[HH] the plummeting cost of smartphones

[Tom Metro]

David Kramer wrote:
>> ...the capabilities of this camera are likely blown away by a
>> sub-$50 Android smartphone...
> 
> Not so minor nit: Show me a sub $50 Android smartphone.  And by that I
> mean you buy the phone for sub-$50 and that's that.  No contract or
> commitments. 

Your price expectations were valid not that long ago, but there have
been a bunch of sub-$100 no-contract phones come onto the market. If you
look through a flyer for one of the drug store chains, you'll see them
packaged up from the pre-paid carriers, like Net10 and Boost Mobile. All
off contract.

If these are selling retail - after multiple layers of middlemen - in
the $50 to $100 range, then an off-brand equivalent can be sourced for
under $50.

This is the specific one I was thinking of:

$59.99 BLU Dash Junior D140 Unlocked GSM Dual-SIM Android Smartphone
http://www.microcenter.com/product/430556/Dash_Junior_D140_Unlocked_GSM_Dual-SIM_Android_Smartphone_-_Black

I think it was selling for $49.99 in the ad where I first saw it.

That gets you a single-core 1.0 GHz CPU, ARM Mali-400 GPU, a mere 256 MB
of RAM, and only 512 MB of storage, with a 320 x 480 screen.

Those specs are worse than the first Android phone I owned, but it also
has a 2 mega pixel camera, and along with that CPU/GPU blows away the
hardware in any security camera I currently own (which admittedly are
all a few years old and sub-$300).

 -Tom