The race to the bottom, the competition between manufacturers to make the best device for the least amount of money, has hit many landmark points, with Motorola’s second generation Moto E with LTE taking many headlines at its launch earlier this year. But there are still many phones to be had under the hundred dollar mark, and Elephone has another on offer in the form of the new G9 smartphone. Elephone is one of the many Chinese manufacturers that has gotten its foot in the door to customers’ pockets in need of Android devices.
The company has offered many high-style and low-price devices over the last few years, and the G9 looks to continue Elephone’s impressive trend. The G9 is, as Elephone touts it “just the price of a router” at $85 USD, and they are right. This phone has decidedly changed something about its image, and it seems to be looking to offer an Android One-like device to customers who order one.
The device is currently on pre-order from the company’s website, and the landing page is more colorful than Android Lollipop itself, but shows off some impressive internals. The G9 will apparently feature a 64-bit MediaTek processor, the MT6735M, which is a quad-core affair clocked in at 1.5 GHz, which will help power the device’s 4.5-inch 854 by 480 pixel (likely LCD) screen which boasts high color accuracy. The phone also is capable of Category 4 LTE speeds, which is 50 megabits per second upload and 150 megabits per second download, so that’s great on a sub-$100 phone nowadays.
And speaking of Android 5.0 Lollipop, this phone has off-screen capacitive keys which are the Lollipop-styled triangle-circle-square for back, home, and overview, and runs Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box, which will be great for a budget device’s performance and usability and for those looking for an up-to-date phone on the cheap. The device also features an 8-and-2 rear-front camera arrangement, so pictures will be high resolution for pixel junkies and casual selfie-takers alike. And the battery that’s fitted inside will sit at 1750 mAh, so it should handle the device’s modest internals for at least a day with typical usage.
Elephone highlights the price of this device on the link from its homepage, as well as the top and bottom of the G9’s launch page, so this is a device meant to occupy just as much space as the cash you shell out for it, especially at the likely-discounted pre-sale price of $85 USD. With its obvious visual stylings resembling the Moto G from 2013 as well as the colorful array of back covers, this phone is meant to be fun and simple, for as many people as possible.