
New “Android Go” phones show how much you can get for $100 - hpaavola
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/new-android-go-phones-show-how-much-you-can-get-for-100/
======
BugsJustFindMe
As far as I'm concerned, the only question that matters is "What is the chain
of responsibility for making security updates get to my phone?"

If the answer is "Google-Carrier-Me" or "Google-Vendor-Carrier-Me" and not
"Google-Me", then fuck it sideways. I'm so done with Android until the update
model stops being garbage.

~~~
r3vrse
I completely agree.

I do find it interesting though, as someone who through work has deployed a
lot of cell phones for field ops - the situation seems to be kind of, sort of
getting better in that respect.

We bought a ton of Moto G4s and G5s in last 18 months, and for the first year,
I saw maybe one OS update and a couple security patches?. In the past six
months, it's been noticably different (and these phones are only getting
older, mind).

I'm writing this on a Moto G5+ which has 7.1.1 and the January security
patches, including fix for KRACK vulnerability. G4 models have the same patch
level and 7.0. Updates have been deployed fairly regularly lately (if still
not quite on a monthly cycle).

This from Lenovo, who have historically been terrible for issuing updates in a
timely manner.

I wonder if the message is finally getting to these OEMs that they can't
afford to let current models wither on the vine in this IT security climate,
even if only for their own selfish ends (e.g. avoiding bad press).

I really hope so. It's way overdue.

 _Disclaimer: total anecdata, handle with gloves._

~~~
BugsJustFindMe
> _I 'm writing this on a Moto G5+ which has 7.1.1_

Well my G5+ says it's still on 7.0, and 7.1.1 still isn't the 8 update that
was promised many months ago.

> _and the January security patches_

If you want to sleep at night, don't count the number of critical severity
CVEs fixed in the February and March updates that you don't have.

------
mastax
I was confused by some of the comments here before I realized that I was
confusing "Android Go" (for low-ram devices) with "Android One" (stock android
with guaranteed updates, usually for budget devices). For all the folks asking
for a good cheap phone that gets Android updates, look at Android One devices.

------
andrepd
These seem underwhelming compared to what the Chinese manufacturers are doing.
For example, 100$ can get you one of these:
[https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_4_(4x)-8608.php](https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_4_\(4x\)-8608.php)

~~~
taoistextremist
Isn't Xiaomi subsidized by the government? Hard to compete against that in
price.

~~~
bitL
You have other manufacturers like Ulefone, Doogee, Leagoo, Wiko, Bq, Archos,
Zoji, ZTE, Bluboo, Cubot, Oukitel, Fantec, HomTom, Kazam, BlackView, Elephone,
Umidigi, Wieppo, GigaSet, HiSense, Gretel, Nabo, Siswoo, Hafury, Coolpad, STK,
Keecoo, Meizu etc. offering better specs than any Go phone. Go just seems like
a rebranding of what couldn't sell and got outdated.

------
bruceb
Not sure what the point of this article is. There are plenty of Quad core, 2gb
ram, 16gb phones for under $100 already available in the US. Of course some
are initially locked but they are locked to MVNO that have relatively cheap
plans $20-$40 a month.

This configuration (Quad,2gb,16gb) seems like a good minimum that you can use
most apps without major problems and have enough space to not uninstall stuff
all the time.

Plus now the used market has many high quality phones that are available. A
used Samsung S5 should meet most people's basic needs. The difference between
a 2018 phone and a 2015 phone is much smaller than 2015 and a 2012 phone.

As for place like India, there are plenty of phones in the $80-$99 range that
meet these specs. And many that are at the $40-50 price points that have worse
specs but still usable.

~~~
amiga-workbench
I'm pretty much through buying "flagship" devices due to the pathetically
short software support lifetime they have, I bought a second hand Xperia Z5
Compact for £150 about 6 months ago and loaded Lineage OS onto it.

Even my old Xperia Z3 has a port of Oreo available, and its perfectly
functional.

~~~
criddell
I'm not buying any phones anymore unless they come from Google or Apple. Even
manufacturers that do update their phones can be very slow getting security
fixes out.

~~~
amiga-workbench
The Pixel devices don't really last that long either, and there isn't much
progress on custom ROMs due to the weird partition layout.

