It is said that even the smartest of people can get confused trying toĀ identifyingĀ an ironic situation. Luckily, the irony in this particular news story about Freedom 251 is so glaringly obvious that you would have to be a wooden plank not to understand it.
The creator of the famous $4 smartphone — dubbed Freedom 251 — wasĀ jailed on February 23. Confused? Here’s a crash course history refresher from the GizChina archives – Freedom 251 byĀ Ringing Bells.
Just over one year ago, Mohit Goel, Director of the Indian company Ringing Bells had announced the launch of smartphones (touch screen et al.) at a ridiculous price of just $4. Now weĀ are aware that cheap; low quality “breakthrough” technology does the rounds every year but Goel’s claims were deceptively simple and very quickly gained viral status.
Ringing Bells promised to launch a $4 smartphone with 1 GB of RAM, a 1.3 GHz processor and 8 GB of ROM. It claimed to have acquired subsidies from the government which allowed the sale of the smartphone at such absurd rates.
Further confusing matters was the fact that there were official photos and reports of the smartphone all over the Internet.
Gizchina News of the week
The Freedom 251 has been ringing all kinds of alarm bells now that we know that it was a fraud campaign. A rather clever one too, we might add.
When we published a first news report last year,Ā GizChina readers were quick to point out sarcastically that the screen would probably consist of 8 LEDs andĀ the smartphone would be powered by a couple of AA batteries – which wereĀ not included, of course.
On the day of the purported launch, surprise surprise, Freedom 251’s official website crashed, leaving tens of thousands of people in dismay. Goel was quick to issue aĀ broadcast thanking the public for their support. The website was back up soon thereafterĀ and received more than 60 million registrations in the first two days. Ringing Bells thereafter closed registrations owing to the “response far exceeding expected numbers.”
It was all fun and games until the officialĀ distributor of the smartphone, Ayam Enterprises, claimed that Goel had defrauded them of almost $2,500. Not exactly on par with the Apple-Samsung lawsuit but hey, we’re talking about a $4 smartphone here!
Almost exactly a year after this announcement we haveĀ learned that the entire debacle was a hoax. Our heart goes out to the folks who shelled out $4 of their hard-earned money to this ponzi scheme.
60 million registrations… wtf is wrong with ppl -_-
It’s all indians and India’s polulation is in the billion so it is possible. Not forgetting many are still rather poor. Specially, rural areas. Wouldnt be surprised if they were tempted by it.
People see a low price and they lose their minds and suspend all logic.
You mean like… when Cartman buys a pack of 3 Jerry Maguire DVDs at Walmart because it’s only $5 ?
It was just $4. They gave it a try… =P
“just $4” ? You clearly don’t know what 4 bucks can buy in India ! I saw children sold for less than that. Vivek, as an exemple, was bought $5 by Andi.
(competing in “the most hateful and stupid jokes of 2017” category, not intended to outrage any feeling)
Of course it was a hoax, anyone who didn’t see that when it was first announced deserves to lose their $4. Consider it a life lesson.
I pay more than 7 bucks for MacDonald’s and I don’t consider it a life lesson.
McDonalds actually gives you a product in return, this company just took your $4 and said have a nice day.
aw how kind of them to say “have a nice day”. I’d pay 4 bucks for that.
Again McDonalds is giving you something, this company is just taking your money…
fun like a moddafokke
there’s actually a documentary on stupidity, this situation is further evidence that stupid people are in masses, this should be featured in that documentary or included in you tube clips of people doing stupid things in the internet. haven’t people ever heard that if the deal is too good, think twice?