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India's $4 smartphone arrives June 30th
We wouldn't blame you for thinking that the $4 Indian smartphone was just a pipe dream, but it's apparently quite real. Ringing Bells tells the Indian Express that its ultra low-cost Freedom 251 (named based on its price in rupees) will start shipping on June 30th, with nearly 200,000 units in the early batch. As before, the hardware is no great shakes. You're looking at a 4-inch 960 x 540 screen, a modest 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of memory, 8GB of expandable storage, an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 3.2-megapixel front cam -- it's even running Android 5.1 instead of 6.0. Price really is the selling point here.
India's $4 smartphone is too good to be true
Last week, we heard a company in India was selling a smartphone for an astounding $4, which seems a little too good to be true. It turns out that it probably is. After selling nearly 30,000 units, the company is now being accused of fraud by congressman Pramod Tiwari. Another MP, Kirit Somaiya, has called it a huge Ponzi scam and requested a government investigation. These are only the latest roadblocks for a phone mired in controversy. From a shoddy prototype that was actually another company's phone to a recent government raid, it's beginning to look like a $4 smartphone is less a reality and more like a scam.
The $4 Android phone debuts in India
What could be the world's cheapest Android phone just went on sale in India. It's so cheap, its retail price in US dollars can be rounded to a single digit. The device called Freedom 251 costs only 251 Indian rupees or a little less than $4. That's still quite a bit of money for the poorest of the poor in the country, but at the same time, it's not even enough to buy a Starbucks Venti latte. Its official website claims it has a 4-inch qHD IPS display, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage (expandable up to 32GB), as well as a front (0.3 megapixel) and rear (3.2 megapixel) cameras.
