Asian Invasion of Low Cost Android Phones

As LifeSignals moves toward its first customer pilots we find ourselves in the position of having to purchase small quantities of Android Phones to provide to our Pilot clients.  Our goal is to identify low cost Android Phones that run our applications efficiently and are GSM phones that will run on AT&T's network.  We have recently formed a relationship with AT&T that has provided us with low cost data only SIM cards that we can integrate into low cost GSM phones.  So, we initially found $150 LG Optimus V phones from Virgin Mobile at Radio Shack.  They were nice phones, a sub 3" screen but the apps run well and they were easy to use and had reasonable battery life.  That phone set the standard for us, but they expensive for 3G data service at $25 per month.  We assumed that our early pilots would all have Wifi so we would use the phones only in Wifi mode and skip the monthly 3G data plan.  Unfortunately, earlier this month Virgin Mobile announced a price increase to $200.  Apparently a lot of people thought that was a good deal and they could not keep enough of them in stock.  We were really blindsided by this change, but you know what they say about the silver lining in every dark cloud.  The price increase forced us to search the market for other phones that we could acquire in the $150 or less category.  I used my time at CTIA to visit a number of Chinese, Korean and South American device companies and made some good contacts.  Over the last 2 weeks I have purchased about 12 phones from 4 different companies overseas.  In my search I found that you could buy the new Dual Core LG 2X from the same low cost suppliers on the web.  I received the new LG phone yesterday, wow!  This is by far the best Android phone we have seen produced.  It is a beautiful sleek design, the screen technology is gorgeous, and the phone is super responsive.  I currently have a data only SIM in the phone which makes me sad as I would like this to be my personal phone.  When you put it side by side with my DroidX it makes the Droid X seem old and tired.  In addition, for M-health this phone has both front and rear facing cameras for video conferencing.  But I digress, so I have ordered a variety of low cost phones and received the first one today.  It is the Blu Tango from Bluproducts in South America.  It is a ZTE product from China that is pictured below. It is an attractive phone with a 2.8" screen and Froyo 2.2.  I generally like the phone but have two complaints that force me to admit that it is not comparable to the LG Optimus V that we are trying to replace.  First, the device does not come standard with the USB drivers that allow you to mount the phone as drive on your PC.  This makes it impossible to side load applications which is how we currently load our application on phones and Tablets.  Secondly, and probably more important is that the touch screen is very poor.  The visual quality of the phone is fine, in fact it is very attractive but navigating between icons and screens is very awkward and frequently results in accidents and mistakes.  Over the course of setting up Gmail and Wifi I got better at understanding how it worked best but that doesn't make me any happier with the performance.  You have to really slow down and be deliberate with every touch and keystroke.  If it was the only phone you had you might become accustomed to the pace but when I was switching back and forth between my DroidX and the new LG 2X it was glaringly obvious that the Blu Tango was more "Skanko"or "Tanko" than Tango.  See a picture of the Blue Skanko below.  So we have a number of new phones coming in over the next week and it will be fun and instructive to understand the qualitative differences between them.  It is clear right now, the high end phones we have come to know well from Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG are really accomplished phones that are first class.  So far, the next class is defined by the LG Optimus V which are small screen but completely acceptable with only a modest fall off in quality and ease of use from the high end devices.  The current crop of low end devices will probably have one or two good enough to qualify for our pilots...I hope!