IFON CEO Ram: "We've been working with T-Mobile, going through their certification process, which will allow us to sell product to their MVNOs and their dealer channel,"
By Sascha Segan February 26, 2014 11:59am EST
BARCELONA—John Dvorak, your $99 unlocked smartphone is almost here.
"That price point already exists on the 3.5- and 4-inch screen sizes, but for the U.S., we're not sure if the U.S. consumer will accept that level of spec," said Joseph Ram, the CEO of Infosonics, which makes the Verykool line of unlocked smartphones. (We've reviewed two Verykool phones, the RS90 and S470.)
Instead of a low-end $99 model, we North Americans are going to have to settle for something that's simply cheaper than its Samsung and LG competition. In the second quarter of this year, Infosonics will release a $249 smartphone compatible with the AT&T and T-Mobile LTE networks in the U.S., Ram told me.
The new phone will have a 5-inch, 960-by-640 screen, 13-megapixel main camera, 2-megapixel front camera, and a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, Ram said. He showed me a phone with the same physical design as the upcoming phone, and it looks very Samsung: it's made of white plastic, with a textured back and a screen with narrow side bezels but a noticeable top and bottom bezel. The back and battery are removable, and it has a MicroSD memory card slot. MWC Bug Art
"We've been working with T-Mobile, going through their certification process, which will allow us to sell product to their MVNOs and their dealer channel," Ram said. "If you look at this device, even if you put 'Samsung' on it, you wouldn't tell. In terms of quality, finish and everything else, it's as good as a Tier One OEM."
The new model will be one of "six or seven" devices coming to the U.S. this year, including some feature phones, Ram said. Two of them will arrive within the next few months. The feature phones will target the elderly user and ruggedized markets.
"Carriers have approached us asking about feature phones," Ram said. By the second half of the year, Infosonics will be able to provide Android phones with upgradeable firmware, as well. While the company can't guarantee Android updates for all of its phones, as the hardware may not be supported by new versions of Android, once the software is in place, it'll deliver updates for all the devices it can, Ram said.
"We want to position ourselves in terms of a good product, a good user experience, a great design and a price point most customers can afford to pay. That's a value proposition," he said.
During our chat, meanwhile, Ram also revealed that Microsoft will drop its license fee for Windows Phone by up to 70 percent.
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