Redefining affordable

If you thought Cherry Mobile Flare Bundle and MyPhone’s my28 were already ridiculously affordable smartphones, wait till you hear about the new device outed by Indian company Ringing Bells. Their new smartphone, the Freedom 251, sports a quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and a 4-inch qHD display, Android 5.1 Lollipop and 8GB of expandable storage. The kicker? It’s priced at just Rs. 251, which is roughly Php 170 in our currency.

At that price, it’s ridiculously cheap. Our Uber rides alone are more expensive than what the Freedom 251 is asking for, and at the price you can probably outfit your whole household with the device (if you could get it) without breaking the bank. Hell, we’ve eaten meals more expensive than it’s sticker price!

We can’t wrap our heads how Ringing Bells makes money off of the Freedom 251. On the surface, it doesn’t look like the phone is subsidized by a telco, which is what happened with the offerings of both Cherry Mobile and MyPhone here in the PH. The phone is made in India, and is a product of the country’s “Made In India” initiative, but it’s currently unclear if the Indian government has a hand in subsidizing the cost of the smartphone to make it so affordable. In any case, the Freedom 251 is currently the most affordable Android smartphone ever, a title that it’s going to hold for a long, long time.