Love them or hate them, advertisements are inescapably a major part of our lives. Even before our most recent smartphone boom, advertisers inundated our day to day with billboards, TV commercials, and the dreaded pop-up. But we prevailed, we used ad blockers on our PC’s and phones and DVR’s and online streaming to skip commercials and we thought we won.
Recently though, there has been a stronger push towards sponsored content and native advertising. These are unblockable but also a typically less-intrusive middle ground in advertising. We have all seen it, our site and many others publish sponsored content and videos. Your favorite YouTubers push their sponsor with that ‘dope skin’, and even podcasts are turning towards sponsored content. Content creators are constantly trying to find that line to keep readers coming back while not violating editorial confidence or ethics but also trying to keep the lights on and sites hosted. But this is an article about smartphones, in particular Smartphones and sponsorships.
Last week Amazon brought their popular “with Offers” program from their Kindle line to a handful of unlocked smartphones. In essence you save $50, or 25% & 50%, off your smartphone purchase and Amazon ships you a slightly modified device that has lockscreen advertisements and a pre-loaded suite of Amazon applications. While we are used to having advertisements in our games and on web pages, most of us aren’t used to advertisements being pushed through such an low system level means. Naturally this caused an initial backlash from the community and for good reason, advertisements and smartphones don’t have a good history. But Amazon is doing everything to make these sponsored phones a good thing and here are 4 reasons why:
The Moto G4
1: You aren’t penalized for not taking advantage of the offers: This is HUGE. Amazon took the high road here and made a major step forward by not surcharging the devices if you opt to get the phone minus offers. So many times we see carriers charging more than a device’s actual cost through other means if you do not sign up with them or use their offers. In essence they are penalizing you for the perceived convenience of paying them money for an item. The BLU R1 HD and Moto G4 are already excellent devices for their respective price points and these deals just improve that standing — it’s your choice.
2: These are really good phones for $50 and $150: Amazon was smart in the devices they chose to pilot this program with. The Moto G4 and BLU R1 HD are both great phones for what you end up paying after the discount, and even before. The $50 BLU R1 HD has a 720p display, 1 or 2GB of RAM (splurge the extra $10 for the 2GB model), a Mediatek processor on par with the Snapdragon 410 found in last year’s Moto G and it ships with Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The $150 Moto G4 has 2GB of ram, a 1080P 5.5” display, Snapdragon 617, 13MP camera and ships with Android 6.0. The Moto G4 also comes with CDMA and GSM support for all US carriers, while the BLU ships with GSM support only. These aren’t the budget devices you may be used to, they are $50 and $150 phones that you will actually want to own and use. They are phones not littered with bloatware and far outdated versions of Android, instead, they have the aforementioned ads — if you choose them.
The BLU R1 HD
3: The advertisements aren’t that bad: Now this one is strictly a matter of personal opinion, but from Tim Schofield’s (QBKing77) video the changes are not seriously impactful ones and are arguably well-implemented. The lockscreen (where the major change is) is the stock Android lockscreen with an ad behind and a touchpoint to interact with it. When notifications come through there is an advertisement at the bottom, not hindering your other activities. There are a lot of bad examples of forced advertising on Android phones, and this is not one of them — it’s your choice.
4: The advertisements are (at this time) removable: As demonstrated in Tim’s video, the lockscreen can easily be bypassed using a third party one. Android also supports disabling of most applications through settings so if you didn’t want, say, the Kindle app which you could theoretically disable it too. If this level of removal will remain going forward as this program progresses remains to be seen, but right now you have control. For more advanced tinkerers Moto devices have a tendency to be more developer-friendly which could make full and total removal of Amazon applications and changes possible. The hardware could very likely also be the same as the traditional unlocked model with just software modifications, much like the HTC 10. This means that with an unlocked bootloader it could allow for full device conversions to the stock unlocked software. Keep it stock, or keep running ad’s — it’s your choice.
There is a lurking danger though, one that if this turns out to be even remotely profitable for Amazon will signal a new era crapware on carrier phones. It goes without saying that executives at major US, and possibly international, carriers are watching closely to mimic this behavior. But if time has told us anything this acceptable practice Amazon is doing will be exploited for every raw cent. While Amazon may take the high road it is a strong possibility that carriers (I am looking at you AT&T and Verizon) will use this opportunity to increase prices of affordable phones and “subsidize” them with forced advertisements and modifications. If you thought that the DirectTV advertisement on AT&T phones was bad, you will likely have another thing coming. Amazon has appeared to have laid a great example with only required system level modifications that should hinder updates minimally, but what kind of future do carrier sponsored phones have when they cannot even get updates currently? This is a future we should be very weary of and is why buying devices unlocked is the best way to go, but we are in the know and it’s the ill-informed who will likely keep the corporate greed machine turning.
Amazon though seems to be doing all the right things, checking all the right boxes, and making these phones “with Offers” – attractive while not affecting the regular, ad-free product. Time will tell if the phones are severely impacted with update timelines by these modifications. But as it stands currently these modifications can be bypassed by just changing out the lockscreen with any third party one from the Play Store.
The fact remains though that there are a lot of people who simply cannot afford flagship-level phones. While the argument is valid that people needing these the most may not have a Prime membership, many people do have Prime for its various benefits, or through free trials and offers (college students, for example, get many months of Prime but often cannot afford expensive phones). Without Amazon and this program though, they would be forced onto the carrier special LG piece of plastic crap running an god awful skin and Lollipop at best with no hope of any updates.
Choice… Choice is what Amazon is pushing with these new phones and this new program. Having budget-friendly phones that ship with a current and fairly stock Android, have decent specs, and can hold their own are something we should really be happy about. Making those phones even more affordable by saving another 25% or 50% for some simple, non-intrusive and removable ad space (to varying degrees depending on the effort you put in) is a no-brainer for many people. Although the path ahead has dangers both hidden and not-so-hidden, Amazon is taking the right steps to make it a success. If you want to be a part of this then great, if not then it is your choice to make, no penalty — the regular option is waiting for you.
Choice is one of the reasons we love Android. Amazon is just helping make the choice for a better device just a little more affordable for a lot of people.
For further follow-up about this be on the lookout for future articles about the Moto G4 soon. I purchased one these “with offers” phones as a test device and to see how it really stacks up for $150! #StayTuned
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