After making a whole lot of controversy, the cheapest phone in the world is finally being delivered to its customers. Priced at about Rs. 251, the phone brings a very basic hardware to the mix, which is what one would expect considering the price. However, due to its extremely low price, we can’t really compare the device with any other smartphone in the same price range as there aren't any. Although, what we can do is to compare the phone against various other phones that are available in the sub-10K price bracket. So, we'll be comparing the phone against the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Coolpad Note 3, Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus, Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime and the Xolo One HD.
Before we begin, here is a look at the key specifications of the Freedom 251 smartphone.
Display: 4-inch, 480p
SoC: MediaTek MT6580M
RAM: 1GB
Storage: 2GB
Camera: 2MP, 1MP
Battery: 1450mAh
OS: Android 5.1
Let’s begin with user interface (UI), and while the display on the phone is the worst we have seen so far, phone feels as quick as Rs. 5,000 phone upon initial impressions. Although, for Rs. 251 you are getting way more than the price.
Let’s check out the synthetic benchmarks
AnTuTu
The phone scores a decent 22179 points, which is nothing great but comes really close to the Xolo One HD
Freedom 251: 22179
Xolo One HD: 24052
Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime: 42902
Coolpad Note 3 Lite: 32742
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3: 76289
3DMark Extreme
Here is how the phone performs in the 3D Mark’s Extreme benchmark. Apparently, the phone does not support 3D Mark slingshot test.
Freedom 251: 1981
Xolo One HD: 2002
Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime: 5710
Coolpad Note 3 Lite: 3180
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3: 6352
3DMark Unlimited
The 3DMark Unlimited benchmark, gives us a glimpse of the phone’s graphical performance. It should be noted that we tried watching YouTube videos on the phone, and the quality doesn't go above 480p, due to hardware limitations.
Freedom 251: 2895
Xolo One HD: 2925
Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime: 9302
Coolpad Note 3 Lite: 4839
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3: 17641
GeekBench Single-Core
Here is how the phone performs in the Geekbench Single-core
Freedom 251: 348
Xolo One HD: 358
Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime: 669
Coolpad Note 3 Lite: 623
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3: 1515
GeekBench Multi-Core
The Multi-Core Geekbench isn’t impressive either, but we need to keep in mind is that the phone is available for just Rs. 251.
Freedom 251: 1125
Xolo One HD: 1188
Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime: 2947
Coolpad Note 3 Lite: 1835
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3: 3577
Battery life
Surprisingly, the battery life of the phone is at par with other device available at around Rs. 5,000. In our battery test, it offered about 8 hours of battery life.
Camera quality rear
Here is a sample shot from the 2MP rear camera. The image quality is outright poor, but we weren’t expecting it to be great either considering its price.