$4 Indian Smartphone is Now Under Federal Investigation

The manufacturer of the 'worlds cheapest smartphone' is now under police investigation in India for fraud.

When Indian Telecom company "Ringing Bell" first announced the Freedom251, the tech press couldn't stop talking about it. Ever since it was released to the public, however, the tech press couldn't stop talking about how shady and crappy this company was. Once the device got into the hands of the tech savvy, one could not help but notice that it was an entirely different phone with entirely different specs than the India-based company originally claimed.

You see, The freedom 251 is really just an Adcom Ikon 4; a $54 Chinese iPhone ripoff distributed under a different name. Private label devices are not at all uncommon in today's electronics scene, which makes this move somewhat understandable, until you notice that 'Ringing Bells' just smeared some god-damn white-out over the god-damn Adcom logo.

Photo by Vishal Mathur of Android Authority

Yes, that was not a joke. Adcom dun' smeared some fuckin' white-out (the kind you can buy at an office supply store for hiding print errors on inkjet paper,) over Gorilla Glass in an attempt to cover the logo that was behind it, and they didn't even do a decent job of it.

If that wasn't shady enough, Adcom was later asked about their product being used like that, and as it turns out, they had no idea this was happening.

Ringing Bells is now under a federal investigation by the Police, for allegedly violating Section 420 of IPC and the IT Act, which is just a fancy way of saying they are cheating their competitors.

Police are requesting that the company produce documentation that proves they are able to sell a $54 phone for only $4, and so far, the company says they are willing to cooperate with the investigation, stating they are able to do so due to “innovative e-commerce cross promotions.” which, unless the phone is riddled with full-screen ads and bloatware, makes absolutely no sense.