Categories: Future Tech

The $12 Gongkai Phone

How cheap can you make a phone?

Andrew “bunnie” Huang recently paid $12 at Mingtong Digital Mall for a complete phone, featuring quad-band GSM, Bluetooth, MP3 playback, and an OLED display plus keypad for the UI. Simple, but functional; nothing compared to a smartphone, but useful if you’re going out and worried about getting your primary phone wet or stolen.

So basically, at the cost of a large Dominos pizza, you can take home a cellphone which includes a silicon sleeve and a cable. To understand more, Andrew got into some details. Here are a few things that keeps the cost low:

1. There are no screws. The whole case just snaps together.

2. No connectors inside, everything is soldered directly to the board.

3. The electronics consists of just two major ICs: the Mediatek MT6250DA, and a Vanchip VC5276.

On the whole, the device costs less than $10 to manufacture.

Source: Bunnie Studios

Prateek Panda

Prateek is the Founder of TheTechPanda. He's passionate about technology startups and entrepreneurship and enjoys speaking to new founders every day. Prateek has also been consistently regarded as one of the top marketing experts in the region.

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