
The $12 Gongkai Phone - tjomk
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3040
======
ippisl
The big thing is not this phone, it's the chip.

The chip(MT6250) is a processor for feature phones which includes 260 mhz arm7
cpu,8Mbyte of ram , dsp,bluetooth,2.5G and All kinds of IO. It can run games
on a touchscreen phone.

And it costs $2 in large volumes. This is much less than many microcontrollers
who offer much less capability. And with such performance and memory , it can
support much better languages and tools, faster time to market, and more
complex systems, for cheap.

Also , this chip uses 2 different silicon pieces(one for processor and one for
ram), for very low cost, instead of what we do today: build different stuff on
the same silicon piece and compromise performance and cost and development
time along the way. This could open the way to a lot of innovation.

~~~
michaelt
It's not at all unusual to see separate CPU, RAM and flash memory in products
like routers.

The thing is the interfaces between CPU, RAM and flash tend to use a lot of
pins - especially if you want them fast and with support for lots of memory.
Look at the number of contacts you get on a stick of RAM in a PC.

Lots of pins is acceptable in a product like this which is BGA surface mounted
- but for things like Arduino where the pins are 0.1" apart for easy manual
working, having the memory and flash on-chip is much more practical :)

~~~
ippisl
I'm talking about integrating two pieces of silicon inside a single package.

Of course you can package silicon in different packages, and package them, and
assemble them on a pcb.

------
sergiotapia
Of course with that fantastic price you get: <http://i.imgur.com/qBes7dk.jpg>

And no, that's not a Blade Runner screencap. That's Beijing.

~~~
moondowner
Related to Beijing's air pollution.

Photos: Beijing Blanketed in Smog:
[http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/11/photos-beijing-
blankete...](http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/11/photos-beijing-blanketed-in-
smog/)

Smog dents Beijing’s expat appeal:
[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b29afeae-9dc9-11e2-bea1-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b29afeae-9dc9-11e2-bea1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2TCuj08vL)

~~~
3825
For people who just want to see the pictures on imgur instead:
<http://imgur.com/a/CnXGL>

~~~
uxwtf
Just came back from Beijing, where the pollution rate was down to 33 at least
for couple hours last week.

------
patio11
It can be done cheaper, too, and will be, since there is a large user
population in Africa/India/etc whose only problem with a $12 phone is that it
costs $12 too much. Eventually they'll be cheap enough to put in cereal boxes.
(That won't happen, because brightly colored bits of plastic have higher
perceived value than crippled phones among people who buy cereal, but they'll
still be lifechanging devices in much of the world.)

~~~
amalag
India/Africa spend a huge amount of money on phones. $12 is absolutely no
problem. It is less than what they pay now.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
But isn't texting the favored use? Actually making a call is often impractical
with spotty cell coverage.

In the Philippines apparently most folks text. Signal is occasional; text
messages eventually get through automatically as you travel around during the
day while a call is only possible at those brief times of connectivity.

Anyway, can this $12 phone text?

~~~
dan1234
SMS is a pretty basic part of the GSM standard so, if it didn't support it
(assuming it's a GSM phone, of course)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
But I don't see a keyboard; I doubt its a touch-screen. So no way to enter
texts?

~~~
zodiac
there's a numeric keypad to enter texts with (press 7 three times to type r,
etc)

~~~
Shivetya
since costs and efficiency are key, do away with lower case at this price
point.

------
ChuckMcM
In many ways the Shanzai / Gongkai way has is a pre-cursor to the world we'll
get as more patent intensive countries get past their expiration dates of
those patents. And while I'm not convinced there will be a singularity, I am
certain that we'll reach a point where enough stuff will be 'free to use' that
the number of choices will grow large and the prices will be as commoditized
as possible. An important thing to plan for is a recyclable version of the
phone such that you can dispose of it safely and the materials can be
recovered. Without that we'll just burn through a variety of rare earth
elements by mining them, buying/using them, and then returning them to the
earth somewhere else :-).

------
DanBC
It is amazing that we can produce phones and sell them, profitably, at around
$10.

Chinese manufacturers can do cheap. Now they just need to do "quality" (which
will raise prices a bit) and "innovative". Once they get that cracked they'll
take over the world.

From my ignorant uninformed perspective there are some weird cultural things
going on. Why does China shovel out very very cheap goods? There are a small
number of Chinese companies making quality products for the west, but not
many.

There was a photo-article submitted to HN a few days ago.
(<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5697968>)
([http://m.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/05/chinese-diy-
inventi...](http://m.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/05/chinese-diy-
inventions/100511/))

It's surprising the number of people making potentially dangerous things by
themself out of bits and pieces in their backyard. And seemingly re-inventing
a bunch of stuff while they do it. Many of these are the kind of things that
would be done by universities (if they didn't care about health and safety).