~~~
criddell
They are the best of all the Android devices though. Of all phones Apple
probably do the best job of supporting their phones. If Google Fi doesn't work
well, I'm going to order an iPhone because I know I'll be happy with that. All
I really want are security fixes for 2-3 years and a very good and fast
camera.

------
timlod
> This also means the battery is—get this—replaceable! When you take off the
> back you can actually pull the battery out and—if you have an extra on
> hand—replace it with a fully charged battery. Amazing.

Not sure if this is meant to be a joke... My understanding that most lower-
tier phones have replacable batteries, at least my last phones (from the Moto
G series) had.

~~~
diggan
I've been a Moto G fan since the first one, but the current one I have (3rd
Generation, falcon) does not have replacable batteries. But instead it has
space for a sd-card. I was not sure which one was best to have, but after
having the phone for a while and the battery loosing it's juice, I would
definitely be happier with a replaceable battery compared to upgradable
storage.

~~~
timlod
I have the recent one (G5), and it has both. 2 Sim card slots, SD card slot,
replacable battery. The first one also had a replacable battery. Didn't know
the 3rd Generation didn't! In that case I'm glad they reverted their design in
that regard.

~~~
webster23
The first Moto G (2013) does not have a replaceable battery. I have one right
here.

~~~
timlod
My bad, remembered it wrong. I mixed it up with the Nexus One I had before
that, but that was a high-end phone.

------
bebna
Can one "downgrade" a normal android to go? Would be interesting to see what
it does to your battery runtime, for people like me, who use their phones
mainly for different forms of text messaging, some news browsing and some once
in a while google maps routing.

~~~
StudentStuff
Doubtful, this seems to just be another soon to be orphaned Android variant
(like Android One). Uninstalling Google Play Newsstand and most of the other
Google Crapware should get you close, perhaps replace Google Play Services
Framework with microG to save a few hundred megs of space?

~~~
Grazester
Go apps are stripped down version of their normal counterpart. These stripped
down versions are smaller in size and maybe be optimized for slower internet
services. Android Ones is still going well in places like India but Google
usually has a say in what hardware is used on Android One phones as they push
the updates for these devices. With Android Go any hardware can be used.

~~~
StudentStuff
> Go apps are stripped down version of their normal counterpart.

They're slightly smaller, but the update model is still a total mess. You can
never uninstall the baked in Google Apps, and updates are extremely bulky
(basically storing a 2nd copy of each Google app).

> Android Ones is still going well in places like India

The #1 & #2 non-Apple phone manufacturers are totally uninterested, and Xiaomi
(the current Android One leader) is effectively banned from India after spying
on millions.

Nokia, the #3 phone manufacturer (excluding Apple), is showing tepid interest
in Android One: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/25/hmd-android-one-
nokia/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/25/hmd-android-one-nokia/)

But yet they're also bringing back FirefoxOS since low performing Android
devices at high price points aren't pushing great volume:
[https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/26/kaios/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/26/kaios/)

> With Android Go any hardware can be used.

Sounds like a great way to orphan a device with no software updates!

~~~
bruceb
>Xiaomi (the current Android One leader) is effectively banned from India
after spying on millions.

How are they banned? they have the best selling phones in India. They now
beating Samsung [https://www.neowin.net/news/xioami-trumps-samsung-in-
indian-...](https://www.neowin.net/news/xioami-trumps-samsung-in-indian-
smartphone-market-share)

------
hajile
I don't get the RAM requirements here. I can buy a 1GB DDR3L chip for around
$6.20 (and closer to $5.50 per 1000). Another layer on the PCB (if even
necessary) would only add a couple dollars more. I think even people without
much money would pay an extra 10 for 2x the RAM and 1/2 the frustration
because things like web pages can't really be optimized too much no matter
Android Go's aims.

This smells of companies making phones because certain Google execs
recommended they do so.

------
MarcScott
I'm now on my third "budget" phone, my last previous premium phone being a
Nexus 4. I used a Moto G4 until I broke it, a Moto G5 until I broke it, and
now have a new G5, which given my history will last me about 6 months. I break
phones too often to fork out anything over about £150.

