So i dropped and smashed my vodafone ultra 6 and have just purchased this from Argos £14.99 and a £10 top up as a temperally measure till after Christmas.

Looks ok, Small screen, only 3g , and biggest problem only 512mb ram with 4g rom
but for the price its great value running android lollipop 5.1

Will see me through till after Christmas n decide what to buy then.

http://www.argos.co.uk/product/5654640

I appreciate this is a very low specification smartphone, but when you consider the selling price includes VAT, the retailers margin, transportation costs, import duty, etc then I've no idea how the Chinese manufacturer manages to turn any profit at all.

That's because Vodafone would have heavily subsidised the handset, like all networks do on their PAYG phones.

Especially with regards to cheaper phones, the price you pay is often less than the cost of manufacture.

The networks hope to make their money back through future top-ups. This is why almost all PAYG phones are locked. If you buy a cheap PAYG phone, unlock it immediately and use another network's SIM inside with no intention of using the original SIM, the network probably makes a loss on the phone.

The fact that the Smart Ultra 6 was so easily unlockable probably cost Vodafone a lot of money as the £99 asking price was, in my opinion, probably less than what it cost to make. I think the Smart Ultra 7 and Platinum 7 are now made by Alcatel which makes them harder to unlock.