Micromax has reportedly confirmed to launch the first Android Oreo (Go Edition) smartphone in India. Dubbed Micromax Bharat Go, the smartphone will be launched towards the end of January and will ship with Android Oreo (Go Edition), Google’s stripped-down version of Android platform for low-cost phones. It was announced back in May last year and was launched in India back in December last year.
As per a report by FoneArena, Micromax has confirmed that it will launch Bharat Go, its first Android Oreo (Go Edition) smartphone in late January. The company was earlier reported to be working with Google to launch the first Android Oreo (Go Edition) smartphone on January 26. This report coincides with company’s confirmation, however, the exact date is yet to be revealed. The reports also said that price of Micromax Bharat Go will be less than Rs. 2,000. Micromax is yet to give an official word on the smartphone’s price.
Android Oreo (Go Edition) is a part of Google’s efforts to tap into the low-cost smartphone market in India. It includes smartphones with less than 1GB of RAM and entry-level specifications. This version of Android is efficiently designed to enable the entry-level smartphones to run some major apps smoothly. To ensure this, Google has trimmed down some of the apps to their ‘Go’ versions. Google launched Files Go and Google Go to power the smartphones running Android Oreo (Go Edition), with a statement to launch more apps in the future. This price range is currently dominated by a new category of smartphones created by Jio Phone that is a feature phone but functions as a smartphone. This move was joined by Airtel and Vodafone that partnered different manufacturers to offer smartphones at low prices to take on Jio Phone.
Smartphone chipset makers Qualcomm and MediaTek have already announced to customise their processors to make way for Android Oreo (Go Edition) to run smoothly on devices. It is, however, clear which one of the two will offer its chipset for Micromax Bharat Go.
