Google Rumored To Be Building $99 Nexus Smartphone

The Nexus 5’s launch at $349 was no doubt an insane value for the hardware. Shortly after it’s release, Motorola pushed out the Moto G for $179 then became a worldwide success, reaping massive sales in India. Rumors now coming out of MediaTek suggest Google’s getting ready to push the limit of the budget phone market with a new $99 phone.

With KitKat’s new memory requirements and management, Motorola showing that you can get a 1.2GHz quadcore in a phone for under $200, and Google’s obvious readiness to sell devices near -or at- a loss: we may be looking at the beginning of a price revolution similar to what we’ve seen over the past ten years in the PC market. Sure, top tier phones will still have their place with enthusiasts, just as do PC’s. However, a large portion of consumers are still really just looking to make calls, send texts, and check social media. Those people will see a $100 phone on the horizon that might be marginally slower at performing every day tasks, but at 15% the cost it’d be near impossible to ignore.

With Nexus devices also comes the practically guaranteed day-one updates, and if the budget isn’t broken by hardware implementation geared toward network compatibility, this new budget Nexus could follow the 5’s lead and work on practically any available network at no extra cost when purchased from Google. No doubt, this phone would be a monster in the cost-effective department, and an excellent candidate for a flagship in developing countries.