Android on feature phones

[18annu18]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to get your thoughts on Android on feature phones. While smartphones are probably the best way to utilize Android, I wanted to see what everyone thought of Android creeping into feature phones. The most interesting one I've seen is the Motorola i886 from Sprint. While it's not advertised as and Android device, any one who has any experience with Android can see that it is. This is a stripped down version of what we see from Android and does not have access of the market. I just think this shows the versatility of Android.

Thanks

 

[Guamguy]

I don't really have a high expectation on the quality of user experience of Android running on the computational resources of a feature phone.

Already, if you see many LG and Samsung touchscreen featurephones, they are already Android like (see Bada OS and so on), and taking on an increasingly Android appearance. The Androidish experience is helped by having widgets from Google, like Search, GMail and Maps, as well as widgets from Facebook and Twitter, plus browsers such as Opera Mini. Featurephone OS already bear some similarity to Android in that they run Java and Flash lite. In short, featurephone OS themselves are becoming increasingly smartphone like.

For Google, it doesn't appear its necessary for them to put an Android in every device such as featurephones when all it takes for them to benefit is to put Google Search, GMail and Maps into these featurephones. Also note that Opera Mini has no other default search option but Google.

 

[Jalarm]

Some devices are border line feature phone like Moto Charm or the Moto I1.

 

[Irina Sandu]

To see the extent of how Android runs on quite low specs, you can look at some of the devices in emerging markets: China, India. Huawei, for example, has some interesting ones, like the IDEOS.

 

[Guamguy]

IDEOS is as close as a low end Nexus as they come. Google had its fingerprints on it, working closely with Huawei.