First Android Go phone officially available in the USA

[Lajamerr_Mittesdine]

Quote

 

ZTE put its new Tempo Go smartphone up for sale on Thursday, making it the first phone with Google's Android Go configuration to be available for purchase in the US.

The phone is now available for $79.99 on ZTE's website. The listing was first spotted by Android Police.

 

Via: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/03/you-can-officially-buy-an-android-go-phone-in-the-us/

Android Police: https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/03/29/zte-tempo-go-uss-first-android-go-phone-sale-today-80/

Tempo Go: https://www.zteusa.com/tempogo

 

What is Android Go?

Quote

Android Go is a special configuration of Android Oreo designed for lower-end mobile devices, particularly those with less than 1GB of RAM. It features a number of stripped-down UI elements and variants of traditional Google apps made to optimize memory usage.

 

 

This is significant because these types of devices are mainly marketed towards developing nations however this one is not doing that alone. This provides an affordable and reliable phone with modern features that gives great bang for the buck value to a market where we see typical low-end phones costing $200.

Though I see a potential discrepancy with whom this marketed towards. The type of person who can afford a cellular plan that averages $40/month in the USA would most likely want a more full-featured phone.

It's a cheap device to use though on Wi-Fi.

 

Specs from the retailers website:

[SquintyG33Rs]

that's actually pretty cool. plus it's a good device to get for your kids when they get around the age you want them to have a phone. (people giving them iphones are just out of their god damn mind)

[Lajamerr_Mittesdine]

8 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Nice first post on your 2hr old account btw totally not suspicious at all

 

Yeah, understandable. To be honest the only reason I made this account is so I can work on my writing/structure skills and eventually hope one of my topics make it on one of the weekly docket list for the WAN Show. Thought it would be a cool thing to do.

 

As for the phone, the most surprising thing to me is that it's running Android Oreo, albeit a slimmed down version of it. Most phones are still stuck on Android Marshmallow or Nougat.

[Bsmith]

This sounds interesting, especially with the amount of android phones that would benefit from an OS update, although I doubt if companies are likely to look back at older models or low end phones a lot after 1-3 years

 

but on the other hand, even more OS segmentation for developers!

[Murasaki]

Capacitive buttons eugh.

[Jinchu]

38 minutes ago, SquintyG33Rs said:

that's actually pretty cool. plus it's a good device to get for your kids when they get around the age you want them to have a phone. (people giving them iphones are just out of their god damn mind)

Or just to have a secondary phone. I do a lot of rough activities on my free time and keeping a phone is essential in case of injury etc. However, I fear break my phone so it'd be so nice to have reliable cheap phone fore those activities.

[Castdeath97]

They should have just made the screen smaller, I know it's a budget phone but 480*800 over 5 inches? Yuck.

[Murasaki]

1 minute ago, Castdeath97 said:

They should have just made the screen smaller, I know it's a budget phone but 480*800 over 5 inches? Yuck.

Typically cheaper phones skimp out on the screen, I assume the display covers a large portion of the phone's price.

[Castdeath97]

3 minutes ago, Ross Scarlet said:

Typically cheaper phones skimp out on the screen, I assume the display covers a large portion of the phone's price.

Yeah, I remember back in 2012-14 the screen made up so much of Samsung phones prices it was not worth fixing some screens because used phones were cheaper...

 

But they should have just made the screen smaller, maybe 4.3 inches like the S2 which was fine.

 

Edit: Come to think about it, this is basically an enlarged S2 for 2018.

[Murasaki]

Just now, Castdeath97 said:

Yeah, I remember back in 2012-14 the screen made up so much of Samsung phones prices it was not worth fixing some screens because used phones were cheaper...

 

But they should have just made the screen smaller, maybe 4.3 inches like the S2 which was fine.

I was looking at local listings and found a good Xiaomi phone 5.5 inches 4gigs ram and all that pretty good then I see 720p screen.... ugh

[Castdeath97]

Arstechinca comments do make a great point about this phone as a testing device. It's a nightmare to beg your friends to find an old Android or looking through drawers for Android to test some piece of software.

