Competition has been intensifying at the most affordable end of the smartphone market in recent months, with some impressive devices going on sale at astonishingly low prices. That's great for consumers, and for those in the Philippines, there's even more good news, as Google has announced the launch of its first Android One devices there.
Android One is a Google initiative intended to offer a more consistent and high-quality user experience on the most affordable devices. Given Android's ubiquity - and the ability for manufacturers to do almost as they wish with the OS - the quality of low-cost Android handsets is somewhat patchy.
Under Android One, Google works closely with manufacturers on both the hardware and software side, to develop devices running the 'vanilla' Android OS, with OS updates pushed directly from Google, even though the devices are built, branded and marketed by its hardware partners.
For the launch of Android One in the Philippines, Google has worked with two local partners to offer new handsets. The MyPhone Uno and Cherry One will go on sale 'in the coming weeks', running Android Lollipop.
It's not yet clear which version of Lollipop will be pre-installed on these devices. New Android One handsets that went on sale in Indonesia earlier this month featured Android 5.1, a new version of the OS that had not yet been announced.
Source: Google Asia Pacific
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