Don’t bother checking your calendar, we’re no where near April 1st. But that hasn’t stopped the launch of one of the most WTF Android devices to launch in quite some time. Today, after rumors that Pepsi Co would soon launch their own branded smartphone in China, the Pepsi Phone P1 is finally official.
Packing some pretty impressive hardware for the money, the P1 has everything you’d expect from a top tier phone — 5.5-inch display, 4G LTE, 3,000mAh battery, fingerprint reader, aluminum build — only it costs a mere $200. It doesn’t look half bad either. Here’s everything else the phone offers on paper.
Pepsi Phone P1s specs
5.5-inch 1080p 2.5D display
1.7 GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6592 processor / Mali 450-MP4 GPU
2GB RAM
16GB internal storage w/ micro SD expansion
Dual SIM slot
Android 5.1 Lollipop (dido OS 6.1 custom UI)
13MP rear camera
5MP front-facing camera
Fingerprint sensor
4G LTE, WiFi 802.1 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
3,000mAh battery
Dimensions: 152.2 x 76.2 x 7.7mm – 158g
The P1 is actually being manufactured by Shenzhen Scooby Communication Equipment Co. via a crowd funding campaign in China. Early bird pricing had the phone priced at $78 which already sold out, followed by higher tiers of $110 and $150 with 1,000 units available each. If the phone successfully hits its funding goal of $46,9950 by December 3rd, it will officially launch at around $200 with a special FDD-LTE variant headed to China Unicom as the P1s.
While we don’t expect to ever see availability outside of China, it’s certainly interesting to see what OEMs are capable of churning out when a little licensing money is thrown their way. How many of you would rock a phone with comparable pricing/specs under the condition that it had Coca-Cola emblazoned across the back?
