Walmart's $10 smartphone isn't actually $10 | Hacker News Reader

Walmart's $10 smartphone isn't actually $10

pcmag.com

25 pointsrfjedwards42 comments

From this article -- "They're locked to Tracfone's network, and Tracfone has a very punitive unlocking policy: you have to use this cheap, pretty lousy Android phone for a year on Tracfone's network before you can unlock it."

As opposed to the original iPhone which had a non-existent unlocking policy :-)

As did just about every other phone of that era. What would you say is the state of that comparison today, in 2015?

The original conversation was that Walmart was selling a $10 phone that was more powerful than the original iPhone which had been labelled by some in the press as the "Jesus Phone". This offended the sensibilities of a number of iPhone owners who have argued a number of side points to refute that assertion. The article here pointed out how horrible the restrictions were on unlocking so you were "trapped" using Tracfones crappy service for at least a year. However, that fails to acknowledge that when it was first released, the iPhone could not be unlocked and many felt its biggest weakness was the crappy service from AT&T (I certainly did).

So today, with some legislation help, unlocking phones is not quite as burdensome, and both Apple and Android makers have more carriers to choose from given the amount of business they "swing". This LG phone and others like it are totally adequate smartphones. Which only serves to illustrate the chasm between where we started and where we are.

In alternate history speculation, had Microsoft released the Lumia 550 the same year that Apple released the iPhone? Microsoft would have outsold and out performed Apple in the smartphone market and Apple might never have gained the necessary momentum to fuel its growth. But we know that Balmer didn't see it, and as an employee working at Google when Android was being developed, Google didn't see it either. The original Android phone concepts were very much like Palm Pilots, not what you see today.

Are we going to do this every day now?

There are several "$10" phones out there and have been for the past couple years.

I have a dozen various brands of android phones sitting on the desk in front of me for testing, none were over $20.

Next Friday (black friday) there will be $5 phones, $10 phones and $20 phones.

Both Best Buy and Kmart will have this phone for $5 next Friday:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/net10-zte-paragon-4g-with-4gb-me...

(net10 is tracfone, same no unlock policy)

You can even find middle range phones now for $20.

https://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-phone/zte-obsidi...

($20 phone with $40 airtime card - quad-core, 1GB of ram)

Yes Tracphone will not unlock the phone. But you can use mvnos on other phones if you actually want a phone plan.

You can even get free phone service from services like RingPlus with Sprint/Boost Mobile/Virgin Mobile phones and those phones are sometimes $10-$20

It's a few cents over $10 with tax, including free ship to store, no additional purchase required.

Source: I bought it.

Minutes run $20 for 180 if you want to activate it, which is a fair price for a pay as you go emergency phone, especially one running Android that includes a data plan.

For a heavily used normal day to day phone sure, something else is better.

Is there anything stopping you from using it as a WiFi only device for $10?

Probably no, but is it a phone then?

Sure, if you use Skype or Google Hangouts you can call other phones.

While you're right, depending on availability of Wifi is not very portable, which decreases its utility.

Not sure how it is in the US, but in Romania we've got pretty good and cheap 4G-only Internet pre-pay cards. You can't call or receive phone calls, you cannot send SMS, all you can do is to connect to the 3G/4G network. The price is €5 for 1 GB, €7 for 3 GB, €15 for 13 GB of bandwidth. And you recharge whenever you want, as this is not a monthly plan. And I have an Android that I use with such a pre-pay card. It's like my personal 4G modem that I can also use for Skype and stuff. And I was actually thinking of giving up my phone number. If it weren't for my parents which are old-fashioned, I would.

No, it's a $10 iPod Touch equivalent. Which could be a really good thing.

I believe I have the same phone (or similar enough model at least), I had gotten it when it was $20 they tend to be rather slow. It's one of those "one app at a time" type of phones.

Can anyone confirm that this thing will work as an Android WiFi device without any kind of activation nonsense?

I like cheap Android devices for testing software (the cheaper and nastier the better, actually...)

How would you get a phone number for it?

If you're just testing apps to see if they'll run acceptably on low-end hardware, you don't need the phone part at all.

Nope, it works perfectly fine as WiFi. Haven't activated the phone at all, but am able to do web browsing, email, google voice, bluetooth remote control, etc.

But you are locked to that one telcom provider?

Yanks look like idiots to me, because they generally don't seem to factor the lock-in to a specific carrier to the price. In my country you can't offer phones and plans as a bundle, and therefore the pricing of the phones is very different.

Off-topic; regarding your attitude: The pricing of different services can be considered part of the living cost of an area, and is one of the many trade-offs you make when you choose to (not) move to/from an area.

For example: Europe might have better access to internet, however I'm not a fan of their policies, so I can choose to pay a bit more for internet in Canada, and deal with the lock-in.

It's silly to consider someone an idiot based off a single trade-off that they make. (Considering them an idiot based on many trade-offs is a different story)

Also, I didn't make the tradeoff. Some government and corporate beurocrats probably did.

That was a different trade-off, you are making this tradeoff by not living somewhere else.

edit: clarifying the subject trade-off

I don't consider any single guy idiot. I've jsut seeing so many these "$10 phone" articles around, and people just seem to keep on talking about the "$10 phones" when it is not actualla a $10 phone. So the people are endorsing the hidden pricing involved with these packages. I think it is OK for companies to have these campaings, however I think it is stupid to endorse their tricks.

For me the telecom provider is not too relevant since I have never used a cell phone and don't plan to as I consider to be an anti-social device.

Planning to use this as a smart remote controller for my media box, as a Bluetooth robot controller, and I might do Skype and what not. It's possible I'd eventually activate it though for emergencies and get rid of my land line which costs more given the little I use it.