~~~
vidarh
Check out AliExpress. The higher end Chinese phones and tablets are starting
to get into iPhone / iPad price range (look at Huawei and XIAOMI phones, for
example). You can do cheap, and reasonable, or you can get a huge range of
very advanced products that are starting to look very attractive in terms of
design and build quality too.

In between there's a large mid range where quality is rapidly improving but
the prices stay low.

I got a Star B92M phone, for example. It's a cheap Galaxy S3 clone (same exact
dimensions; comes with the same dandelion screensaver; some distributors
offers it with a fake Samsung logo....). It's slower. It feels cheaper (the
plastic back, for example is a noticeable weakness, and the GPS is a known
problem - needs longer antennae). But it's got 1GB RAM, can take 64GB sd card,
same 1280x720 resolution, higher resolution (12MP) main camera, dual sims, and
generally acts and feels like a relatively high end phone with some minor
caveats (try to run 3d stuff, and it's about the same performance as the much
older HTC Desire HD, for example, though the Desire HD was much higher end
when it was released and the Star trounces it overall performance). I'll stick
to that cost range phone because it pays for itself vis-a-vis contract costs
for a top end phone in ~6-8 months, and I'm good at breaking stuff...

Now the bar has been raised substantially higher, and there are 1800+ listings
for phones with 1920x1080 resolution (in the 5" size range; lots of duplicates
of the same models from multiple sellers, though), many of them quad core MTK
based phones with 2GB RAM that are now at the very least up around the top of
the mid-range segment if not outright challenging the most powerful high end
phones yet.

In terms of innovation, you'll start seeing more of it once more of their
manufacturers are pushing up against the ceiling set by the current pack
leaders like Samsung and Apple. For now they are still busy playing catch-up
in most respects.

To some extent we are also seeing different priorities that hides some of the
features that these manufacturers put effort into. E.g. dual-sims seems to be
pretty much a requirement for mid-range phones and above from the Chinese
manufacturers, while you see it relatively rarely in models that are features
heavily in the West. You even see 3 and 4 sim phones. A lot of these features
may simply not make it to the West to any great extent because they're not
what consumers here care about (but I'm in love with having dual sims - being
able to slot in a second sim with cheap data etc. when travelling abroad while
still being able to take calls on my standard number is great).

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I see a lot of reviews lambasting the software on these phones for being
incredibly finicky. Are there models with stock android that just work? If so,
why isn't some enterprising company importing them, providing QA and customer
support and making a killing?

~~~
nine_k
I'm writing from such a phone. It has stock Android 4.0 and just works,
usually enduring 3 days without recharging.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Which phone do you have?

~~~
nine_k
A Star 8000 aka MTK6575. Not top of the line, but I got it quite cheaply so I
don't complain.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
interesting, I see they run about $160, but I think the LG L9 is a better deal
for $30 more considering the support you get.

------
jebeng
Bunnie is one of the most interesting people on the internet.

~~~
TheLegace
I sure hope so, that man inspired me to be the engineer/hardware hacker I am
today.

------
dagw
Sure it's cheap, but not _that_ cheap. Here in Sweden I can walk into a
reputable electronics retailer and walk out with a brand new completely
unlocked Samsung or Nokia phone, no contract, for $23-27, and that's including
$25 sales tax.

~~~
dagw
25% sales tax not $25

------
perlgeek
Just a note on the comparison with the arduino: the main selling point of the
arduino isn't the features/price ratio, but rather that it's open source
hardware. I'm not very deeply involved with the matter, but I think that if
you want just "any" programmable micro controller, you can get far more bang
for the buck.

------
andyking
I have a spare mobile that I bought from a popular British retailer, Carphone
Warehouse, for 99p. That was a special offer, but it's still on sale for
£4.99. There's no contract attached to it, and you can swap out the SIM card
for any one you wish.

It's a Samsung, doesn't do anything fancy, but it calls and texts without a
problem, the battery lasts for weeks, and the signal is rock-solid. It's an
ideal spare phone. I keep it in the car for emergencies, and take it out to
charge it once a week or so. It's so simple that I actually prefer using it to
a smartphone!

~~~
vidarh
They're still subsidised, so it's not the same thing.

The networks speculate in a certain amount of the sims getting into active use
and more than covering the few users that buy them to swap sims.

------
samwillis
Amazon sell as Motorola unlocked for $7.99

[http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-C139-Prepaid-Phone-
Tracfone/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-C139-Prepaid-Phone-
Tracfone/dp/B000F7VBUQ/)

~~~
zokier
It's not sold by Amazon but instead by "Recellulartoo", who advertise
themselves as "Recellulartoo is the preeminent seller of used and refurbished
cellular phones.". So it might not even be a new unit.

~~~
joezydeco
TracFone (prepaid cellular service in the USA, owned by America Movil) is
pretty much all refurbed phones.

------
igravious
dupe: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567102>

~~~
snaky
Quoting rom there, to TL;DR'ers:

"Don't just read about the phone itself. Read to/at the end, where Bunnie
describes the environment where this phone and things like it are coming to
be"

------
pervycreeper
I wish he had gone into more detail regarding how "gongkai" functions, aside
from ignoring IP restrictions.

