Google’s Android One Now in the Philippines

Android One is Google’s attempt at availing a wide range of affordable Android smartphones with baseline features. This is Google’s strategy for availing Android smartphones to the masses.Google Philippines, in collaboration with local phone brands Cherry Mobile and MyPhone, today announced plans to bring home the much-anticipated Android One smartphone, at a retail price of less than P5, 000.Once these devices arrive in the country, Philippines will be the 6^th nation to join the Android One program. Other nations already enjoying the goodies of the program include Nepal, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The two smartphones highlighted in this initiative will be Cherry One and MyPhone Uno. They will be available nationwide, and will come packed with Android Lollipop, configured to receive automatic updates for up to two years. The device will feature significant hardware such as front and back facing cameras, FM radio tuner, microSD slot and dual SIM slots.Users will get the Android One smartphones pre-installed with Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Translate. Google has made arrangements with Smart and Sun to provide Android One users with over-the-air (free) updates to the mobile OS. This means that users will be getting the updates without any deductions applied to their mobile data plans. More so, the company said that it is working to minimize data costs for Philippines-based Android One owners by offering a data compression tool on Android One Chrome.Android One seems to be a game-changer when it comes to making affordable smartphones accessible to the masses. Currently, the program only targets Asian nations. Although there’s no knowing where Google will be heading next with the initiative, chances are that they’ll distribute it to more nations across the world. This will possibly increase the Android market share across the world, something that might offset Apple’s growing popularity.