pressure from the limited on board storage. You can also go for LineageOS with minimal to no GApps to free up some space on small memory phones.
- pishpash 9y agoIt's the perpetual software treadmill, bloat because the hardware can support bloat. If phones were not all 64GB monsters, devs would learn to be disciplined. Until the day phones give me next level miracles, there is no need for the specs they have. A good camera, a large battery, good ungimped radio bands, thems be thar necessities.
- bruceb 9y agoNot sure what the point of this article is. There are plenty of Quad core, 2gb ram, 16gb phones for under $100 already available in the US. Of course some are initially locked but they are locked to MVNO that have relatively cheap plans $20-$40 a month. This configuration (Quad,2gb,16gb) seems like a good minimum that you can use most apps without major problems and have enough space to not uninstall stuff all the time. Plus now the used market has many high quality phones that are available. A used Samsung S5 should meet most people's basic needs. The difference between a 2018 phone and a 2015 phone is much smaller than 2015 and a 2012 phone. As for place like India, there are plenty of phones in the $80-$99 range that meet these specs. And many that are at the $40-50 price points that have worse specs but still usable.
- amiga-workbench 9y agoI'm pretty much through buying "flagship" devices due to the pathetically short software support lifetime they have, I bought a second hand Xperia Z5 Compact for £150 about 6 months ago and loaded Lineage OS onto it. Even my old Xperia Z3 has a port of Oreo available, and its perfectly functional.
- pishpash 9y agoFlagship is just companies trying to emulate Apple to fleece unsuspecting price-taking fools.
- criddell 9y agoI'm not buying any phones anymore unless they come from Google or Apple. Even manufacturers that do update their phones can be very slow getting security fixes out.
- amiga-workbench 9y agoThe Pixel devices don't really last that long either, and there isn't much progress on custom ROMs due to the weird partition layout.
- rb808 9y agoI wonder if these are a good solution to phone addiction, ie can still let you use maps, uber and check email without being good for FB & games. If only they had a good camera...
- radix07 9y agoYes of course any modern smart phone can do this by just not installing apps. But there is absolutely a need for a minimal or 'dumb' smart phone. Just having Google Play with everything available is enough to get you distracted enough to go into a never ending pool of distractions and wasted time. Yes, I should certainly have the control to stop myself and I even do an application detox occasionally when I get the will power. But if I couldn't get into that useless stuff in the first place, I wouldn't need to worry about it. I have seriously considered going straight to a dumb phone and had one much longer than most of my friends, but then I need to carry a GPS, MP3 player, and a not shitty camera. I just want a phone that actually fits in my hand with email, a light weight web browser, Spotify/Pandora, Maps, maybe some health/fitness trackers, and a half decent camera. And of course the actual phone functions to text and call when needed.
- pishpash 9y agoHow about not installing dumb apps
- timlod 9y ago> This also means the battery is—get this—replaceable! When you take off the back you can actually pull the battery out and—if you have an extra on hand—replace it with a fully charged battery. Amazing. Not sure if this is meant to be a joke... My understanding that most lower-tier phones have replacable batteries, at least my last phones (from the Moto G series) had.
- diggan 9y agoI've been a Moto G fan since the first one, but the current one I have (3rd Generation, falcon) does not have replacable batteries. But instead it has space for a sd-card. I was not sure which one was best to have, but after having the phone for a while and the battery loosing it's juice, I would definitely be happier with a replaceable battery compared to upgradable storage.
- timlod 9y agoI have the recent one (G5), and it has both. 2 Sim card slots, SD card slot, replacable battery. The first one also had a replacable battery. Didn't know the 3rd Generation didn't! In that case I'm glad they reverted their design in that regard.
- webster23 9y agoThe first Moto G (2013) does not have a replaceable battery. I have one right here.
- timlod 9y agoMy bad, remembered it wrong. I mixed it up with the Nexus One I had before that, but that was a high-end phone.
- diggan 9y agoOh, seems you convinced me to upgrade again, forgot my phone outside in the rain, it still works but cameras are all foggy and battery is acting weird (loosing 100% in just a couple of idle hours) so time for a new one! Thanks!
