Emporia Telecom on Sunday announced its latest streamlined smartphone in the form of the emporiaSMART.2, as well as emporiaAPP, a new service meant to make conventional handsets simpler and easier to use. The Austrian telecom giant arrived at the latest iteration of Mobile World Congress to explain how its current mission is to deliver highly functional mobile devices that are accessible enough to be used by anyone, though it added that the emporiaSMART.2 is being specifically targeted at seniors. The company’s latest offerings are being launched with the goal of increasing the smartphone adoption rate among people over 50 by providing them with an extremely simple mobile experience that still benefits from most contemporary technologies.
The emporiaSMART.2 has a 5.0-inch 720p display panel and runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, with an upgrade to a newer version of Google’s operating system being extremely unlikely. The wireless carrier didn’t directly address the security concerns raised by the fact that it’s releasing a smartphone with an OS version that’s over three years old, though the locked nature of the device and the fact that its target audience is extremely unlikely to care about security are probably the main reasons why it opted for such a move in the first place. The emporiaSMART.2 features a quad-core chip clocked at 1.3GHz that’s likely one of MediaTek’s products and also ships with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal flash memory expandable via a microSD card by up to 32GB. The rear panel of the handset accommodates an 8-megapixel camera, whereas its top bezel features a 2-megapixel sensor. 4G LTE connectivity is also part of the package, as is support for Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. The rear plate of the device comes with an added physical button for making emergency calls.
Emporia Telecom will be showcasing the emporiaSMART.2 and its latest Android app at MWC 2018 that’s taking place Monday through Thursday, whereas the smartphone itself is expected to become available for purchase at some point this spring as an exclusive for the company’s subscribers. No specific price has yet been attached to the device but its streamlined nature and target audience are indicative of a sub-€100 tag.
