World's cheapest smartphone Freesom 251

               World's cheapest smartphone Freesom 251

Ringing Bells said their Freedom 251 phone would cost just 251 rupees ($3.67; £2.56), and there was huge

demand in the first hours of sale. But sceptics have raised questions about the device and the company's price strategy.India is the world's second-largest mobile market and has one billion mobile phone subscribers. Freedom 251 is expected to target a market already dominated by low-cost handsets. Is India's $3.6 smartphone too good to be true? The phone has 8GB storage and cameras in the front and back, and its model resembles Apple's iPhone 4, including the home button and icons. "This is our flagship model and we think it will bring a revolution in the industry," the AFP news agency quoted a spokeswoman as saying.

Jump media playerMedia player helpOut of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue. Media captionShilpa Kannan takes a closer look at the Freedom 251 The smartphone went on sale on Thursday morning but, just hours later, the company had to stop accepting orders after its website crashed due to huge demand: 600,000 hits per second, it said.

Ringing Bells said the phone would be produced locally, even though it still has no factory in India. The prototypes handed to journalists were, actually, of a Chinese-made phone with its brand name, Adcom, covered with white paint. It has promised to deliver the first devices in four months.

The company had initially said the device would cost under 500 rupees (£5; $7.3), before revealing a much cheaper price at the launch on Wednesday. But critics have raised questions about the smartphone, saying the price is far lower than what its components would cost, let alone costs with production, distribution and marketing.

"It looks like it is highly subsidized by the company and it is not clear how they plan to sustain this," Tarun Pathak, an analyst with Counterpoint Technology Research, told the Reuters news agency.

The Indian Cellular Association reportedly wrote to the country's telecoms minister Ravi Shankar Prasad saying it was not possible to sell a 3G phone below 2,700 rupees.

Ringing Bells was set up a few months ago and recently launched one of India's cheapest 4G smartphones at 2,999 rupees, the Press Trust of India reported.

Android phone Freesom 251 price only Rs. $3 

How much are you willing to spend for a smartphone? In case you’re not ready to shell out more than $600 for a brand new iPhone 6 or Galaxy S7, then you’re probably shopping for something more affordable. But what if there was a new mid-ranged Android phone that cost just over $3? Would you order one?

DON’T MISS: Humiliation: JebBush.com redirects to Trump’s official website

This isn’t some joke; the Freedom 251 Android handset is as real as they get. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to get your hands on one unless you’re already living in India, or ready for a trip to the country.

The device costs just $3.6 (251 INR in the local currency) but offers specs that were once considered to be of flagship status. The handset has a 4-inch display with 960p IPC LCD and packs a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, 3.2-megapixel camera, and 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera. There’s also 3G support, dual-SIM slot, and a 1,450 battery. Best of all, the handset runs Android 5.1 out of the box, which is more than a decent default operating system, considering that not many other Android handsets have been updated to Android 6.0.

The phone goes on sale on February 18th, and it’ll probably sell like hot cakes.

So what’s the trick here, you ask? Do you have to sign your soul over to the devil to obtain this $3 Android handset? Nope, that’s hardly the case. Phone Arena speculates that the phone might be connected with the Indian government, which probably subsidizes it, part of an imitative to make technology available to the masses.

The company that makes the phone is called Ringing Bells and was incorporated just five months ago. The Freedom 251 website says that the phone should “empower citizens, even in the remotest rural and semi-urban centers of India, with the latest in digital technology.”