Samsung is reportedly working on an Android Oreo (Go Edition) phone, according to SamMobile. The phone was spotted on Geekbench website revealing the benchmark results which indicates that it will be an entry-level Android smartphone.
The phone has a model number SM-J260G and is powered by an Exynos 7570 quad-core chipset with four Cortex A-53 cores at 1.43GHz. It runs on Android 8.0 Oreo and had a score of 625 on single-core and 1747 on multi-core benchmark. There’s a reference to “universal7570_go” which indicates the smartphone will run on Android Oreo (Go Edition).
Android Oreo (Go Edition) was launched by Google last year with the aim to get the “next billion” users to onboard the Android ecosystem. The entry-level smartphones are aimed at users who are upgrading from a feature phone to a smartphone. The OS is optimised to run on low-powered devices with less than 1GB of RAM. The OS comes with a set of ‘Go’ apps that are optimised to run smoothly on the platform. They include Maps Go, Gmail Go, Google Assistant Go, Files Go and the likes. All these apps are optimised to save data and leave a small memory footprint.
Samsung’s Android (Oreo) Go Edition phone, when it launches, will take on a slew of similarly optimised devices. It will compete with the Lava Z50, the Nokia 1 and the Micromax Bharat Go. All the three phones are priced below Rs 6,000. The Nokia 1 is the most popular phone in that segment, but it’s also the most expensive at Rs 5,499. It houses a quad-core processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB of storage with a 4.5-inch display on top and swappable back covers. The Lava Z50, on the other hand, is powered by a 1.1GHz quad-core chipset with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage and also sports a 4.5-inch display. It is priced at Rs 4,399. All these phones have collaborated with network providers like Reliance Jio and Airtel to offer attractive cashbacks that bring down the effective price of the device.
Looking at the competition, the Android Oreo (Go Edition) phones are going to come with similar hardware and perform similarly. The competition will be mainly over the build quality and the price of the devices. Samsung’s Oreo Go phone will then have to priced competitively to take on the other rivals.