Motorola Moto E

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Seriously?
[with regards to my assertion that £70 for the dual-SIM Moto E in India is a fair price, and £90 for the single-SIM in the UK is a rip-off.]

It's important to remember that that additional £20 is actually a 30% price premium. If a car cost £7,000 with five seats in India but a cut-down model for £9,000 with two seats was being sold in the UK, would you not feel a little cheesed-off? The underlying principle is still the same - it's important not to let your status as a resident in a relatively wealthy country cloud your objectivity.

To consider US prices for a second, the unlocked Moto G 4G is just under $200, the unlocked HTC Desire 510 is just over $150 and the pre-paid HTC Desire 510 on several carriers is an astonishingly-low $50. The Huawei Y550 isn't being sold. All three are CAT4 LTE (150 / 50) devices with 1GB RAM - the Motorola using a Snapdragon 400 SoC and the HTC and Huawei using a slightly newer 410. The Motorola has a 720p screen with 8GB internal storage, the HTC has 454p screen with 8GB, and the Huawei 454p with 4GB - as do current $100 Android One devices based on a MediaTek SoC.

The Snapdragon 210 ( https://www.qualcomm.com/news/relea...efits-lte-and-carrier-aggregation-entry-level / https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon/processors/210 ) - the successor to the Snapdragon 200 used in the Moto E (2014) - supports CAT4 LTE, 720p screens, H.265 hardware encoding and Quick Charge 2.0. Richard Lai from Engadget heard some interesting news:

Richard Lai said:
Updated: We've since heard from two independent sources who confirmed that the "sub-$100" figure was very conservative. In fact, the Snapdragon 210 is expected to power smartphones that cost between just $50 and $75 off-contract!

The market for unlocked Android version 'M' phones by the end of 2015 could be very interesting. To speculate:

$1000
CAT10 LTE (450 / 100): Krait-based 64-bit Snapdragon (speculated) with discrete Discrete Qualcomm MDM9645 / Gobi 9x45 (confirmed)
4GB RAM
2160p screen (Excessive? For Samsung Gear VR-style virtual reality combinations with the Galaxy Note 4 and similar, no.)
256GB storage
Qi 1.2 charging in addition to Quick Charge 2.0
MIL-STD-810G shock-proofing and IP68 dust- and water-proofing
1" camera sensor with xenon flash (we can hope!)

$500
CAT9 LTE (450 / 50): integrated into Snapdragon 810
3GB RAM
1440p screen
128GB storage
Qi 1.2 charging in addition to Quick Charge 2.0

$150
CAT4 LTE (150 / 50): integrated into Snapdragon 410
2GB RAM
1080p screen
16GB storage

$100
CAT4 LTE (150 / 50): integrated into Snapdragon 210
1GB RAM
720p screen
8GB storage

$50
CAT4 LTE (150 / 50): integrated into Snapdragon 210
512MB RAM
454p screen
4GB storage

And then add Project Tango and Project Ara into the mix.

Lots of people are excited about the next iteration of the Moto E but I am personally more interested in the Android One programme with the mandatory front-facing camera, microSD slot and removable battery. Google have announced that new devices - from a variety of manufacturers, and including Qualcomm SoCs in addition to MediaTek - will be sold in a plethora of East Asian countries (and the UK, if the £100 Karbonn Sparkle V from Amazon UK is indicative - please don't shoot me, moderators, for writing this in editorial context!) at price points above and below the current $100. It's also exciting to read that Xiaomi, with their famously aggressive pricing, are watching Android One closely - it would be wonderful if their first phone to integrate Google Play Services was an actual vanilla Android device! Also, I do think LTE will be important even in developing markets: some operators' spectrum holdings are dotted across a variety of frequency bands so the Carrier Aggregation ability of the Snapdragon 210 will be important, particularly as VoLTE is rolled out. Given Qualcomm's long-held superiority in cellular modems, I do wonder how MediaTek will be able to be competitive.
 
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Soldato
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[with regards to my assertion that £70 for the dual-SIM Moto E in India is a fair price, and £90 for the single-SIM in the UK is a rip-off.]

It's important to remember that that additional £20 is actually a 30% price premium. If a car cost £7,000 with five seats in India but a cut-down model for £9,000 with two seats was being sold in the UK, would you not feel a little cheesed-off?

No, not really.

Got to be honest, I didn't read much after this.

For starters, almost £20 of the £90 is tax... who knows how tax works in India, it's not really my concern.

Should things cost the same in every country in the world. No. Why would they?

I look forward to your reply in June. :)
 
Soldato
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My mother bought the new 2015 model. It is very well put together and performs well for the limited things she uses it for. Good value for money in my opinion.
 
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