freedom-251-controvery
In February this year an Indian company claimed to have created the world’s cheapest smartphone. Ringing Bells, the company, introduced the Freedom 251 earlier this year and said that this smartphone would cost just $4. Such tall claims sparked investigations into the company and while some controversial details were revealed, Ringing Bells is on its way to release this handset. It has finally provided a confirmed release date for its claimed world’s cheapest smartphone.

The Indian Cellular Association actually accused Ringing Bell of making fraudulent claims since the bill of materials for the Freedom 251 would cost around $40 and there was no evidence to show that the handset was being heavily subsidized by a major carrier partner. The $4 smartphone seemed too good to be true.

It was later discovered that the Freedom 251 was actually an illegally rebadged version of China’s Adcom Ikon 4 which retails for $54. Moreover, the app icons of this phone have been ripped straight from iOS.

However, people remained interested in this device, and more than 70 million registrations were done for this handset. Ringing Bell has confirmed that it’s going to ship the first batch of $4 Freedom 251 phones starting June 30th. It plans on filling 2.5 million orders in the first run and will then ship 200,000 units per month starting July 2016.

Freedom 251 features a 4 inch display, 1.3GHz quadcore processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, 8 megapixel rear and 3.2 megapixel front camera as well as an 1,800mAh battery. Ringing Bells says that it’s losing money on every Freedom 251 unit that it sells but mentions that its goal is to provide connectivity to rural and poor Indians.

Filed in Cellphones..

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