Orange has released a tiny, cheap touch-screen cellphone in the UK. Curiously, given that it is everything that its namesake city is not — small, tasteful and understated — the handset is called Vegas.
The £50 ($73) phone doesn’t pack too many features, but it has the essentials — a 1.3MP camera, an FM radio, an MP3 player, a paltry 64MB internal memory (expandable to 4GB) and Bluetooth. That £50 is not a contract price, either — that’s the full whack for a pay-as-you-go tariff.
This got us thinking. Once you have a touch screen, is it easier and cheaper to add features? After all, once you have the internal in place, its just software, right? You can churn out all manner of handsets at different prices and differentiate them with functions. A smartphone no longer needs to be made with a keyboard, just a better OS inside.
Orange has made one concession to the Vegas name, however. The phone is not only available in black. It also comes in pink, which we like to imagine is really neon flamingo pink.
Product page [Orange via the Reg]
Post a Comment