Forget about sub-$100 smartphones, there’s now a sub $50 smartphone
(including worldwide shipping), some kind of mini Galaxy S3 clone with a 3.5″ touchscreen, powered by Speadtrum SC6820 Cortex A5 + Mali-400 SoC, with 256 MB RAM, 256 MB ROM and running Android 4.0.3 (ICS).
Here are the specifications of the device as shown in Focalprice:
- SoC – Spreadtrum 6820 Cortex A5 @ 1.2GHz with Mali-400 GPU
- System Memory – 256MB RAM
- Storage – 256MB NAND Flash + microSD socket (up to 8GB according to specs, 16 GB according to customer support)
- Display – 3.5″ capacitive touchscreen (480×800)
- Connectivity
- Bluetooth v2.0
- Wi-Fi 802.11b
- Video Formats – MP4, 3GP
- Audio Formats – MP3, MIDI
- Camera – 0.3MP front camera & 1.3MP rear camera.
- Sensors – G-Sensor
- Network – GSM850/900/1800/1900, GPRS, EDGE
- Dual SIM card dual standby
- TV Support – Analog TV, PAL, NTSC, SECAM
- FM Radio
- Audio In – 3.5 mm Jack Earphone interface
- Battery – 1800 mAH rechargeable lithium battery
- Dimensions – 11.7 x 6.0 x 1.0 cm
- Weight – 99 g
The package includes the phone, two 1800mAH batteries, a 100-240V charger, headphones, a USB Cable, and a user manual in English. For this price, the specs look pretty amazing… Of course, you can’t expect great performance from this phone, and with 256MB RAM, many apps may not run smoothly or at all. I’m not even sure if we can expect Google Play Store in that device (Play Store is there according to customer support), and as usual, there may be errors (or lies) in the specs, so you’d better ask confirmation in the store if one of the feature is important to you. Yet for $50, it could be the cheapest android 4.0 smartphone, and could be an option for a kid’s phone.
If you want to see how it performs, there’s a video of a smartphone based on Spectrum SC6820 SoC. Please note that it might not be exactly the one described above, but this is based on the same platform.
It’s the first time I’ve read about Spreadtrum SC6820, so I’ll give some details about this processor. SC6820 is a 40nm CMOS chipset that integrates a Cortex A5 core, a Mali-400 GPU, and an EDGE/GSM/GPRS accelerator. There’s also a multimedia sub-system that can decode MPEG4/H.263 (720p@30fps), H.264 (WVGA@30fps) & VP8 (WVGA@30fps) and encode H.263/H.264/MPEG4 (WVGA@30fps). The SoC supports a maximum of 1GB RAM and 4GB Flash.
Spreadtrum provides Android 2.3 and 4.0 support for the platform. You can find more information on Spreadtrum SC6820 page.
The phone is currently sold on Focalprice for $49.99 including international shipping until the 31st of December 2012.
Thanks to onebir for the tip!
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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“Yet for $50, it could be the cheapest android 4.0 smartphone, and could be an option for a kid’s phone.”
Or my phone :p
Things that put me off are:
– only 8mb SD card supported (why? Is this actually cheaper to implement than 32mb, or a deliberately imposed limit for price discrimination purposes?)
– lack of a known root procedure
– uncertainty about support for Google play.
But it’s kind of amazing a company no-one ever seems to have heard of suddenly pops up producing SOCs like this. (To me, anyway…)
@onebir
I suppose you meant 8GB and 32GB (not MB). Glad I’m not the only one to write typos here 🙂
256MB RAM? Ouch.
I tried to use my HTC Wildfire (384 MB RAM) last weekend, and it was too slow to use. It could be the CPU too, but my experience in the computer world: “if you need speed: RAM is king”
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
Showing my age! 8mb is about 5 3.5″ floppies! 🙂
But seriously, if they implement an SD card reader, why not make it 32GB?
Based on the pictures, the model could be s6500-tv
Aliexpress has one that matches the specs:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Cheap-Android-2-3-Smart-Phone-3-5-capacitive-Screen-S6500-WiFi-TV-Dual-Sim-SC6820/654126124.html
And one that matches the pictures, but with a different CPU ( SP8810 also from Spreadtrum, that does 3G )
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-S6500-Android-2-3-Smartphone-with-3-5-inch-HVGA-Screen-Dual-SIM-SP8810-2MP/698211172.html
I also like they’re mentionning only 802.11b wifi. I guess it’s only WEP secured too, which also seriously reduces the interest of the device.
note that the sc6820 is 2G only, not 3G
256 MB is probably the same as my old zte blade has.
11b is probably fairly ok as the thingie probably cannot process higher data rates.
It might well be that > 8GB cards are supported.
I have some units for sell, and kernel is 2.6.
Probably this phone are fake 2.2 instead of 4.0 Android. I will send you details of the settings page.
I got some answers:
It supports Google Play Store. Wi-Fi 802.11b. It is not rooted. It supports microSD up to 16GB.
I don’t think it’s really 800×480, more likely 320×480. Cheap plastic, very bad camera and low volume speaker. Worth $50 though )))
Isn’t that Android 2.1 shown in the video?
Got mine this morning, in less than two hours of use the first (of two) battery died literally (tested with multimeter:0 volt, spare one shows 3.8volt). wonder why, faulty battery/protection circuit? faulty phone? Phone is working fine so far with the second one so if it doesn’t die, I’ll just discard the faulty battery and purchase another one (no name battery but very similar to galaxy ace). Otherwise so far so good, OS is obviously not 4.0.3, it’s gingerbread 2.3.? (system version has been tapered with, I suspect it’s 2.3.4). OS itself is pretty clean, with zero chinese garbage app.… Read more »
@fred Some progress on rooting: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2165554
What I don’t get is why these phones seem to have stayed above $50 for almost a whole year…