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Alongside the Moto G5 Plus, Amazon has added another new smartphone to its ad-supported line of devices that are offered exclusively to Prime subscribers at subsidized prices. Called the Alcatel A30, the handset comes with modest hardware, but does carry an attractive price-tag. Two versions of the device are currently being offered by Amazon, both of which come unlocked, and are available at extremely affordable prices. While the standard version of the Alcatel A30 comes with a $99.99 price-tag, the ad-subsidized model on offer comes with a $40 discount. Which means buyers willing to put up with a few ads on their lockscreens could actually pick it up for just $59.99. Users will have to pick between a GSM option and a CDMA option based on their carrier, but both versions are sold unlocked, and will work on all carriers in the country using the same technology.
The Alcatel A30 is a decidedly entry-level handset that comes from Chinese technology company TCL, which owns exclusive rights to use the Alcatel brand for its Android smartphones. The company also designs and manufacturers BlackBerry’s Android smartphones, including the DTEK 50 and the DTEK 60. The company is also believed to be in charge of the Canadian firm’s upcoming handset, the BlackBerry KEYone. Either way, the Alcatel A30 is available for pre-order from today, even though it will only be released officially on the 31st of this month. While the device doesn’t offer any ground-breaking hardware, it does run Android Nougat out-of-the-box, which is certainly something to look forward to at this amazing price-point.
Taking a quick look at the hardware specs of the Alcatel A30, the device comes with a 5-inch 720p display, and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 SoC that comes with a quad-core CPU clocked at 1.1GHz. The device also comes with 2GB of RAM and just 16GB of built-in storage that can, however, be increased by way of a microSD card of up to 32GB in capacity. Imaging options on the device include an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video chats. It will be interesting to see how well this device is received by consumers, given that the ad-subsidized BLU R1 HD was one of the best-selling devices on Amazon last year when it was introduced at a similar price-point.
