Elephone’s crowd funding event has the aim of an $89.99 smartphone


elephone trunk

Elephone have just dropped another smartphone sales promotion on the Chinese tech world where fans reserving and sharing their reservation contribute towards a final lower price tag.

Anyone with a basic knowledge of business knows that the more you order the bigger the savings can be. The same is true for the smartphone market where the cost of producing only 100 phones would be much greater than producing 100,000 (based on a per unit cost). Normally, though the end-user wouldn’t see that saving, but these are not normal times.

Gizchina News of the week


Elephone’s latest scheme is to have customers reserve the upcoming Elephone Trunk phone. The Trunk normally retails at $119.99, but with guaranteed order of 300,000 phones that cost can be reduced to only $89.99 for the end user. To further entice you to take part, Elephone are also offering free Elephone Trunk phones to lucky people.

As the count stands, Elephone have 1387 users taking part in the even which has only cut the retail price by just a fraction. Do you think it is going to be possible for Elephone to meet their goal of an $89.99 Elephone Trunk phone?

[ Elephone ]
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43 Comments

  1. Yeti hand
    August 25, 2015

    Now I know why the redmi note 2 is so cheap!!

    • Burs
      August 25, 2015

      Imagine what would happen to Oppo, Vivo and the likes, if they start cutting prices 30-40%. Sure their phones would finally have competitive prices, but I’m certain they would have much greater sales volume, and thus much more profit in the end, compared to how much they have now.

      • Muhammad Yasir
        August 25, 2015

        i like your style 😀

      • Danial
        August 25, 2015

        is that you from inew v3 good old days ??

        • Burs
          August 26, 2015

          Maybe 🙂 I was once active at ChinaPhoneArena while I was using V3. Sorry for not remembering you. Good to see you anyway 🙂

          • Danial
            August 26, 2015

            if i’m not mistaken, my username over there was Danyno1 😀
            remember the suspicious khunsho (spell?) haha .

          • Danial
            August 26, 2015

            if i’m not mistaken, my username over there was Danyno1 😀

            remember the suspicious (and stingy) khunsho (spell?) haha .

            • Burs
              August 27, 2015

              Hey Dany! Of course I remember you 🙂 Glad to see you here!

  2. Rob
    August 25, 2015

    I’d be surprised if they hit 300 personally.

    • balcobomber25
      August 26, 2015

      In reality they will probably hit 1000, there are enough fools out there who will buy into this sort of thing. But they will probably fudge the numbers and make it seem like its a lot higher than it actually is.

  3. E8hffff
    August 25, 2015

    Good idea but I can see this holding up Vowney production.

    • Dante
      August 25, 2015

      Why are you living only on elephone posts huh?

      • E8hffff
        August 25, 2015

        Because they are the only ones with a frontline hardware based phone at a good price. They are also advocate for releasing the kernel source code which will allow me to build a rom for it. I’m hanging for it to be released.

        I looked at OnePlus 2 but their specs are not to my liking. The front camera has to be 8MP or better, theirs is 5MP . The back camera 20MP or a really nice lower MP camera, theirs is 13MP but ok.

        • balcobomber25
          August 26, 2015

          What good is the front line hardware if it is cheaply built and breaks after a week? Trust us there are much better brands to follow and idolize in this industry. They can have an 8mp and 20mp sensors and still take terrible photos, I can show you a dozen 8mp front sensors that are horrible compared to really good 5mp ones.

          • E8hffff
            August 26, 2015

            So far reports are to a quality built unit. The proof will be in a final review. Regarding the cameras 5MP is way too small and aged now. 20MP is also not so revolutionary and should be the base level now. If I go to a photo shop to print images I want to be taking in PNG or TIF files, not JPGs.

            • balcobomber25
              August 26, 2015

              So far reports are horrible build quality for Elephone. Maybe that will magically change with the Vowney but based on past history it’s not likely. Again just because it has a “newer” 8mp sensor doesn’t mean it is going to have better pictures You don’t seem to understand that the MP number is one very small part of good pictures. The Iphone 6 uses an 8mp sensor and takes better pictures than phones with 13, 16 and 20mp sensors. Why? Because they use excellent optics and software. Oh and that measly 8mp sensor handles TIF files.

            • E8hffff
              August 26, 2015

              Sorry to hear you have a 8MP camera and that’s why you’re hammering me that it’s suffice. I actually like to target latest tech and finality. I want images I can zoom in on and get the definition. I don’t want low-res with colour trickery. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate good lens technology.

