Yahoo is seeking to find out what the smartphone world holds for its dying brand by launching its first smartphone. Verizon, Yahoo’s parent company, announced on Wednesday that it was releasing the Yahoo Mobile ZTE Blade A3Y to users in the US. The new smartphone will be part of Verizon’s unlimited phone service.
The phone, which has an affordable price tag of $50, comes in purple, the brand’s color that ruled the tech scene in the 90s. In a bid to remind users of its once-formidable brand, Yahoo preloads the new smartphone with Yahoo branded apps such as Yahoo Mail, News, Sports, Finance, and Weather. It has an 8-megapixel rear camera with a dual flash and 5-megapixel front-facing camera.
The smartphone runs on Android 10. The device is portable with a 5.45-inch length and a simple 720 HD display. It has a RAM of 2GB and runs on the lower-end MediaTek quadcore 2.0 GHz processor to meet your basic app needs. It has 32 GB of storage, enough for the basic user. Users can extend the storage up to 2TB with a microSD card. It has finger unlock situated at the rear of the phone and a face unlocking feature as well, The Verge reports.
Yahoo Mobile, the call and data service offered by Verizon, was launched in March. The service features include unlimited talk, text, and 4G LTE data, all at the cost of $40 a month – tax and additional fees included. For customers getting Yahoo Mobile, they are guaranteed benefits such as an ad-free email service with Yahoo Mail Pro and an unlimited mobile hotspot, which can only be used by one device at a time.
According to Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan, customers of Yahoo Mobile may have other services extended to their plans at a future date. For instance, users of Yahoo Finance may gain access to the Yahoo Finance Premium offering. In contrast, Yahoo Sports users may get freebies, such as free betting credits, if they are in states where gambling is legalized. Gowrappan added that the company is always interested in getting into a deeper relationship with its customers.
Verizon bought Yahoo for $4.83 billion in 2016. In the deal which integrated Yahoo with AOL, Verizon acquired Yahoo’s online brands and email service, which boasted around 225 million active users worldwide. The deal, however, was exclusive of Yahoo’s stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. The former Yahoo subsequently changed its name and became a publicly-traded company after the deal was finalized.
The new ZTE Blade A3Y will be available to US customers from Thursday.
Source: cnet.com
