EE launches UK’s cheapest 4G smartphone, at £99.
The phone network is selling its own-brand budget Android smartphone with cheaper price plans but a superfast 4G internet connection.
EE’s launching its own brand 4G smartphone, undercutting the current competition with a £99.99 price point.
Manufactured by Huawei, the EE Kestrel uses Android software. The phone is £30 cheaper than EE’s most recent budget 4G handset – an important milestone in encouraging consumers to upgrade from 3G handsets.
“We’re continually looking for new ways to make a quality 4G experience accessible to all. By introducing the UK’s lowest price 4G smartphone, and great value entry-level plans, even more customers will now have the ability to access the UK’s most advanced 4G network and reap the benefits it offers,” said Pippa Dunn, chief marketing officer for EE.
Kestrel combines a budget feature set with relatively solid build quality and Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with the promise of an upgrade to the latest Android 4.4 KitKat at a later date.
Along with the new sub-£100 smartphone, EE has also lowered the entry price for its 4G contracts, which now start at £13.99 a month for 24 months with 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data – an amount that could be exhausted in minutes on EE’s fast 4G network if a user chose to stream a high-quality movie for instance.
It claims the daily cost, of less than a 79p pint of milk, will ‘make a quality 4G experience accessible to all’.
EE previously cut the cost of its 4G plans in October last year with a £19 starting contract as the mobile operator became more aggressive in pricing in the face of new competition from Vodafone and O2 launching their own 4G networks.
However, there are fears the move could place huge strains on the EE network, which last week was hit by a widespread signal outage blamed on ‘gremlins in the system’.
Ernest Doku, from uSwitch.com, said: ‘EE is really attempting to remove the barriers to 4G, being the first to deliver superfast internet at a price to court the casual consumer.
‘However, our research shows customers still worry about maxing out their monthly data allowances. Faster browsing and streaming mean it’s very easy to burn through data on 4G.’
A 4G network can offer mobile download speeds up to seven times faster than those on 3G.
EE added: ‘Those that join us can be assured of our network’s ability to support millions of 4G customers without impacting the
superfast experience.’
Experts are not convinced other operators will rush to follow suit. TechRadar’s Gareth Beavis said: ‘The new Kestrel from EE seems like a good deal but only if you’re really into 4G.’
The EE Kestrel looks and feels similar to the G6 – with its angular styling and “graphite” tint. Further indication of Huawei’s involvement as EE’s ODM can be seen in the phone’s curved bottom edge, which is fairly common to the Chinese company’s own devices. It also comes with the same 4.5-inch qHD (540 by 960 pixel) screen, 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB storage and 2,000mAh battery as
the G6.
However, unlike the G6, the EE Kestrel only comes with a five megapixel rear camera and one megapixel front facing camera. That’s down from the eight megapixel and five megapixel cameras on the G6.
The EE Kestrel’s £13.99 a month plan is the cheapest 4G contract on the market. EE has also announced a new a couple of new plans – including one with unlimited roaming minutes and texts when in Europe from £21.99 a month.
According to EE, a homegrown handset was always part of the network’s long-term plan — one that doesn’t stop with
the Kestrel.
In fact, this is just the first in a series of planned devices bearing EE branding and named after British birds of prey.
The Kestrel will be launched at the end of April for £99.99 on PAYG and from free on contract.
