"the X95 will come in a range of bright colors including black" - that made me snigger.
On a more serious note, I'm very impressed by this price even if the phone is likely to be nigh on unusable with those specs - 2GB of RAM for Android in 2020 simply isn't enough - you'll likely see active apps close randomly as the system struggles to keep some memory available. I wonder what the BoM cost of one of these is, and if they're initially selling them at a loss or if they are actually managing to make these for less than $60.
I don't think it's terribly difficult if you just use your phone for basic stuff and either don't browse web with a caching web browser or take care to clear its cache out every once in a while.
I've been using a 4GB storage phone with 1GB RAM for over five years, now; this will* probably be my upgrade so I can access broker app again (they cut off kitkat support about a year ago). I mostly use phone as a phone and alarm clock, occasionally for GPS. Anything else is more of a last resort if the power's out and I truly need information.
I do just fine with a LG Rebel 4 purchased for $10 as a refurb from Tracfone. It's got 2GB RAM and 16GB storage (5 inch screen with a higher resolution than this thing as well as a removable battery) and its fine. Used ADB to disable a bunch of "value added" Google spyware sh!t that Alphabet uses to creep on the handset (which is something I would have done on any other handset) but it works great as a near laptop replacement as long as I keep my music, movies, docs and whatnot on SD. A handful of apps for productivity and some games are installed and there is still 5+GB of free internal storage.
Manage expectations and use some prudence about how you use your phone and you can easily get by without spending more than a $10 bill on your handset and under $20 a month for no contract service. People are sometimes pretty foolish about wasting cash on cell service and toss a couple thousand out the door a year. Fine whatever, but I can slide the difference into an investment account and that interest bearing snowball gets pretty huge over the years while I can still make calls, text people, and poke around a bit on the Internet while on the go.
The sad part is a lot of the people I know who make the least amount of money are the ones with high end phones, unlimited plans and then complain about being broke. Says a lot about them.
IMO for a daily use device like a phone, if you're spending significant effort managing your use of it then the device is really insufficient for your needs. It might of course simply be that my needs are more demanding than yours, but your approach seems to simply exchange a relatively minor monetary expenditure for a seemingly significant time and effort expenditure (not least the time and effort to get into disabling background processes). That is obviously your choice to make, and I am by no means a proponent of buying flagship phones, but for any kind of moderate use IMO 4GB is the minimum for Android today - on my Moto One Zoom I've had both background music players and even the keyboard close unprompted seemingly due to memory running out. Now, I do keep a handful of browser tabs open (articles I've yet to read etc.) and don't do anything to manage the phone myself, and also have some background processes (password manager, cloud storage/photo upload), but I'm also not a very heavy user - I regularly use maybe 6-7 apps with the browser being by far the most used. IMO that is a minimum expectation of what a smartphone should be able to handle, as it otherwise fails to actually fulfill the "smart" part of its name.
Messing with ADB to disable apps took less than two hours and is a once and done thing. There is pretty much no additional thought about management required at that point. I use my phone for almost everything these days. It's used for movies, as a music playback device, as a gaming platform, for document editing, obviously fetching e-mail, making calls, and occasional navigation. Heavy use is an understatement and, once again, the setup effort is minimal (unnecessary if you don't mind leaving GApps running) so anyone buying a phone could get the same experience without even the couple hours I spent disabling creepware that Google likes to give us all for free.
I wager the randomly closing app is due to software bugginess (i.e. instability etc) or a overzealous power-saving algorithm from Motorola rather than a lack of RAM. Remember that phones back in 2014-15 came with 2GB RAM as standard, and they are still perfectly usable now. After all Android is supposed to intelligently manage RAM usage for the end user, and that includes not closing "essential" apps that need to be running in the background such as music, keyboard, phone app etc
I've tried for years to go as low as possible but still not buy crap for tablets and phones. For phones, Xiaomi (and now, Realme) is where it's at. For just $20 more than this one, you can get a Redmi A-series, which, while still under-specced (the sweetspot is the Redmi Note / Realme 6), will work as advertised w/ solid HW, OS and SW, a couple OS updates, and no surprise hidden defect/design failure. No NFC though. For tablets, Xiaomi's are quite "expensive". Amazon Fire 8 or 10 (not 7) + Google Play is where it's at, unless you can't bear the idiotic iOS-like non-replaceable Launcher. I've had either design or durability issues with stuff from Teclast, Chuwi and Cube.
