​Yu goes Lollipop with new $75 Yunique 4G smartphone

The battle for the cheaper end of the smartphone market is heating up with Indian smartphone brand Yu launching a 4.7-inch display 4G smartphone for 4,999 rupees ($75) - interestingly without Cyanogen OS.

The third and cheapest smartphone from the Micromax subsidiary is called the Yunique. It offers up a challenge on price to Xiaomi's recently announced cheapest device, the Redmi 2A, which went on sale in June in China for $80.

At $75 consumers can't expect today's top line specs, but given its price, the dual-SIM LTE Yunique looks good on paper.

The handset features a 4.7-inch HD 1280 x 720 pixel display, a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor, 8GB internal storage, 1GB RAM, and a microSD slot expandable up to 32GB. Yu is promising around eight hours talk time in 3G with the Yunique's 2,000 mAH battery, and has given the device an eight megapixel main camera and two megapixel front shooter.

The Yunique's specs aren't far off Motorola's second generation budget Moto E, released earlier this year in the US, which came in 3G and 4G variants, with a Snapdragon 410 processor, 8GB storage, and a 4.5 inch qHD display at 540 x 960 pixels. Though it launched priced from $120, the Moto E currently retails on Indian e-commerce site Flipkart for $90.

Unlike Yu's two preceding devices, the Yureka Plus and Yuphoria, the Yunique eschews Cyanogen OS for stock Android 5.1.

Sales of the device commence on 14 September and will be sold exclusively online through Indian e-commerce site Snapdeal.

The Yunique is still a little way off the $50 sweet spot for India that Google thinks it can achieve in with Android One compliant devices, though Google's ambitions there could take several years.

Read more

• Google to launch $50 handset after early Android One disappointments
• Now with LTE, the new Moto E is the best sub-$150 Android phone
• Why the new Moto E is the most important Android phone this year