Android One Now Official: ASUS, HTC, Lenovo, and Qualcomm Among the New Hardware Partners

Google has finally made Android One official. The concept of Android One devices was first introduced at the Google I/O developer conference earlier in the year. Although not all details were revealed back then, the first Android One device was shown off with a 4.5-inch display, 1GB RAM and FM Radio. Finally Android One has formally been announced by Google and the first devices have also been announced.

Google aims to reach out to the masses with the Android One device range. Google claims that over 5 billion people around the world do not use a smartphone. And that is where Google’s Android One initiative comes in. With the affordable Android One device range, Google aims to bring those 5 billion people in to the Android camp and address the key barriers that have so far discouraged people to spend money on a smartphone in emerging markets around the world. Those key barriers are identified to be – hardware, software and connectivity.

India is the most important market for Android One devices and Google has made sure to provide Indians with a range of attractive devices that bring capable hardware, up-to-date software and great connectivity options. Google has also tied up with India carrier Airtel to provide incentives to Android One customers. As part of the deal with Airtel, Android one owners will receive software updates for free for the first six months and also allow download of apps up to 200MB per month.

Android One is all set to evolve in the future with new hardware partners like Acer, Alcatel, ASUS, HTC, Intex, Lava, Lenovo, Panasonic, Xolo and Qualcomm. The future devices will offer more hardware options to choose from and expand to new markets like Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka by the end of the year. More countries will be added to the list next year.

For now, three devices have been announced from the Indian manufacturers Micromax, Spice and Karbonn. All the three devices feature similar hardware as well as software, since both are decided by Google in order to ensure a comparable experience across the various Android One devices. All the three device manufacturers have entered into exclusivity agreements with major Indian online retailers. The Karbonn Sparkle V will be sold by Snapdeal, Micromax Canvas V1 will be sold by Amazon India and the Spice Dream UNO will be sold by Flipkart. All the three smartphones come with 4.5-inch FWVGA IPS display, Mediatek MT6582 1.3GHz quad-core chip with Mali 400MP GPU, 1GB RAM, 4GB internal storage, microSD expansion slot, 5MP rear camera with 1080p video recording, 2MP front-facing camera, FM radio, dual-SIM slots, and 1700mAh battery. All three are running stock Android 4.4.4 Kitkat. Google has guaranteed 2 years of continued software support for these devices.

The Karbonn Sparke V has been priced at INR 6399 ($105), Micromax Canvas V1 at INR 6499 ($106), and Spice Dream UNO at INR 6299 ($103). What do you think of the Android One smartphone family? Will they really be able to entice the billions of people into switicing to a smartphone for the first time?