I'll second your vote for the Fire 10 especially if you buy it in one of Amazon's many sales. I would really struggle to justify paying more for an Android tablet.
Yes, I just saw that... Maybe my order cancellation will go through. If not, the sale price today of $50, like a Raspberry Pi. Without the GPIO or wired Ethernet. But including $80 worth of sensors and stuff...
Interesting perspective. I would expect that for a manufacturer a larger phone is less expensive overall. They would need less design time (and cost) to get everything to fit and to dissipate heat properly.
An extra inch of glass and a few inches of extra material for the frame probably cost them less than $1 per unit.
I'm using this phone for about one week and I'm really impressed. Many people forget that X95 has Android 10 Go, not regular Android. That's OS dedicated for low-ends devices like this. And with this spec everything works better than acceptable. System is smooth, I'm using Chrome, New Pipe, Uber or Messenger Lite without any problems. GPS is strong and accurate. Display very good in sunlight what is dealbreaker with this price point. Battery live - above 40 hrs from 100 to 15% with almost 5 hrs SOT. For me it's great result. Of course - you can't do miracles with this device but it gives much more than I expected.
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Valantar - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
"the X95 will come in a range of bright colors including black" - that made me snigger.On a more serious note, I'm very impressed by this price even if the phone is likely to be nigh on unusable with those specs - 2GB of RAM for Android in 2020 simply isn't enough - you'll likely see active apps close randomly as the system struggles to keep some memory available. I wonder what the BoM cost of one of these is, and if they're initially selling them at a loss or if they are actually managing to make these for less than $60.
StormyParis - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
16GB storage is an even bigger issue. My sister tried to make do with one... you can't.kludj - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
I don't think it's terribly difficult if you just use your phone for basic stuff and either don't browse web with a caching web browser or take care to clear its cache out every once in a while.I've been using a 4GB storage phone with 1GB RAM for over five years, now; this will* probably be my upgrade so I can access broker app again (they cut off kitkat support about a year ago). I mostly use phone as a phone and alarm clock, occasionally for GPS. Anything else is more of a last resort if the power's out and I truly need information.
*I take that back: $30 shipping charge to US.
PeachNCream - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
I do just fine with a LG Rebel 4 purchased for $10 as a refurb from Tracfone. It's got 2GB RAM and 16GB storage (5 inch screen with a higher resolution than this thing as well as a removable battery) and its fine. Used ADB to disable a bunch of "value added" Google spyware sh!t that Alphabet uses to creep on the handset (which is something I would have done on any other handset) but it works great as a near laptop replacement as long as I keep my music, movies, docs and whatnot on SD. A handful of apps for productivity and some games are installed and there is still 5+GB of free internal storage.Manage expectations and use some prudence about how you use your phone and you can easily get by without spending more than a $10 bill on your handset and under $20 a month for no contract service. People are sometimes pretty foolish about wasting cash on cell service and toss a couple thousand out the door a year. Fine whatever, but I can slide the difference into an investment account and that interest bearing snowball gets pretty huge over the years while I can still make calls, text people, and poke around a bit on the Internet while on the go.
Holliday75 - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
The sad part is a lot of the people I know who make the least amount of money are the ones with high end phones, unlimited plans and then complain about being broke. Says a lot about them.yetanotherhuman - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
You're not wrong.watersb - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
I've met lots of people who are afraid of banks, pay insane interest on tiny credit card or payday loans, use check-cashing places instead of bank.They might have good reasons (for some value of 'good') for wishing to avoid entanglements.
Not breaking laws, necessarily, but feeling that authority only threatens them.
Yet another dimension that violence steals potential from real people.
But yes insane rates they pay for phones. They think my $5 per month service must be a scam...
