Re:Tiny, cheap, and dangerous: Inside a (fake) iPhone charger
by andyking on Saturday April 28, 2012 @07:33PM
(#3904501)
These cheap pay-as-you-go phones are subsidised by the network--normally, you have to buy at least a £10 topup to get it, and if you look at the website of a phone shop like Carphone Warehouse, you'll find the exact same phone listed at different prices on different networks.
Of course, once you actually go into the shop and buy it, you find it's the same (unlocked) handset. But because you bought it on, say, O2 instead of Orange, you get it cheaper.
Re:Tiny, cheap, and dangerous: Inside a (fake) iPhone charger
by TazeTSchnitzel on Sunday April 29, 2012 @08:52AM
(#3905875)
Yeah, I was buying a budget phone recently. They are about £10-£30 cheaper locked to a network.
Re:Tiny, cheap, and dangerous: Inside a (fake) iPhone charger
by Retric on Saturday April 28, 2012 @08:16PM
(#3904597)
You can build the gut's of a basic phone using well under 1$ worth of electronics (speaker/microphone/processor/antenna/and a little storage) and a simple antenna. After that it's battery, case, display, charger, packaging and assembly which can go up and down the cost/quality map, don't have to cost much individually. It's the same reason you can have those key-chain games with more processing power than a Ti-86 calculator for 3$.
I bought[1] a brand new mobile / cell phone today. £4.95 ($8 USD) which includes the phone, the battery, and a charger. It's all neatly packed, things in bags etc. it's not on a contract.
So it's possible for huge multinational companies to use economies of scale to make, ship, and sell cheap things.
I'm not so sure that small companies have the same economies of scale - especially for things which require being built to safety standards.
[1] Buying it took about 10 minutes. I can't quite work out how all the people in the chain manage to get paid from an $8 phone.