Don’t bother buying these smartphones from your wireless carrier.
Sometimes it’s better to avoid your carrier when buying a new smartphone.
BARCELONA — Most of the smartphones on display here at Mobile World Congress 2018 lack a common ingredient commonly found in U. S.-market devices: a carrier’s stamp of approval.
In much of the rest of the world, a wireless carrier is a bystander to a wireless-device purchase. People buy unlocked phones and then pop in the SIM card of the carrier of their choice. Sometimes they don’t even have to choose just one, thanks to dual-SIM phones that can switch to whichever service has the better deal at the moment.
The U. S., however, is still waking up from a different regime in which carriers decided the phones you buy. Although AT&T (T), Sprint (S), T-Mobile (TMUS) and Verizon (VZ) have all given up selling phones at low prices subsidized via higher service fees, they’ve kept themselves in the phone-procurement loop with installment-payment plans and lease arrangements.
You, however, don’t have to keep buying into that system. And three families of unlocked Android phones introduced at Mobile World Congress could be your reason not to.
This old name in phones resurfaced last year when the Finnish firm HMD Global shipped a set of phones running current and factory-spec Android, free of the bloatware and manufacturer alterations. This year’s lineup — the New Nokia 6, Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 8 Sirocco — renew that sales pitch with a guarantee of at least two years of updates for their Android 8.1 operating systems.
Traditionally, the only way to get that certainty has been to buy a phone from Google (GOOG, GOOGL) itself. But two of the three new Nokias will sell for less than Google’s Pixel 2 series when they ship in April.
The 5.5-inch New 6, the smallest of the bunch, will ship in April at an average retail price of €279 (about $340 at current rates), while the 6-inch 7 Plus will average €399 ($487). The 5.5-in. 8 Sirocco, however, exceeds the Pixel 2’s price at €749 ($913). It also repeats the Pixel 2’s error of omitting a headphone jack.
Although Nokia hasn’t announced U. S. prices, you should expect to see at least some of them sold here. Marketing head Jackie Kates said last year’s phones did well when sold unlocked at Amazon (AMZN) and Best Buy (BBY).
A fourth Android model, the $85 Nokia 1, runs a pared-down version of Android called Go, which Google pruned to run well even on entry-level hardware.
This subsidiary of the Chinese firm TCL already has a decent U. S. business selling phones to prepaid-service users. The Android models it introduced at MWC may not expand its carrier support, but at these prices they may not need the help.
Cheapest among them is the Alcatel 1X, a 5.3-in. Android Go phone due in April for €100. It looks and feels more expensive than that — aside from featuring its last-generation micro-USB port.
The Alcatel 3 line, which ranges from €150 to €190, and the Alcatel 5, priced at €230, run standard Android — although the more expensive model ships with the 2016-vintage Nougat release of Android, which is not a good look in 2018.
