What is special about this? Does it cost $20? Is it a cheap smart phone (why do they call it a hybrid phone?) targetting India (mentioning of cricket)?
It says "Small phone". 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.
HMD Touch 4G
81–90 of 120 posts
Re: HMD Touch 4G
#82Ok, this is kinda cool. In case you wanted to read the actual specs: https://www.hmd.com/en_in/hmd-touch-4g/specs?sku=1GE001CPG30... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMD_Touch_4G RTOS Touch on a Unisoc T127... that's cool. Amazed they can get the price that low.
CPU: single A7, 1GHz 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.
Re: HMD Touch 4G
#83Do it support Wifi hotspot? I will buyit instantly.
The linked page says that it can be a hotspot.
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.
Re: HMD Touch 4G
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
CPU: single A7, 1GHz 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.
This doesn't seem very competitive: it's priced at ₹4,199 (€38,08) on HMDs store. 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 p…
Re: HMD Touch 4G
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The little print at the end says "Currently only available in India." I think that was made obvious by the big thing on the marketing website scroll about checking cricket scores.
Because India is the only country that cares about cricket? They're not even the only country in Asia where cricket's big.
Re: HMD Touch 4G
#86Why to put front and center that chat app? I mean, is not something that makes it unique, if the app itself can run in android and iOS then it is just a chat app, with far less users than i.e. whatsapp. 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.
My guess is because this is not an Android phone and it is important to be able to chat with Android and iPhone users. The real question is why would iPhone and Android users install this app? 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 ph…
Re: HMD Touch 4G
#87This is nothing new. It's a dumb-phone with a touchscreen. There were quite a few examples back in the day in the late 00s.
Re: HMD Touch 4G
#88The device came out about a year ago: https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-HMD-Touch-4G-is-an-all-scr... 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?
A dedicated app that's only compatible with itself and only have miniscule install count means nothing. I tried downloading it and it only even support 4 countries prefix at the moment. It's also not that cheaper compared to "proper" smartphone from other brands in that area. Notebookcheck says it's launched with 3999 rupees while I see Itel Zeno 10 is just 4769 rupees. With India's unskilled labor minimum monthly wa…
Problem is, unless you have people willing to jump ship, or technical friends who like to experiment. You're just chatting to yourself
Re: HMD Touch 4G
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
The linked page says that it can be a hotspot.
Then it can be very handy in terms of its usability of wifi hotspot devices. In case you want to access intenret remotely on your laptop or in your car. 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…
I used to have an Android head unit in my old car, I used my phone hotspot for connectivity
Re: HMD Touch 4G
#90Without WhatsApp support it will not go far.
> Without WhatsApp support it will not go far. 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