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« Name that Ware April 2013 Maker Faire and Hardware Innovation Workshop! » How cheap can you make a phone? Recently, I paid $12 at Mingtong Digital Mall for a complete phone, featuring quad-band GSM, Bluetooth, MP3 playback, and an OLED display plus keypad for the UI. Simple, but functional; nothing compared to a smartphone, but useful if you’re going out and worried about getting your primary phone wet or stolen. Also, it would certainly find an appreciative audience in impoverished and developing nations. $12 is the price paid for a single quantity retail, contract-free, non-promotional, unlocked phone — in a box with charger, protective silicone sleeve, and cable. In other words, the production cost of this phone is somewhere below the retail price of $12. Rumors place it below $10. This is a really amazing price point. That’s about the price of a large Domi...