Google plans to price its Project Ara modular smartphone at $50

Remember Google Project Ara? Last October, Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group, then a part of Google, announced an interesting partnership with PhoneBloks with the goal of creating highly modular smartphones that customers could build and update themselves much like the LEGO bricks. Phonebloks, a partner of Google in this ambitious project recently released a video to share some insides on this “Build it Yourself” Smartphone project focusing on the team behind it.

We can see an early prototype of the device’s main module, the Endo, into which all other modules are inserted. These modules are kept in place using electro permanent magnets. Which basically means their magnetic effect is controllable and can be maintained without a continuous supply of electrical energy.

Since the whole Smartphone is built with pieces of these electro permanent magnates you can easily swap parts of the phone by simply using an app. From a design point of view here is what the team says:

We ended up deciding that embracing this block and modular aesthetic was part of the phone. Let’s not hide it or put it behind the cover.

Perhaps the best design statement we could make was that this phone can flow and adapt just as much as our lives flow and adapt. And that in itself  is an aesthetic. 

The frame, will come in three sizes: an iPhone-like Mini with six parts, a 4.7-inch Medium and a nine-module Phablet, which is about a third larger than Medium. The back of the frame has a bunch of rectangular slots of various sizes.

The Smartphone module in the project Ara is expected to cost around $50(around rs 3,000) which is way less the current price of many smartphones in the market. If Google succeeds in making these modular Smartphone as interesting this cannot be less than revolution. Imagine buying different pieces of a Smartphone like camera and processor and upgrading it by yourself whenever you want instead of buying a new phone.

Google is expected to make more announcements at the First Project Ara Development Conference which is scheduled for April 15 2014 scheduled location in Mountain View, California.

We would like to know your views about Project Ara.