Aldi sells a lot of things. Meat. Yoghurt. Drinks. We’ve even seen a few rebranded MSI laptops from Aldi’s Medion brand. This week, Aldi launched a mobile service, and what goes best with one of those…?
If you answered with the word “phone,” you’d be right, and Aldi has one of those in store already, bringing with it some specs that would have made it a decent-to-top-end device a couple of years ago.
Equipped with a 4.5 inch IPS screen supporting 2010’s resolution of choice – 960 by 540 (qHD) – the Bauhn ASP-4500Z doesn’t exactly have the nicest ring to its model number, but does pack in Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean” running on 512MB RAM, a 1GHz dual-core A9 chip, 5 megapixel rear camera, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, 4GB internal storage, microSD, 2000mAh battery, and GPS.
Dual SIM functionality is included too, though the functionality is similar to what we’ve seen in devices with multiple SIM slots in the past, with one SIM working for 3G and the other being specifically used for 2G connections.
From the specs alone, this doesn’t look like a handset that would really sit in the mid-range or even premium section, although since it carries a $199 price tag, we’re really not surprised by this.
Rather, the technology inside puts it close to the type of Android smartphones on offer from Kogan, while the 512MB RAM inside doesn’t even begin to approach the sweet spot of 2GB used in high-end phones.
Still, if you want a big-ish phone without the big price, this one is available in Aldi stores (provided you can find it) for just under $200.
I don’t ask much of a phone. Apart for taking and making calls and texts, I only want it to play my MP3 sound bites for the various alarms, ring tones and calendar events built in. This one is not much of a ‘smartphone’ I’m afraid – it is incapable of doing this. Bought one today (the 4″ E4002 MD98388 Aldi thing) and it’s going back tomorrow.