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Comment by epo | Hacker News Reader

Time will tell. I think you're wrong. Most of the third world doesn't even have a reliable cell phone service and, of course, little money, so there are few consumers to target ads at.

On a practical note, battery life matters in impoverished regions, best of luck with your "might last 24 hours, 36 if you're really lucky" Android handset.

Your second paragraph is warm and fuzzy nonsense, you should be ashamed of yourself for writing it.

Smartphones are designed for the needs of the developed world, the less developed world has it's requirements too, I doubt that internet enabled smart phones are high on the list.

And those alleged $80 handsets, how long exactly until they break and require servicing? Google "android failure rate", (less than e.g. iPhones, you can check), compare it those to conventional mobile phones.

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> Most of the third world doesn't even have a reliable cell phone service

Wrong. Most of the third world has excellent cell phone service and they're using cell phones for far more stuff than we do. In Kenya, for instance, you can make small payments using your regular, non-smart cell phone.

> of course, little money, so there are few consumers to target ads at

They have advertising in the third world as well. I doubt that's because there's no money going around.

> On a practical note, battery life matters in impoverished regions, best of luck with your "might last 24 hours, 36 if you're really lucky" Android handset.

This needs to be solved, agreed. Chances are, however, that the phones that solve this problem will run some form of Android.

> > On a practical note, battery life matters in impoverished regions, best of luck with your "might last 24 hours, 36 if you're really lucky" Android handset.

> This needs to be solved, agreed. Chances are, however, that the phones that solve this problem will run some form of Android.

It is worth noting that some Android phones are already doing impressive things on this front. See, for example, the Samsung Replenish (that can slowly charge from sunlight with an alternative battery cover): http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/10/samsung-replenish-review/

I don't think it's as bad as you make it seem, but not by much: internet access is definitely nonsense in countries where mere electricity availability is spotty to start with (which is a common issue in sub-saharan Africa, communal charging for cell phones is common), it requires both electricity and a much higher density of cells than basic GSM voice and text; and battery life on current smartphones makes them a very hard sell in such countries (see: spotty electricity availability).

However I do think smartphones are a logical and valuable extension of cell phones in developing countries, not in that they improve communication but in that they make "offline" information more readily available, things like medical knowledge applications are not really possible on a "dumbphone" (limited screen real estate and controls) but a smartphone can replace stacks of books, can be carried and can be kept "current" by updating its applications a few times a year.

I see value in that, lots of it.

Oh, and $80 handsets are not even close to fixing this, the majority of sub-saharan africa (in terms of population) lives below the UN's poverty threshold. Which is under $2/day.

I see these $80 handsets going to the "upper crust" of these societies more than to the poorest segments.

Most of the third world measured by area or population? The areas that is densely populated often have pretty decent connectivity. It is also improving very fast as operators are investing heavily to continue to meet the increasing usage.

24 hours? I own an android phone and I am lucky to get 12 hours if I use it regularly.

12 hours? What are you doing? Playing games all the time? I can go 2-3 days with mine, 6 days with umts data off.

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