Now appears to be the time for all the low-end Android devices to hit the market and the Huawei IDEOS does not want to be late to the party. This little beauty, that we were notified about two months ago, is expected to hit Crazy John’s shelves later this month or early November for a low price of $159.

The IDEOS runs Android 2.2 but does only have a QVGA (320×240) display, but at least it’s capacitive. Other pros are 802.11N WiFi, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, Tethering & 3.2MP camera w/ flash. Huawei was hoping this device would push the limits of performance for a low price, and I think they’ve done an alright job at that.

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Ronald Medlicott

A neat smart phone made VERY DUMB by a lousy scrap of paper that psses itself of as a manual. My phone rings once if the callers is on either Telstra or Optus and then promptly hives off to voice mail. I cannot find a way to alter this to ring more frequently and I don’t know how to setup or access voicemail. I may be dumb, but my old Telstra T100 came with a high quality 80 page manual that enabled me to access all of the phone’s features. The IDEOS manaul was designed by IDIOTS so whilst the… Read more »

coder

So IDEOS is a family of products, not a single product…new IDEOS phones announced: http://techwizardz.blogspot.com/2010/10/huawei-ideos-x5-and-ideos-x6-android.html

Lemon

Hmmmmm, so $229 from DSE unlocked – or $159 locked to CJ’s w/ 4GB card, and if you use the CJs SIM you get the extra 300MB per recharge. Lads, dont expect to find EVERY app. If you see an app isn’t showing it might be an idea to reach out the the developer to ask why they don’t support QVGA. I know Abduction and World Attack are manifested to QVGA, but Abduction 2 isn’t, for example. I checked with the dev (top bloke). BUT, you also get a ton of apps those 1.6 QVGA phones don’t as well since… Read more »

maks

I can confirm disk smith has them – just tried one out in the Bourke st store in Melb.
They are $229 and sim free, so unlocked.

Th0mas

Can’t have too much expectation for that price.

Hey

Thanks Th0mas for that.
Also, Flash Lite is coming in an update in November.

Th0mas

Yeah, DSE hasn’t update their online catalog yet, it’s definitely there in the shop.

Th0mas

Apology – it’s $229, not $299.

Th0mas

I can confirm that DSE is selling for unlocked IDEOS for $299, just spotted it during lunch hour today.

Gallows

Are you sure its not the U8230?

iidna

I can’t find this at DSE either.. gave them a call and they knew nothing of it.

Grant

I picked up one of these at Dick Smith today for $229. Feels cheap, the display isn’t very sharp but it runs well. Much faster than my HTC Magic on 1.6. I’m having problems finding certain apps in the market as well such as Google Goggles, Evernote and Voice to Text which is part of Google Translate. Phone is quite small and light but typing in portrait mode isn’t too frustrating. It came with with a choice of two back plates, a blue and yellow, both are petty ugly. For the price it’s still a good deal.

Hey

Hey Grant,
Are you sure they’re available at dick smith now?
Can anyone confirm this?
Is it unlocked?
BTW I couldn’t find it on Dick Smith’s website.

ChaosDave

cool hopefully its stockness means easy updating

ChaosDave

if only it had multitouch this would be brilliant

Lemon

Since it’s 2.2, and doesn’t meet the reported 3.0 minimum specs, I’d say it’ll sit at 2.2. Unless there’s a hotfix requirement (like we’ve seen with the Telstra Desire GPS issue, and some proximity issues) I’d say there prolly won’t be any updates.

ChaosDave

does anyone know if this is stock Android and what Huawei’s rep for updating is like?

George

Believe Engadget said it is stock, looks fairly stock to me.
As far as I know this is the first Huawei branded Android. So no idea.
What speed CPU?

puny

It’s stock 2.2, w/ Google.

rightwingman

Can anyone confirm if this will be at Vodafone as well (since they fully own the Crazy Johns brand)

puny

CJs and Voda share some phones. Not all.

coder

Wewt! Is it locked and 900/2100 variety? How much is it, typically, to unlock a Crazy John’s phone?

[MuffinMan]

And if we unlock it, will it run on the optus/virgin network? Or will it not support dual band or something like that?

Aryan

Well done Crazy John’s. At that price, the IDEOS is a score. Consider me very impressed.

Might be time I get a new phone for my parents, their Sony Ericsson is close to 5 years old now. This might fit the bill perfectly, thought I still don’t know how they will go with a smart phone.

tomascivinod

Lol, what phone do they have, my mums k800 is that old too!

Dylan

thats good for the price ^.^

ChaosDave

sounds pretty good for the price, does it have an aGPS?

Jackie

It’s 2.2 and Google Experience – so yes 🙂

ChaosDave

sweet

Jackie

Whoops – WITH Google.

afaq

i don’t like crazyjonhs any more..i bought a cell phone from crazy johns website..and its locked..so thats how they say our cell phone is very cheap..just becoz we can only use their network.sometime i wanna use other sim for international calls..but i can not use that..because of i’ve got alot of problems..and when i called helpline she said that u have to paid $100 for unlock….i don’t wanna say anything about that.

Jackie

ALSO:

Comes with a 4GB card included, and
a bonus 300MB data with every recharge!