Most companies displaying their wares at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona are keen to show off the latest in sleek, sexy design, but Vodafone has decided to buck the trend by unveiling what is possibly the ugliest, clunkiest looking phone ever made.
So, what gives? Well, it also happens to be its cheapest ever at $15.
The Vodafone 150, which looks like a garage door opener has a tiny monochrome green display and supports voice, SMS and mobile payment services, while the 250, which looks more like a TV remote has a color display, voice, SMS, banking and even an FM radio thrown in, for a rather more extortionate $20.
Vodafone reckons that it has over 11 million punters using its phones to perform banking services, a phenomenon which is proving increasingly popular in the third world. To this end, the firm has decided to ‘cash in’ on the market with really cheap (and ugly) hardware, affordable to almost anyone.
The ugg phones – unsurprisingly made in China by a firm called TCL – will hit shelves in Turkey, India, Congo and Ghana, before spreading their charms to the rest of the developing world soon after.