------
csmatt
For anyone interested, it looks like this is the same phone
[http://dx.com/p/mini-i8-super-slim-gsm-card-
phone-w-1-0-scre...](http://dx.com/p/mini-i8-super-slim-gsm-card-
phone-w-1-0-screen-quad-band-and-single-sim-light-green-138222) . Although,
for ~$30, one can get phones that are much more capable [http://dx.com/c/cell-
phone-599/cell-phones-511/feature-phone...](http://dx.com/c/cell-
phone-599/cell-phones-511/feature-phones-531?sort=price&sortType=asc)

------
bdz
30 USD w/ free shipping on Deal Extreme
<http://dx.com/s/super%2bslim%2bgsm.html?category=531>

~~~
bitcartel
25 USD w/ free shipping at FocalPrice :)
[http://www.focalprice.com/MH0408W/14_Children_Card_Bar_Phone...](http://www.focalprice.com/MH0408W/14_Children_Card_Bar_Phone_White.html)

~~~
eisbaw
23 USD at DX and looks better too. [http://dx.com/p/aole-100mini-gsm-bar-
phone-w-1-8-lcd-screen-...](http://dx.com/p/aole-100mini-gsm-bar-
phone-w-1-8-lcd-screen-quad-band-dual-sim-and-bluetooth-black-silver-203074)

------
noonespecial
A new system of IP growing organically is an interesting thing to watch. The
western system is so old now that it suffers from a bit of "windows syndrome".
The undocumented exploits are as important to it's hackers (trollish actors?)
and users as its intended features.

A brand new one growing organically in the digital age could be a fearsome
beast if it moves beyond the "knockoff factory for western goods" phase.

------
rdl
I wish there were a phone design which let you re-use the screen/etc. but swap
out all the baseband with a new module; i.e. equivalent to a "burner" for
security, but with the functionality of a smartphone, or at least a nicely
built regular phone.

~~~
stephengillie
Smartphone, tablet, and laptop screens have common ribbon connectors with
known pinouts. The hard part is desoldering the screen and finding its
pinouts.

~~~
vidarh
Speaking from experience, quite a few of the common Chinese tablet and phone
models can be disassembled with practically no tools, and you can often detach
the touch panel and screen entirely by hand or at most by desoldering the
power cable (for the screen - not seen any soldering needed for the touch
panel, as it's a common repair). Often the tablet batteries can be detached
easily, as well though they're usually entirely internal, and the board can
often be lifted out with no tools as well. They're really surprisingly
serviceable.

Several of the boards of the devices I've had are exactly the same layout
across multiple brands and with easily identifiable connection points for
additional connectors etc.

The main limiting factor for doing this is that the touch panel is often the
first to go (scratches, getting chipped or smashed totally - I've ruined 3
touch panels so far...), and many of the devices are so cheap they're not
worth the hassle to repair vs. upgrading to a newer, better model cheaply.

E.g. my five month old Chinese phone has 1280x720 screen resolution. Similarly
priced phones now tend to be a bit larger (5" vs. 4.7") and come with
1920x1080 screens. I cracked my touch panel recently (by sending the phone
flying halfway across the room so I really can't fault the phone - other than
a few cracks it's still working fine) and opted to order a new one for ca $40
this time, but had the screen gone too I probably would've shelled out a bit
extra and just replaced the phone instead.

------
realrocker
14.65$ phone: <http://mobiles.sulekha.com/nokia_1200_mobile.htm>

~~~
Gravityloss
[http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/nokia-launches-
its...](http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/nokia-launches-its-cheapest-
phone/article4644352.ece)

Nokia 105 will cost 15 euros. That's three pints of beer in a pub over here.

~~~
rsync
MOTO FONE[1] > Nokia 105

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone>

------
kenkam
Beware, the first link seems to have been 'click jacked'. It opened a new tab
with domain "fxxksheep".replace('xx', 'uc') which my company proxy classified
as porn.

~~~
pessimizer
Are you sure of that, or were you just on fucksheep because of this:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5703758> ?

~~~
kenkam
Apologies, I seem to be suffering from a VERY short attention span. False
alarm.

