There are a plethora of budget smartphones in the $150-250 price range that are fine devices. If you're looking to go even cheaper than that, things get a little sketchy. T-Mobile and Coolpad are teaming up (yes, Coolpad) to offer the Rogue. It's only $50 and has Android 5.1. The specs are not impressive, but hey, fifty bucks.

Here are the specs for the Coolpad Rogue. It's a blast from the past.

  • 4" WVGA Display
  • SoC: Dual Core 1.1GHz Adreno 304 (Snapdragon 200 series)
  • 1GB RAM
  • 4GB ROM plus microSD card
  • 2MP Rear facing camera / 0.3MP Front Facing
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
  • LTE: 2, 4, 12, AWS3
  • Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop)
  • Measures 126.5 x 64.4 x 13.2mm

We don't know exactly what SoC is under the hood, but it's some variant of the Snapdragon 200 based on the GPU listed. The 2MP camera sticks out as a likely example of cost savings. At that point, why even bother to have a camera? On the up side, it has band 12 LTE and can be used as a hotspot. That might make it a handy device to have around as a spare.

The Rogue comes with Android 5.1.1, which is great for such a cheap device. No telling how it'll run, though. T-Mobile will have the Rogue online and in stores on September 30th.

Source: PR Newswire, T-Mobile