[Space Reptile]

oh look a phone for me , who uses phones to message and call , lets hope battery life is good 

[Dabombinable]

Goes to show how bloated android has become. Its got similar specs to my old ZTE 4G Fit Smart, which runs Android 4.4.4 (with better app permission settings than Android 7.1.1 surprisingly).

1 hour ago, Ross Scarlet said:

Capacitive buttons eugh.

At least you can re-map them.

[Murasaki]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

At least you can re-map them.

How did you achieve this?

[paddy-stone]

Don't see the point in this, you can get a few phones with much better spec for like $30 extra or so - 1080p/3GB ram/octa-core/snapdragon 625 etc

The spec for the money isn't great TBH... the only thing that might sell this phone is that it has the stripped down Oreo OS, but IMO a still updated Nougat OS should be good enough... my Xiaomi redmi note 4 is still getting updates and only cost £110 when I bought it, and IIRC you can now get the 64GB version, possibly even 4GB ram for around the same price.. will check, but they have newer phones with better spec for that little bit more too.

 

[edit] $159  https://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_604985.html?wid=4

I forgot the exchange rate being what it is right now... but anyway, have seen it as low as £99 or so IIRC, so that is a beast of a phone for that money.

[Dabombinable]

1 hour ago, Ross Scarlet said:

How did you achieve this?

Don't ask me-that's the way the quote showed up.

[Sauron]

WHY are normal apps NOT designed for ram optimization?

5 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

Don't see the point in this, you can get a few phones with much better spec for like $30 extra or so - 1080p/3GB ram/octa-core/snapdragon 625 etc

The spec for the money isn't great TBH... the only thing that might sell this phone is that it has the stripped down Oreo OS, but IMO a still updated Nougat OS should be good enough... my Xiaomi redmi note 4 is still getting updates and only cost £110 when I bought it, and IIRC you can now get the 64GB version, possibly even 4GB ram for around the same price.. will check, but they have newer phones with better spec for that little bit more too.

 

[edit] $159  https://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_604985.html?wid=4

I forgot the exchange rate being what it is right now... but anyway, have seen it as low as £99 or so IIRC, so that is a beast of a phone for that money.

Or you could get those phones to run a hell of a lot faster with a less bloated UI. I don't understand why this isn't the default.

[Sauron]

7 hours ago, Castdeath97 said:

They should have just made the screen smaller, I know it's a budget phone but 480*800 over 5 inches? Yuck.

I think I could live with that to be honest (for 80$ new that is), as long as it's an ips panel. The density isn't too bad in general even though it's much lower than other 5" phones. In the end it barely matters in day to day use since every modern phone needs massive scaling to make the text readable anyway.

[kokakolia]

I am not gonna lie...the specs of this phone are really poor, even if you consider the measly price of $80 USD. If you do a quick search on Amazon, you can easily find something better for less. Just get a carrier locked prepaid phone. The Motorola Moto E4 comes to mind:

 

Spoiler

https://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Moto-E4-Carrier-Prepaid/dp/B074RBDHTJ/ref=sr_1_6?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1522521391&sr=1-6&keywords=motorola+moto+e4

 

https://www.amazon.com/Verizon-Motorola-Carrier-Locked-Prepaid/dp/B071VTYHDQ/ref=sr_1_5?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1522521391&sr=1-5&keywords=motorola+moto+e4

 

 

And if you're up for it, you can find a tutorial to legally unlock the phone for $2~$3. 