- MarcScott 9y agoI'm now on my third "budget" phone, my last previous premium phone being a Nexus 4. I used a Moto G4 until I broke it, a Moto G5 until I broke it, and now have a new G5, which given my history will last me about 6 months. I break phones too often to fork out anything over about £150. If I can get a sub £100 phone, that will run Google maps, an email client, a web browser and give me the ability to tether then sign me up.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago> I break phones too often Could you stop doing that? Or get insurance that covers accidental damage. The premium will cost less than £150 every 6 months.
- MarcScott 9y ago> Could you stop doing that? No, I'm fairly clumsy and get through phones, laptops, e-cigs etc at an alarming rate. My phone costs me the equivalent of £25 a month plus an additional £10 for 4G from my provider. After 6 months, it's just the £10. This is far cheaper than the £50/month 2 year contracts on most premium phones.
- alex_hitchins 9y agoFrom a fellow clumsy person (hands like cows t#ts) I invested in a decent case for my iPhone. It looks ridiculous but has kept my iPhone 6+ immaculate after many drops and tumbles. Takes away from the sleek design but means I'm still using mu 6+ today.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y agoAs far as I'm concerned, the only question that matters is "What is the chain of responsibility for making security updates get to my phone?" If the answer is "Google-Carrier-Me" or "Google-Vendor-Carrier-Me" and not "Google-Me", then fuck it sideways. I'm so done with Android until the update model stops being garbage.
- e12e 9y agoI'd prefer a more classical model of having a group of volunteers work with semi-independent groups of vendors - along the lines of Debian Gnu/Linux. Rather than some semi-closed Linux + Google+hw-vendor Android. I like the direction Google one + lineage Os seem to be taking us; even if the baseband are still a problem / back-door.
- madez 9y agoDevices with LineageOS are still stuck on old kernels and can't run mainline Linux.
- shock 9y agoWhich Android devices can run mainline Linux? I'm very interested to buy one, but so far I thought all Android devices ran patched Linux versions.
- izacus 9y agoNone, Android requires additional patches still and pretty much all the SoCs run on binary blobs.
- majewsky 9y agoPostmarketOS is a Linux distribution for phones that tries to bring as much device support into mainline as possible. Device support is documented in their wiki: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices The only non-obscure device in that list that has a "Yes" in the "mainline" column seems to be the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- FussyZeus 9y ago> New “Android Go” phones show how much you can get for $100 Not a lot, as it turns out, unsurprising to most.
- eof 9y agohaving used androids and always getting frustrated at them getting super laggy, i finally took my friends advice and bought a used 5s for $80. runs like butter for the last year. unbelievable to me we still can't keep garbage processes and excessive ui down enough to have a budget phone run like crap
- on_and_off 9y agoIt is too bad it was a private conversation, I would love to be able to point to a published form, but I discussed with one of the Googlers in charge of optimizing Android. He did not exactly have nice things to say about how OEMs are optimizing their phones. Basically they optimize in order to get higher benchmark score but it very often goes against general smoothness. In the end he published a detailed article detailing how his team had optimized the pixel phone rendering pipeline so OEMs could try to do it correctly as well. And that's for a high end phone. However, I have got to say that after using iOS phones recently, I have not exactly been impressed with their smoothness either. Even system apps miss frames. That's not shocking in itself, mobile computing is pretty hard, you can't even table on a stable cpu frequency (thermal throttle) but not what I expected due to the reputation of apple phones.
- mastax 9y agoI was confused by some of the comments here before I realized that I was confusing "Android Go" (for low-ram devices) with "Android One" (stock android with guaranteed updates, usually for budget devices). For all the folks asking for a good cheap phone that gets Android updates, look at Android One devices.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoI remember the Treo from 2004 where my contacts and appointments opened immediately. Now we have these things where you wait a second for it to do a little dance before you can dial the number. That, and considering the amount of information they're scraping, Google should be paying me to use their awful phones.