Samsung is reportedly working on an Android Go phone. The handset first came to attention back in April 2018 when it appeared on a benchmarking website.
A specs list for the device has now popped up online via Techiedrive. Nobody knows the name of the smartphone yet, but it’s common knowledge that it goes by the model number SM-J260. The leak claims the phone will have a 5-inch Super AMOLED display. It might pack a mere 1GB of RAM and 16GB of ROM.
Photography tasks might be handled by an 8MP primary camera and a 5MP secondary snapper. There could be a 2600mAh battery to fuel all activities. Meanwhile, a 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos 7570 processor may handle all tasks. Samsung is apparently blessing it with Android 8.1 Oreo.
Samsung Android Go Features
To be specific, the Samsung offering will probably run on Android Oreo (Go edition). This is a lighter version of Google’s full-fledged software. It’s designed to run smoothly on phones which have limited resources at hand. This includes various lite apps such as Google Maps Go, Gmail Go, and YouTube Go.
These specialized apps apparently take up 50% less space and demand less data. The phone itself operates on pure Android. This will be an interesting step for Samsung to take since it’ll have to ditch its own UI for Google’s. Consumers who prefer stock Android will benefit the most from the partnership.
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Samsung initially began testing the SM-J260 in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It’s now apparently expanded to other markets across Europe, Latin America, and Asia. SamMobile says the list of countries includes the UK, Singapore, Chile, Italy, and France.
It’s possible that Samsung is planning a global launch of its first Android Go smartphone. Doing so will allow it to gauge whether there’s a market for stock Android phones.