> But you are locked to that one telcom provider?

The phone is locked to one provider for at least a year. The US has DMCA which means unlocking goes in and out of legality. I think it's currently not allowed.

It isn't like lock-in is unheard of in other countries - this is why you have the choice of buying an unlocked phone. I'm sure it does seem rather odd if you are unused to it, but overall it tends to help people if it is done correctly (I no longer live there, so I don't know how easy it is to unlock) They had to pass laws to get carriers to unlock phones - it used to be that a phone only worked on one carrier in the US and That felt truly unfair.

It seems the author doesn't really understand the low-end pre-paid market. Luckily I've escaped this, but for a long time, this has been what I could easily afford. I had one that functioned best as a flashlight, but most function well enough and are Much better than no phone - and these are better than a non-smartphone. Limited power and space are things that people grow accustomed to, much like trying to avoid using non-wifi internet. Most, but not all, will understand that one will need a bit more money for working service - though understandably, many are replacing or upgrading a phone and don't need the minutes. A year lock on the phone doesn't seem like a horrible thing since it is subsidised - as pointed out, there are other options that cost less than replacing a car tire.

Why do you think e author didn't understand the low end market? It sounded to me like the author was claiming the total cost of owning the phone was higher than other lots end phone. That there were more expensive phone existed with cheaper plans. And by more expensive I mean a few tens of dollars.

If it's made by LG I wonder how long until you could unlock it with one of the 5-10$ online mail the unlock code services, if it uses some standard LG locking scheme that might already be possible. I've unlocked devices before that weren't on the "unlock list" just by trying the most similar device to that, that was pretty much the case when Nokia used to have 50 regional models for the same phone, and while things have surely changed I don't think that they've changed that much.

As a SHTF phone it's not that bad of a deal I have the new Microsoft Nokia 105 as an emergency and beach/club/night out phone it costs like 15 GBP unlocked. No wifi and 2.XG only but it's 15GBP if I lose it I won't cry because it's the price of 2-3 shots here in London. And for those that say I need my phone to call Uber, well m.uber.com works on low end phones ;)

Oh and the most wonderful think about the Nokia it actually works as a phone unlike pretty much every modern phone out there the reception is brilliant (2G coverage is pretty universal) and as far as the voice quality goes it's by far better than the iPhone 6S and the OnePlus I'm using atm it's much clearer even in loud environments.

Note if you are in the USA, this is technically illegal under DMCA, but like speeding, a great many people still do it.

Yeah those services are "grey" at best in many other places in the world also but are often used, I don't think anyone is going be prosecuted for violating the DMCA for unlocking a phone unless you are running the unlocking service yourself. That said it is a risk that some people might not want to take, but considering that people violate the DMCA by far more often by pirating various media I don't think most people would care, or even know that it's forbidden.

As of 2014, it is explicitly legal to unlock a phone:

"Circumvention of a technological measure that restricts wireless telephone handsets or other wireless devices from connecting to a wireless telecommunications network ... may be initiated by the owner of any such handset or other device ... solely in order to enable such owner or a family member of such owner to connect to a wireless telecommunications network"

- Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, 2014 (https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/1123...)

key word there is "owner"

do you "own" a (heavily) subsidized phone distributed by a specific carrier?

yes some people will argue, if you paid for it in a store it is "owned"

guess it all comes down to when corporations start asking the government to jail people over this

As some of the comments in the article point out, you probably won't be spending $10 on this phone to use it over a cellular network - rather, you would probably just use it to connect over WiFi as an additional smart device.

It does have Android 4.4 with WiFi support - that should be enough to use as a cheap additional smart device at home.

often, when browsing website on mobile, and this is probably because I am a tech savvy superuser, I use the "scroll" feature.

obviously, moving the page or "scrolling" as I've taken to calling it, isn't typical behaviour. i really appreciate PC mag building on top of this feature.

with so little screen real estate available, I like them using as much as possible to show me other things i might find interesting.

sure, it is almost impossible to read the current article, but the article is someone describing a price tag. i am glad i can quickly consume the first paragraph of many articles quickly, it gives me the insight and confidence to espouse my opinion everywhere with little effort.

cheers pc mag.

Does anyone know if it has been unlocked and if Cyanogen Mod is running on one of these? If those both happen, I will definitely buy this as a backup phone. Hell, even using this as cellular modem in a log cabin would be cool.

What is te cheapest smartphone (anything with wifi and a browser) that comes unlocked and is not carrier-subsidized?

article lists this unlocked phone for $30

http://www.amazon.com/POSH-Orion-Mini-S350a-Smartphone/dp/B0...

But this will be $100 next Friday

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/motorola-moto-g-2nd-generation-c...

However why bother unlocking when you can just use a mvno if you want cell service.

You can also buy the Firefox OS smartphone for $50

The Nokia Lumina 530 costs under 50 GBP on Aamzon SIM-Free without a carrier. The Samsung Galaxy Y can also be found under 50 GBP without a carrier these days, same goes for older S series mini phones. And if you just need a cheap android phone then DealExtreme/Alibaba no-brand Chinese phones can also usually be found under 50$.

Edit: The 520 costs 58$ on Aamzon US, the 530 cots 78$ both are unlocked and quite good phones(decent hardware, great battery life) since they both run Windows 10 these days you also get quite decent app support, not nearly as good as Android as of yet but it's getting there.

I wonder if it can be rooted and reflashed with something completely different.

Ok, it's not 10$, but it's still few times cheaper than iPhone.

You get what you pay for.

Exactly! It's great when customers can pay less and only get what they need.

this post's url is really:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495179,00.asp

Ok, changed from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495179,00.asp?kc=PCRSS.... Thanks!

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