After about three months of the first official launch in India, Philippines becomes the sixth country to have the Android One devices launched. After India, Google had launched the Android One devices in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and finally Philippines. The two smartphones under Android One in Philippines are the Cherry One and MyPhone Uno, which will go on sale in the coming weeks on Cherry Mobile and MyPhone networks, respectively.
Similar to the Android One handsets launched in Indonesia, the Filipino will have the Android 5.1 Lollipop too, running out-of box. The devices in other countries operate on Android 4.4.4 KitKat till now, and are set to get the update very soon, but it is still not sure about the version of Lollipop that they’re going to get. Till now, only the Android One devices in Indonesia and Philippines are running in Android 5.1 Lollipop, hence we can call they are the most forward in terms of update.
The hardware, however will be identical to the Android One devices sold in other countries, as Google is trying to bring the uniformity in the specs sheet, since it will make them easier to provide the update to all the devices at once. Google, in its official blog about the announcement, says that there will be connectivity partners which will be offering promotional plans to people who buy Android One’s that will help reduce costs for over-the-air (OTA) updates and app downloads from Google Play. Similar to the Android One phones in other countries, these phones will also have the Chrome browser data compression, and offline YouTube playback feature, to save the data cost of the users.
Nothing is revealed about the price yet, but it will definitely be almost the same when compared to the previous prices, and it will be out once the devices are up for sale or pre-order (we will update about it as soon as we get any clue). So, it is now the time for the Filipino Android lovers (especially the budget smartphone users) to rejoice, since Google have launched Android One in Philippines, and we expect more Asian and South-American countries to come in the list very soon. Good going Google!