Valantar - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
IMO for a daily use device like a phone, if you're spending significant effort managing your use of it then the device is really insufficient for your needs. It might of course simply be that my needs are more demanding than yours, but your approach seems to simply exchange a relatively minor monetary expenditure for a seemingly significant time and effort expenditure (not least the time and effort to get into disabling background processes). That is obviously your choice to make, and I am by no means a proponent of buying flagship phones, but for any kind of moderate use IMO 4GB is the minimum for Android today - on my Moto One Zoom I've had both background music players and even the keyboard close unprompted seemingly due to memory running out. Now, I do keep a handful of browser tabs open (articles I've yet to read etc.) and don't do anything to manage the phone myself, and also have some background processes (password manager, cloud storage/photo upload), but I'm also not a very heavy user - I regularly use maybe 6-7 apps with the browser being by far the most used. IMO that is a minimum expectation of what a smartphone should be able to handle, as it otherwise fails to actually fulfill the "smart" part of its name.PeachNCream - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
Messing with ADB to disable apps took less than two hours and is a once and done thing. There is pretty much no additional thought about management required at that point. I use my phone for almost everything these days. It's used for movies, as a music playback device, as a gaming platform, for document editing, obviously fetching e-mail, making calls, and occasional navigation. Heavy use is an understatement and, once again, the setup effort is minimal (unnecessary if you don't mind leaving GApps running) so anyone buying a phone could get the same experience without even the couple hours I spent disabling creepware that Google likes to give us all for free.Retycint - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
I wager the randomly closing app is due to software bugginess (i.e. instability etc) or a overzealous power-saving algorithm from Motorola rather than a lack of RAM. Remember that phones back in 2014-15 came with 2GB RAM as standard, and they are still perfectly usable now. After all Android is supposed to intelligently manage RAM usage for the end user, and that includes not closing "essential" apps that need to be running in the background such as music, keyboard, phone app etcBedfordTim - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
My daughter's Nokia phone has a similar spec except for a more sensibly sized screen and works fine. It cost £70 delivered new a year and a half ago.Teckk - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
A single camera setup with 3 GB/64GB would've made it perfect for the price, maybe raise it by 5$ or so?StormyParis - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
I've tried for years to go as low as possible but still not buy crap for tablets and phones.For phones, Xiaomi (and now, Realme) is where it's at. For just $20 more than this one, you can get a Redmi A-series, which, while still under-specced (the sweetspot is the Redmi Note / Realme 6), will work as advertised w/ solid HW, OS and SW, a couple OS updates, and no surprise hidden defect/design failure. No NFC though.
For tablets, Xiaomi's are quite "expensive". Amazon Fire 8 or 10 (not 7) + Google Play is where it's at, unless you can't bear the idiotic iOS-like non-replaceable Launcher. I've had either design or durability issues with stuff from Teclast, Chuwi and Cube.
BedfordTim - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
I'll second your vote for the Fire 10 especially if you buy it in one of Amazon's many sales. I would really struggle to justify paying more for an Android tablet.drexnx - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
the name sounds like an accurate description of the user experience with those internals1_rick - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
I'm not positive but I don't think any of those bands are in use by US carriers.watersb - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
Yes, I just saw that... Maybe my order cancellation will go through. If not, the sale price today of $50, like a Raspberry Pi. Without the GPIO or wired Ethernet. But including $80 worth of sensors and stuff...Yaldabaoth - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
I'll wait for the HOWSER-16.eastcoast_pete - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
Yes, but that MTK SoC will have great Benchmark scores, thanks to Mediatek's cheat software (:Brane2 - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
IF someone could hack binary blob on this phone and isntaqll linux there, it could be a greeat alternative to a LibrePhone.Drop that crappy Android and 2G RAM might be fine...
sorten - Thursday, April 23, 2020 - link
Interesting perspective. I would expect that for a manufacturer a larger phone is less expensive overall. They would need less design time (and cost) to get everything to fit and to dissipate heat properly.An extra inch of glass and a few inches of extra material for the frame probably cost them less than $1 per unit.
SanX - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
As to BoM: the 4-core processor costs 1 dollar per core if not less.zodiacfml - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
Impressive display. Could be compelling primarily for video and reading, light games for kidstom86 - Thursday, July 30, 2020 - link
I'm using this phone for about one week and I'm really impressed. Many people forget that X95 has Android 10 Go, not regular Android. That's OS dedicated for low-ends devices like this. And with this spec everything works better than acceptable. System is smooth, I'm using Chrome, New Pipe, Uber or Messenger Lite without any problems. GPS is strong and accurate. Display very good in sunlight what is dealbreaker with this price point. Battery live - above 40 hrs from 100 to 15% with almost 5 hrs SOT. For me it's great result. Of course - you can't do miracles with this device but it gives much more than I expected.