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Smart to bring the cheapest Android phone to the market, Ideos.

Smart Communications recently announced that they will be bringing the Huawei Ideos (U8150) phone here in the Philippines. According to the news reports, "Smart is expected to offer Ideos within a price range of P5,000 and P6,000 for prepaid units. It will also bundle a monthly plan of as low as P500 for postpaid subscribers." (From Inquirer.Net)

Now that's certainly a much better postpaid deal compared to what I'm getting for my Globe telecom postpaid! Hmmm...perhaps its about time I seriously consider switching networks? Hopefully, Smart does keep the price range on that level but chances are the phone price itself is subsidized by Smart.

By the time this phone will be out there will be people screaming this...

"It's slow! It's laggy! I'm just going to buy a Galaxy S."



And it is slow. Just look at the Angry Birds video playback there. If you're a tech freak then this phone is not for you. If you have money to burn, by all means get a Galaxy S or the HTC HD phones.

Yes, it can play Angry Birds but there will be some performance issues...wherein most of the Filipino population wouldn't probably care about (well I don't care about it).

Can it play Facebook Farmville? No. Chances are this phone is not powerful enough for Flash which is normally found on phones with 1Ghz processors.

Can if play Need for Speed Shift? No. For the same reason as above.

Specwise, this phone is pretty much on equal footing with the Apad's/Iped's being sold in Greenhills and other stores. Although the performance is certainly much better.

Android phones are like PCs, if you want to play games you'll need a high spec machine. This is opposed to Apple iPhones which normally just has 1 SKU that guarantees a good chunk of application interoperability.

But can this phone play your MP3s? Yes.

Can this phone, play your videos? Yes.

Can this phone surf the internet? Wi-fi built in? Yes.

Can this phone go to Facebook? Yes.

Can this phone do twitter? Yes.

Is it Froyo (Android 2.2)? Yes.

Can it be upgraded to the next Android version? Who knows...but Google is working on greater spec support.



For many people this is what matters...not how optimized Angry Birds will be...not if they can run a PS1 emulator. And for most of Smart's userbase, this is probably the first time that they will encounter a full blown smart phone. This may be the first time that their users will actually have a device (of their own) that is capable of surfing the internet. There are lots of possibilities with this phone and the Philippine market. I, for one, am glad that Smart is bringing this phone here.

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