To be perfectly honest, I have seen quite a few Chinese no name Android phones and I have never been impressed by any of them. On paper, everything looks great, but the reality differs a lot: stolen design, bad build quality, poor screen resolution/contrast/responsiveness, slow, under-performing battery, etc.
The 401 is not pathetic at all. It includes everything people from emerging country needs: a nice design with robust material, a solid battery life, and an OS good enough for Internet, and social network usage.
That's the exception in his list, but it does package the same hardware as the Chinese ones.
Regarding the Archos 35 Carbon Spec (the only one under $100), I have never seen a single core processor running Android decently. Most of the time, it actually drains the battery because the processor is struggling to accomplish any task. Not saying Android is a bad OS, just saying that Android requires much more power than S40, and I am sure the Meego-like UX on the Asha is actually nicer than the one proposed by a slow Android phone.
Had Nokia kept Meego they would not be in the pickle they are in. Asha sales fell sharply in the previous quarterly report. S40 is not a competitive OS. Meego devices would have multiprocessing and Qt-based apps.
While some customers prioritize industrial design, battery life, and UI responsiveness, the success of Android phones among low-cost Chinese OEMs indicates they think some customers want capabilities before a nice physical package.
Not going to argue about the huge error they made when they dropped Meego. Had (and still have) a Nokia N9 and it was a brilliant phone. With a few iteration, and software updates, it could have been the third mobile OS.
The 401 is not pathetic at all. It includes everything people from emerging country needs: a nice design with robust material, a solid battery life, and an OS good enough for Internet, and social network usage.