GooPhone X1 brings quad-core to sub-$100 price point

GooPhone is best known as a prompt Chinese maker of knock-offs based on whatever new smartphone or tablet HTC, Samsung, or Apple announce. However, it turns out that GooPhone can actually design and sell things that aren’t made to look like something they’re not. Case in point – the GooPhone X1. Sure, it has a ‘generic Android smartphone’ design all over, but that’s not what’s important about this model.
The price is.
See, the GooPhone X1 starts at 499 yuan. That’s around $81 or €62. And it has a quad-core processor, the extremely often used in China MediaTek MT6589, based on the Cortex-A7 architecture from ARM. And the rest of its specs aren’t half-bad either (well, except for the main camera perhaps – then again, what did you expect?).

• The GooPhone X1 also has a 4.7-inch 480×854 touchscreen
• 2 MP rear camera
• 1.3 MP front camera
• 512 MB of RAM
• dual-SIM support
• A 1,800 mAh battery
• It runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

Quick – say a ‘brand name’ handset that has a similar price (remember, this is SIM-free and unlocked we’re talking about). Now check out its specs and compare them to the GooPhone X1. Yes. Exactly.
There is one caveat, though. Well, one except for the fact that you’re not likely to ever be able to officially buy this outside of China. The 499 yuan price is only valid from certain “local phone providers”, whoever those may be. Elsewhere, you’ll need to shell out 593 yuan for the X1, which still manages to be less than $100 (it’s actually more like $96 or €74, and that’s incredibly cheap too).via Gizchina