novo announces a trio of affordable smartphones without E

BY GreenBot Staff

Published 27 Feb 2014

novo’s S-series smartphones announced at Mobile rld Congress have screen sizes from 4.7 inches to 5.3 inches, but none of them have E.

The smartphones are priced between $229 $349 will ship in ne. The absence of E indicates the smartphones are for budget buyers, likely in developing markets, said ck , principal analyst at Associates.

“There are a lot of people who don’t do heavy-duty downloads, E isn’t an advantage for them,” said. “There are a lot of markets where E isn’t a big deal.”

The $349 S860 has a 5.3-inch, 1280 x 720 pixel screen a high-capacity battery that can provide 24 hours of 3G talk time 43 days’ stby time, novo said. The smartphone weighs 190 grams has a quad-core processor, 16GB of storage, an 8-megapixel rear camera a 1.5-megapixel front camera.

The S850, priced at $269, has a 5-inch screen with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. It also has a quad-core processor, 16GB of storage 1GB of RAM. th a 13-megapixel rear camera a 5-megapixel front camera, the hset is good for photography. The device weighs 140 grams.

The $229 S660 has a 4.7-inch screen that can display images at a 960 x 540 pixel resolution. It has a quad-core processor, 8-megapixel rear camera, 0.3-megapixel front camera 8GB of storage. It weighs 151 grams.

The smartphones run on Android 4.2 have dual SIMs.

The new smartphones exp novo’s growing hset lineup. novo late last month announced it had agreed to acquire Motorola from for $2.91 billion, which will aid the expansion. novo in nuary also announced its first E smartphone, the Vibe Z, but the hset is not yet available in the U.S.

novo is well-established in s tablets, but sees a big growth opportunity in smartphones. novo’s smartphone shipments grew by 78 percent in 2013 compared to 2012, but a majority of its smartphones were sold in China.

novo’s stronghold will continue to be emerging markets like China until it blends Motorola’s operations, said.

“novo sees itself as a serious competitor across the board,” said. “They have a lot of resources, lot of capabilities.”

Motorola will give novo the ability to exp in the U.S. other emerging markets, said.

“It’s going to take six to 12 months to blend [Motorola],” said.