Google is reportedly making a pilot market of its much awaited modular smartphone, known as Spiral 2, set on the second half of 2015 in Puerto Rico.
According to Wired, Google's pilot project, which was announced by Regina Dugan during Project Ara Conference in Mountain View, Calif. will use a food truck style vans to act as a portable store in its modular smartphones consumer experience for users to decide whether they would want to buy it or not.
To roll out the pilot project, Google will be partnered by two carriers in the said "diverse" United States territory, OpenMobile and Claro. According to Mashable, Google's Paul Eremenko said that as of the moment Spiral 2 has 11 prototypes available though they are planning to present 20 to 30 modular smartphones during its launch.
Google's move on making this Lego blocks-like modular smartphone is an attempt to create an affordable and most customized Android product that will cater to 5 billion people. Spiral 2 will allow users to build their own phone by swapping its parts - battery, processor, camera and even its power jack.
The pilot market of Google in Puerto Rico is said to determine how well the product acceptance will go. Google wants to know what consumers think about the modular phone such as its advantage, disadvantage and what it lacks.
The modular smartphone is equipped with Nvidia Tegra K1 chipset, a 720p display resolution and a 5MP snapper, much more like a high-end smartphone compared to the first modular phone called Spiral 1 that was introduced in 2014. It is also a 3G capable modular phone with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
On the other hand, Spiral 3 prototype, which is said to have a 4G LTE functionality, is set to be introduced later this year.