Reminds me a bit of HMD's KaiOS feature phones but this is apparently Android?
I think that was made obvious by the big thing on the marketing website scroll about checking cricket scores.
They're not even the only country in Asia where cricket's big.
And it is indeed smaller than most smartphones. Apple never made a small smartphone, presumably because they need the big screen for their vending-machine-in-your-pocket to sell more content.
I couldn't find specs for this thing but from the picture it looks to be about the same size as the original iPhone.
I'm not counting people that did upgrade but are spiteful of the forced size increase.
I'd have got one myself but iOS doesn't work for me.. I have several things I need on a mobile phone that are not available on iOS.
For me a phone is really an outside the house thing only. I don't use it at home to poke around on the internet etc, like most people do these days. I still have a real computer with a massive screen and keyboard. So a mini size is great for me.
On Android there's the ones from Unihertz but they take the "small" factor a little bit too far, and also their software support is absolutely terrible. And people often mention the zenPhone, I'm not sure why because it was never smaller than the Samsung S-series. It wasn't really a small phone anyway.
I go to places where there is very little, to no, risk of being robbed. This is good.
Now, if they would only remove the gimmicky touch screen, and replace it with buttons, the phone would be a perfect for those who do not like to have a surveillance device in their pocket. Or at least a "lesser" surveillance device.
Also HMD already sells that other product you're describing. They're on the same website linked above; click "Feature Phones" to see them.
RAM: 64MB LP-DDR2
Flash: 128MB NAND
I think the OS is an update of the Mocor RTOS by the SoC vendor Unisoc.
I am curious if there are 3rd party apps on this device. If nothing else, it would be a fun challenge to write apps for something constrained like this.
On Amazon France, you can buy an "Energizer U506S" for €40.19 with free shipping. And that one has:
CPU: 1.5Ghz 4-core (MT6739 from 2017)
RAM: 2GB
Flash: 32GB
(and has card slot, dual sim)
And it runs Android 13 Go edition (probably not well, but enough to run Whatsapp and such).
So this device is facing some competition at that price point. Probably in India you can get an android device with higher spec at that €40 price point than you can in Europe.
In practice this phone's YouTube reviews show it's running dog slow while lacking basic features, just like pretty much any other recently released feature phones at its price point.
But I would love an android in small form factor like this. Can live without hi-res display and multiple cameras, if they can get the phone down to this size.
IMO, Xperia mini was the perfect phone.
Speaking of which, it is bizarre how the tables have turned. Whatsapp used to support everything under the sun... But now it is all Android and iPhone
If HMD came out with something that was optimized to the nth degree for whatsapp calls, that might be interesting, but even then I wonder how cheap it would need to be to compete with budget androids.
At first I thought that it was an AI app, and reading more could find why that would be innovative, but no, just a chat app targeting the same phone users and the ones willing to install the app in other phone brands.
https://www.hmd.com/en_in/about-hybrid-phones
Edit: Requiring Google Play login to use this express chat app is pretty stupid in my opinion. Why do apps require Google Play login? Especially a Chinese app? I am on an Android phone with Google play. I am just not signed in to Google play. I installed this app with Aurora store. The app simply throws me back to Play Store which tells me to sign in. Why?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.moon.expre...
It looks like it's still India-exclusive. I haven't heard much about it online, and with a dedicated chat app I would've expected to if it was a success. Did it bomb?
Problem is, unless you have people willing to jump ship, or technical friends who like to experiment. You're just chatting to yourself
https://m.gsmarena.com/nokia_lumia_920-pictures-4967.php
the good old days
And in developing countries, you have to register your phones imei and pay tax if the value of your phone is greater than certain amount. And in that cases the amount of tax is maybe 50% of the actual price of the phone. So your phone is basically a brick with camera. And you get carry a second phone, which is inconvinence. With this I can see the potential use of it. Small, simple and useful wifi hotspot device with actual ability to call like normal phone.
I used to have an Android head unit in my old car, I used my phone hotspot for connectivity
Not supporting 5G limits this devices longevity, although at the price point and Indian market focus, I think its acceptable.
It's not your phone at all if you don't control the software.. even old keypad phones were often flashable, but HMD is working hard to make sure you have no say what software is running on your smartphone.
Yup.
In tech-speak there is 5G NSA (Non-Standalone Architecture) and 5G SA (Standalone Architecture).
5G NSA is a kludge, it is 5G radios operating on a legacy 4G core. Inherently backwards compatible.
5G SA is 5G radios on 5G core. Clearly not backwards compatible.
5G SA is the preferred route for good reason:
1. It delivers reduced power consumption at both operator and user-device level
2. It delivers improved latency and bandwidth at both operator and user-device levelIf you're building new towers, things change, obviously. That said, a lot of industrial/IoT hardware still requires 4G so it's not entirely unreasonable to deploy 4G in new coverage areas.
MSR base stations are the norm in the industry, not a rarity.
5G RedCap is the solution, but that will need new infrastructure and chipset. LTE will stay at least for another ten years.
Most operators have switched off both 3G and 2G by now.
Closes tab
Perhaps the limitation to whatever express chat is isn’t a dealbreaker in India.