UPDATED 00:08 EDT / MAY 20 2016

NEWS

Cheaper than a can of Coke: Indian phone maker offers Android smartphone for $1.47

$1.47 doesn’t buy an awful lot these days, outside of perhaps a small item off the McDonald’s dollar menu, but what if it could buy you an Android smartphone?

Well, now it can with a new company in India offering an Android-powered smartphone for the introductory price of Rs 99 ($1.47).

Called the Namotel Acche Din, the phone is available to order at the introductory price until May 25th and comes with a 4 inch display at 720×1280 pixels, a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 4GB of storage and 1 GB of RAM, a 2 megapixel rear camera and 0.2 megapixel front camera, and a 1325mAh battery powering Android 5.1 Lollipop.

Those looking for a cheap 4G LTE phone will be disappointed however, as the Acche Din only supports 3G networks.

For those worried about the build quality of a smartphone that costs less than a can of Coca-Cola, the device also comes with a one year warranty with Namotel promising to provide free-of-charge repair and/or replacement services within the warranty period for any defects or breaks not caused by the user.

The phone itself is only being made available for sale in India on a cash-on-delivery basis.

Skepticism

There is a fair bit of skepticism in the Indian press over the phone, particularly given the person behind the company, Madhava Reddy, was previously a relationship manager in bank home loans department, hardly a normal background for someone entering the mobile phone manufacturing space.

Further criticism includes the fact that the phone shown on the website appears to be a photoshopped version of a handset from Leagoo Z1, with a disclosure underneath on the product page that the “picture shown is for illustration purposes only.”

For an extra bonus, be it not a lot of money, the shipping cost of the phone is Rs. 199 ($2.99) meaning it costs twice as much to ship as it does to actually buy.

Cheap phones are not new in India, with a number of phones including the Freedom 251 and the Docoss X1 ranging in price from Rs. 888 ($13.99) to Rs. 2,999 ($44.50), but even given the low specs of the Namotel Acche Din it’s impossible to see how it can be made and sold at such an extraordinarily low price, even if it’s a promotional price with a normal list price of Rs. 2,999 ($44.50).

Whether it’s an elaborate scam or a legitimate promotional starting price, only time will tell.

Image credit: Namotel.

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