Wileyfox wants to sell a €249 Snapdragon 210 Windows phone in 2017

The Android OEM Wileyfox earlier this year made its intentions knownthat it planned to develop and sell new Windows phones.

 “Windows is much better for security that’s why it’s more suited for B2B. Android can be opened up.” Wileyfox’s Andy Lee said in April,“Increasingly people are screaming for costs to come down and want a good affordable device. If businesses are going to buy thousands of devices to kit out their work force, they need a good price point. That’s where we’re going to hit it out.”

To that end, Wileyfox created the Wileyfox Pro, a Windows phone aimed at B2B users. The tagline of “we don’t compromise, so you don’t either” is strange, as this is inherently a smartphone full of compromises.

Very surprised to see @Wileyfox offering a €249 Windows 10 smartphone. Apparently @Microsoft approached them to do it. pic.twitter.com/aaq7qH1IGW

— Ben Wood (@benwood) August 31, 2017

In terms of hardware, there is a 5 inch 720p HD display with IPS, an 8MP and 2MP camera pair, and all this powered by a Snapdragon 210 with 2GB of RAM. Very impressive, if it were 2015. It’ll cost 249 Euros, and apparently, is aimed at the afore mentioned business users who want a device at a “good price point”.

There is some logic in this. There aren’t enough enterprise capable Windows phones, with Microsoft shutting down its Lumia factories and devices like the Idol 4 Pro and  HP Elite x3 being too expensive. However, there are questions which can be raised about the wisdom in bringing in new devices on an operating system which is unsupported when one can easily switch to a newer, more modern and reliable operating system.

On the point of affordability, Wileyfox has the wrong end of the stick here. A smartphone for £200 is affordable for instance, but it can also be cheap. People are–to use Wileyfox’s terms– screaming for smartphones which are affordable without being cheap. In the Android world, there are many handsets which are thus, especially when you look at manufacturers like Samsung, Xiaomi, and Motorola who can provide powerful devices at lower price points.

When all the marketing fluff is done, all we ultimately have is another also-ran Android OEM trying to sell a 2015 spec phone with an operating system which was last relevant in 2014.