Android for £99?
Android has very slowly been making a name for itself in the smartphone market, but Google's previous excuses for phone hardware have, in my opinion, been unmitigated failures on a simply biblical scale. The main problem has been it's competitors, and on the hardware front the shaky, badly-built Droid doesn't stack up to the iPhone. Another, possibly more important reason for the bad hardware support has been the pricing of Android devices.
Apple has always been seen in the eyes of many as a premium brand, and the Android hardware manufacturers were perfectly poised to capture the market for affordable yet powerful smartphones. However, this has not been the case and for Android smartphones at this pricepoint, it looks to be slim pickings.
However, this may no longer be the case as little-known Chinese company ZTE is ready to light the budget-Android fires with it's incredibly affordable (around $150) Android phone, the 'Blade.' If you are willing to forgive the horribly cliché name, the ZTE Blade seems to offer a decent range of abilities for that price. Firstly, it comes with a 3.5 inch capacitive OLED touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera, 600mHz processor, Android 2.1, and a free 2Gb SD card!
However, whilst this feature set may be amazing for a sub-£100 price, it's not so amazing that in the UK, this phone is distributed by 'Orange,' a network famous for rather poor pricing and installing needless nonsense on mobile phones, and making them impossible to remove.
In addition, if any US readers have found this phone to take their fancy, then I'm afraid there is no network (that I know of) currently offering this phone in the US. To finish, I have a question: Are you skeptical that a phone with what appear to be such impressive features can retail for such a price?
Thomas Pinkney Dec 3, 2010 at 5:04 PM in Android, Cell Phones tagged android affordable smart phone cellphone
Reader Comments (3)
By the way, my first article. *phew*
Impressive first article!
I recently bought this phone under the Orange 'San Francisco' branding, and have been very impressed with it so far. The screen is lovely, and I was impressed that it was capacitive at this price level. I rarely have performance issues from it.
The only area I think they have cut corners to save money is the battery. I have to charge mine on a daily basis to keep it from giving me the 'no battery' indicator. This is probably down to the excessive use of apps from the android market though! Full review coming soon.
As for being sceptical, I was at first. The specs seem too good for a phone at this price range. But I think the low price is due to slightly less quality materials, lower capacity battery and slightly naff cheap feeling accessories. Also, we are avoiding the overpricing due to popular brand names. I have a few areas I could fault the phone for, but overall at this price it is a bargain.
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