If I can get a sub £100 phone, that will run Google maps, an email client, a
web browser and give me the ability to tether then sign me up.

~~~
BugsJustFindMe
> _I break phones too often_

Could you stop doing that? Or get insurance that covers accidental damage. The
premium will cost less than £150 every 6 months.

~~~
MarcScott
> Could you stop doing that?

No, I'm fairly clumsy and get through phones, laptops, e-cigs etc at an
alarming rate.

My phone costs me the equivalent of £25 a month plus an additional £10 for 4G
from my provider. After 6 months, it's just the £10. This is far cheaper than
the £50/month 2 year contracts on most premium phones.

~~~
alex_hitchins
From a fellow clumsy person (hands like cows t#ts) I invested in a decent case
for my iPhone. It looks ridiculous but has kept my iPhone 6+ immaculate after
many drops and tumbles. Takes away from the sleek design but means I'm still
using mu 6+ today.

------
jstewartmobile
I remember the Treo from 2004 where my contacts and appointments opened
_immediately_. Now we have these things where you wait a second for it to do a
little dance before you can dial the number.

That, and considering the amount of information they're scraping, Google
should be paying _me_ to use their awful phones.

------
leke
Will these phones still run the regular android apps like Duolingo, Memrise,
Telegram, Brave, BaconReader...?

~~~
StudentStuff
That is the idea, but with only 8GB of internal storage, using Progressive Web
Apps for things like Reddit would be best.

~~~
tudelo
Hah. I have a phone with 5GB (probably marketed as 6 but I don't remember) and
you really can not have many apps installed at once. Add to it the fact that
if you run something like Spotify it will cache like 1GB of data over a few
days. I have something different every week. As a bonus, it keeps my home
screen free of almost any icons...

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
They key is to get a phone with microSD support. Then Spotify and other apps
can put their data on the card and relieve pressure from the limited on board
storage.

You can also go for LineageOS with minimal to no GApps to free up some space
on small memory phones.

------
rb808
I wonder if these are a good solution to phone addiction, ie can still let you
use maps, uber and check email without being good for FB & games. If only they
had a good camera...

~~~
radix07
Yes of course any modern smart phone can do this by just not installing apps.
But there is absolutely a need for a minimal or 'dumb' smart phone. Just
having Google Play with everything available is enough to get you distracted
enough to go into a never ending pool of distractions and wasted time. Yes, I
should certainly have the control to stop myself and I even do an application
detox occasionally when I get the will power. But if I couldn't get into that
useless stuff in the first place, I wouldn't need to worry about it.

I have seriously considered going straight to a dumb phone and had one much
longer than most of my friends, but then I need to carry a GPS, MP3 player,
and a not shitty camera. I just want a phone that actually fits in my hand
with email, a light weight web browser, Spotify/Pandora, Maps, maybe some
health/fitness trackers, and a half decent camera. And of course the actual
phone functions to text and call when needed.

------
eof
having used androids and always getting frustrated at them getting super
laggy, i finally took my friends advice and bought a used 5s for $80. runs
like butter for the last year.

unbelievable to me we still can't keep garbage processes and excessive ui down
enough to have a budget phone run like crap

~~~
on_and_off
It is too bad it was a private conversation, I would love to be able to point
to a published form, but I discussed with one of the Googlers in charge of
optimizing Android.

He did not exactly have nice things to say about how OEMs are optimizing their
phones.

Basically they optimize in order to get higher benchmark score but it very
often goes against general smoothness.

In the end he published a detailed article detailing how his team had
optimized the pixel phone rendering pipeline so OEMs could try to do it
correctly as well.

And that's for a high end phone.

However, I have got to say that after using iOS phones recently, I have not
exactly been impressed with their smoothness either. Even system apps miss
frames.

That's not shocking in itself, mobile computing is pretty hard, you can't even
table on a stable cpu frequency (thermal throttle) but not what I expected due
to the reputation of apple phones.

------
FussyZeus
> New “Android Go” phones show how much you can get for $100

Not a lot, as it turns out, unsurprising to most.

