T-Mobile quietly launches a new ultra-affordable phone from a little-known brand
The hot new Wiko Voix is here, and if you have no idea what that is, don't worry, you're probably not alone. Established all the way back in 2011 in Marseille, France, the Wiko brand (timidly) tried to crack the uber-competitive US smartphone market for the first time in 2019 with an incredibly cheap Boost Mobile-exclusive model called Ride.
Wholly owned by Chinese original design manufacturer (ODM) Tinno Mobile, the European outfit found modest success on the old continent with its portfolio of ultra-low-cost Android devices while predictably failing to gain any sort of foothold stateside.
Nonetheless, Boost Mobile took its most cash-strapped prepaid customers for two additional "rides" in the last three years, and now Wiko is essentially trying to take its US presence to the next level with the aforementioned Voix. Seemingly pronounced like "voice", this decidedly humble Android 12 handset has exclusively gone up for grabs at T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile with little to no fanfare at some point in the last few days.
Priced at $126 for the "Un-carrier's" postpaid subscribers and $119.99 as far as Metro customers are concerned, this thing is naturally fully compatible with T-Mobile's "nationwide" network... minus 5G support. That's right, Magenta is still releasing 4G LTE-only smartphones in 2022 for some reason.
The rest of the 6.5-incher's spec sheet is also not great (to say the least), including such outdated or simply disappointing features as a 3GB RAM count paired with 32 gigs of internal storage space, a very modest-sounding dual rear-facing camera system composed of 13 and 2MP sensors, a single 5MP selfie shooter, and underwhelming HD+ (1600 x 720 pixels) resolution for that fairly large screen.
The 3,400mAh battery under the... distinctive-looking hood of the Wiko Voix is likely its key redeeming feature, promising an endurance of up to 29 hours of uninterrupted talk time between charges with the help of that low-res display and an undoubtedly frugal quad-core processor.
If you're feeling anxious about buying a new phone manufactured by a Chinese company on data privacy grounds, you might also be happy to know that the Wiko Voix technically comes from Tinno USA, a North America-focused subsidiary of the aforementioned ODM. Then again, T-Mobile currently sells a number of devices from significantly more well-established and well-known brands like Motorola, Samsung, and even TCL for under 200 bucks a pop, which makes it pretty hard to recommend purchasing the Voix instead. Maybe when it inevitably goes down to $0 with a new line of service.
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