Android One freebies and offers: Free app downloads, Newsstand subscriptions and more

Google has finally released Android One , which looks poised to sweep the budget segment with devices at affordable prices and a pure Android experience.

Along with the affordable devices , Google has also announced what seems like a push towards scaling up Internet adoption in developing markets such as India. While India is a huge market for mobile phones, it’s mainly the urban crowd that browses the Internet with smartphones. Now that Google has tried to make smartphones a more feasible purchase, it’s trying to encourage them to move to the Internet as well. This is pretty evident with the data offers bundled with the newly-launched Android One smartphones.

Free downloads through Airtel

Airtel is giving away free Android updates up to 100MB per month and app downloads up to 200MB per month for six months. This means a major chunk of essential data download costs gets covered by switching to an Android One device with Airtel as the carrier.

Free reading for a year

Making information across the globe accessible to mobile users, the Play Newsstand app allows reading news and magazines on the go. And with Android One,  Google is offering a free subscription to Newsstand for a year - so Android One users can read full articles and watch videos, which would otherwise be paid-for. Newsstand subscriptions were previously not available in India.

Offline YouTube videos

Offline videos means that videophiles can save YouTube videos and watch them later . If there’s a video you really like and want to share it with your friends, you don’t need to search and stream the video twice. Google will allow Android One users to watch videos even when not connected to the Internet. You can download a video once, save it to your phone, and watch it again and again. But unlike other services, this feature is not available immediately. Google has not given us a specific date, but has announced that the service will be made available in the coming weeks.

Apart from these add-ons, Android One devices will come with automatic backup on Google Drive, two-year software support from Google, carrier billing and  other additional features such as Google Now integration for IRCTC train reservations and updated sports cards. Though the phones ship with Android KitKat 4.4.4, you can expect Android L when it is released officially. Since Android One has launched in India first, the devices will have support for seven Indian languages including Hindi.