At the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona this week, companies have made it clear that they are also focusing on creating cheaper phones for the emerging markets. It is true that their focus the last few years has been on creating high-quality smartphones that the affluent lot crave. However, it’s also evident that most of these people cannot afford phones that cost hundreds of dollars.
We have seen a slate of cheap phones being launched pre-MWC as well as at the event. The much-touted Nokia X was launched at $122. It is an Android-based phone and uses the dual-core 1GHz Snapdragon processor. This makes it quite a steal. Sure, the features are not what you get in a $400 Android phone. Here’s why: Nokia X is based on the open-source Android that comes free. It is then instilled with features from Microsoft and then packaged to resemble a Windows phone.
Read about the cheap phones in 2013 here.
For those who want to go even lower on the amount they spend on a phone, Mozilla has created cheap phones using the Firefox OS. However, it allows you to use most apps that the more expensive smartphones offer.
The compact Moto G was also launched recently with a screen size of 4.5″. It’s ergonomically designed but doesn’t have space for a MicroSD card, which means the memory cannot be expanded.