            • balcobomber25
              August 26, 2015

              Actually I don’t, I have a Meizu MX5 with 20.7 mp sensor. It is very good but it has very little to do with being a 20.7 mp sensor, its good because they used good optics and they rewrote all the algorithms for the sensor. My last phone was a Xiaomi Mi4 with 13mp sensor, it took excellent photos as well. I have also used phones that have 13 and 20mp sensors that took horrible pictures. I am not hammering you I just don’t want you to fall into the trap many do with Elephone. They see good specs on paper and then regret it later.

            • E8hffff
              August 26, 2015

              Thx. I wont be buying the Vowney till there is a review.

            • balcobomber25
              August 27, 2015

              I’m not trying to bring you down or anything just many of fell into this trap before with Elephone (P7000). We fell for the marketing and spec sheet and were let down by the final product. I would wait a few weeks till after release and check the Android forums for reviews from real users. It could very well end up being a good phone, but also keep in mind Elephone’s other issue has been product support. With each new phone an older one gets dropped from getting support. And that older one might be 3-4 months old.

            • E8hffff
              August 27, 2015

              Valid comment! Cheers.

      • E8hffff
        August 25, 2015

        I am starting to get worried though as Elephone are doing stupid business moves. One example is this Truck Phone. Unless they know for certain 3rd world market sale capacity, then it’s a waste of resources and money. Their company must be running up bank loans to fund the next production and as each returns little to no profit it means bankruptcy. They need to concentrate on a few models and get big sales and inspiration. There’s goodwill in the Vowney but they are sabotaging its success with other campaigns and delays.

        • Dante
          August 26, 2015

          Right ?

  4. E8hffff
    August 25, 2015

    If they could crowd source to get a $10 2010 style phone, would I want it, NO. Make what people want. Example make the cheapest front-line technological phone.

  5. Marius Cirsta
    August 25, 2015

    It’s not a bad phone but it’s really not much better ( if any ) than my 3 years old LG Optimus G so I’m not interested …. it’s cheap though I’ll give them that.

    • Dante
      August 26, 2015

      You use The first Gen G?

      • Marius Cirsta
        August 26, 2015

        Yup, F180L converted to E975 as I live in the EU.

        • Dante
          August 26, 2015

          Yo live in romania or something?

          • Marius Cirsta
            August 26, 2015

            Haha, actually I do but I got my LG from China … second hand but it’s been doing just fine since I go it.

            • Dante
              August 26, 2015

              your name was sugestive lol

            • Dante
              August 27, 2015

              Ive Got a spare G2 – Just Sayin

            • Marius Cirsta
              August 28, 2015

              Lol, nah I’m good… not much a G2 has to offer that I want. Next one will probably be an UMI Zero 2 or something with e-ink 🙂

  6. Freeje
    August 25, 2015

    1387 fools and counting.

  7. hans
    August 25, 2015

    looks like the chinese stockmarket works the same

  8. Tommy
    August 26, 2015

    why this phone is so cheap

    • .
      August 26, 2015

      Because it’s trash

      • Tommy
        August 27, 2015

        it is not good to attack others, if you don’t like their phone you can give some reasons

    • R. Tina
      September 2, 2015

      the more people order the cheaper the phone is,you can follow their website elephone.hk or elephone.cc to check it, good luck

      • Tommy
        September 2, 2015

        thanks , i will check it , i want to know the more information for elephone, i’m interested in it, hahaah

  9. Dante
    August 26, 2015

    i am a snapdragon fanboy myself but I hope that chinese companies dont use it anymore – Youknowwhatimtalkimgabout

  10. bilbao
    August 26, 2015

    Great specs, that price thing is funny, but i don’t think there will be 300K people x) However, it’s free, so you can do it ! And price will decrease a bit (small bit).

  11. Stephen Opara
    September 5, 2015

    We’ve all seen this type of thing in the past where they got customers dough tied down with the phones never forthcoming!…. Let’s see how Elephone will do it this time around without giving excuses why the phones aren’t ready…do anyone remember the Umi dream days?…..

  12. George
    September 17, 2015

    This even is not real, as I got a mail saying, you won this with other 20 & asking to contact seller, but seller required a code, elephone.hk not answering, hope it’s a scsm