Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

Re:Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with ... by snaky on Monday January 01, 2018 @01:34PM (#16047291)

Nope, look at some 'low-end phones' of 2017

Leagoo M9 - Android 7.0, 1280x640 IPS 5.5", 4-core MTK6580, 2GB RAM, 16GB ROM, 8MP, WiFi, BT, dual SIM (second slot is universal, SIM card or memory card) - $55

ZTE Axon 7 Mini 4G (Global Version) - Android 6.0, 1920x1080 5.2", octa-core Snapdragon 617, 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM, 8MP+16MP, WiFi, BT, dual SIM - $120

And with Android Go they will run even faster.

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Re:Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with ... by LaurensBER on Monday January 01, 2018 @01:40PM (#16047315)

It's amazing that we can get portable Linux devices with specs like that for so little money these days. It's a shame that Mediatek doesn't respect the GPL so hackability is low otherwise there would be so many prototype/IOT/research uses for a device like this!

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Re:Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with ... by userbinator on Monday January 01, 2018 @01:49PM (#16047367)

Thanks to MTK datasheet leaks (try finding the docs for Qualcomm or even Broadcom stuff...), and the easy rooting (no locked bootloaders), "hackability" is actually quite high. You can also find the source code pretty easily even if it's not officially released --- a lot of these Chinese smartphones are based on the same hardware with only cosmetic differences.

The culture/ecosystem is very different: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297

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Re:Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with ... by snaky on Monday January 01, 2018 @01:47PM (#16047352)

The state of affairs of Linux and smartphones is pretty grim outside of MTK world too.

https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/hwenablement_mainline...

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