 

Otherwise, BLU has been selling cheap phones for years now:

 

Spoiler

https://www.amazon.com/BLU-Advance-5-2-Unlocked-Smartphone/dp/B076MM5LM7/ref=sr_1_5?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1522521178&sr=1-5&keywords=blu

 

https://www.amazon.com/BLU-R1-Cell-Phone-16GB/dp/B01H2E0KVA/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1522521669&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=blu&psc=1&smid=A1S7YS0EBKHU3D

 

 

 

The Nokia 2 is also an attractive alternative:

 

Spoiler

https://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Unlocked-T-Mobile-Screen-Warranty/dp/B075FLG6MV/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1522521764&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=nokia+2&psc=1

 

I used the BLU Advance 5.0 HD (older model) for a full year. It was a measly $60. It came with an OK 720p screen, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of memory (that filled up instantly and gave me error messages, even though I had a roomy micro SD card installed), and a Mediatek mt6580 SoC. I could tell that the two main focal points of the phone were the screen and the performance (given the price). For the most part, I had a pretty decent smartphone experience but picture heavy sites like Tumblr just struggled. The software was actually rather good with minimal bloatware. And the phone felt much snappier than the price-tag may suggest. However, a lot of corners were cut: the call quality was poor, the speakers were tinny and distorted at high volumes and the audio quality from the 3.5mm headphone jack was sub-par as well. You could also nitpick on the build quality. The plastic frame and screen showed some flex, but that's not a bad thing (it just makes the phone tougher than aluminum/glass phones that way). If you're just someone who texts/emails and watches videos, this phone gets the job done just fine. 

 

The ZTE Tempo Go is an interesting proposition because of Android Go. If Android Go works as intended, then it should ensure:

 

- a good web-browsing experience, even on picture-heavy sites like Tumblr despite the modest specs of the phone

- a good experience with essential apps like Gmail and Google maps 

 

With more modest specs than the competitors, you could hope that the ZTE Tempo Go offers better call quality and speakers. Because that is the #1 shortcoming of sub $100 phones. But I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if that is not the case. And that's the recurring theme here: there are so many sub $100 phones out there. If it ain't ZTE, it's BLU, Archos or Xiaomi or what have you...And yet, buying a carrier-locked Motorola E4 is definitely the best option if you live in the USA. Just go to your nearest Verizon/Boost store and get hooked up with an E4. This ZTE Tempo Go looks pale next to the E4. (I sound like a Motorola salesman LOL).  

 

The market for sub $100 phones is interesting. You're looking at developing countries where people use their phone as their primary computer for everything: paying bills, applying for jobs, communicating etc...In North America/Europe, it just makes sense for low-income people, but also people who just aren't tech-savvy, or lose their phones all the time. It's baffling to me that the latter is dominated by iPhone users (so it seems). Well, can you blame them? A refurbished iPhone SE can be bought for $180 and that's quite affordable if you have a job. 

[vorticalbox]

Now I want to install android go on my s8, stripped down os on high end hardware sounds awesome.

[michaelocarroll007]

On 3/31/2018 at 4:20 AM, Castdeath97 said:

They should have just made the screen smaller, I know it's a budget phone but 480*800 over 5 inches? Yuck.

ZTE Zmax pro in the USA had 1080p screen enough ram and processing power to run full android finger print scanner ect. and sold for $99 at many Month to month carriers and $130-180 Unlocked. for 20-50 bucks more it Smashes this phone and it came out over a year in a half ago. 

 

It just seems like at the $100 ish price point theres better options by a good deal. 

[Castdeath97]

22 minutes ago, michaelocarroll007 said:

ZTE Zmax pro in the USA had 1080p screen enough ram and processing power to run full android finger print scanner ect. and sold for $99 at many Month to month carriers and $130-180 Unlocked. for 20-50 bucks more it Smashes this phone and it came out over a year in a half ago. 

 

It just seems like at the $100 ish price point theres better options by a good deal. 

I would assume so, it justs sits in a bracket where paying a bit more gets you a lot better (like super cheapo GPUs).

[vorticalbox]

1 hour ago, VegetableStu said:

will it ever reach the elusive 5-day battery life?

Probably not but I want to try.

[Guest]

Looks pretty nice. I don't usually like Android phones, but this was was designed quite well. 

[kokakolia]

13 hours ago, vorticalbox said:

Now I want to install android go on my s8, stripped down os on high end hardware sounds awesome.

You can (kind of) do that. But it’s not easy. Flashing a custom ROM will install a stripped down version of Android. But it won’t technically be Android Go. The catch is that your warranty will be voided, and your camera will perform worse. You may encounter some random bugs here and there as well.