Emerging markets like Africa, South America and India have been having a steady growth in mobile use, most of phone manufacturers who develop on the low to mid range have noticed this and are spreading their wings to grab this market while it’s hot. Back here in Africa, a huge percentage of internet users have had their first internet experience on a mobile phone. I cant lay my hands right now on the actual stats source, so if you can please notify me in the comments. These stats mean that there is a very fast mobile phone adoption in this market and not only are mobile phone consumers spending more but they are also growing more aware of their needs when making mobile phone purchases. They are also growing in preferences. What a user would have spent money on last year is not what they would on the same budget, they expect more.
Since the entry of sub $120 dollar phones in the recent past, low end smartphones use has grown, and you know that after a user has tasted the honey that is using a smartphone, they dont backslide, unless the budget prohibits them. The Huawei Ideos U8150 sold by Safaricom, Kenya’s largest Mobile Network Operator by numbers changed this, and users have been upgrading in their droves from the feature phone to the smartphone.
In our market, currently selling we have three android phones that launched on the same day, different manufacturers. These are the Samsung Galaxy Pocket, LG Optimus L3 and the Huawei Gaga U8180 and this would prompt an average user to ask, ”why would I purchase one and not the other?” We have been having a conversation on twitter with the usual gadget geeks Bobby @mwirigi ‘Steve Kiarie @stevekiarie and Latiff Cherono @nairobiwp7 about what the advantages and selling points of each would be. These guys are good if you need to be updated on what a device offers, and are also informal customer service peeps for some device manufacturers. That’s a follow Friday right there.
So Latiff went ahead and did a specifications comparison chart to ease the work of someone who could have missed the conversation and would love to follow. These are the technical specifications of the phones, including a fourth one to make the list of:
Samsung Galaxy Pocket, LG Optimus L3, Huawei Gaga U8180 and one of the recently announced Nokia Ashas, the Asha 311.
Note: It’s not Symbian Series 40 but Series 40 which is an OS on it’s own, completely independent of Symbian. See details here:
As we can see the specs and the prices are not far off. Atleast each of them has one area where they stand out, for example, the Galaxy Pocket stands out with the 3GB internal storage,Bluetooth version 3.0, the OS version being Gingerbread(that they share with the LG) and the pixel per density it’s second from the Asha 311.The lows are the 2mp camera and the 128Mb RAM. The Nokia 311 stands out for the pixel per density, Gorilla glass and has the highest processor at 1GHz. Lows for this one are the VGA video recording, lack of multi-tasking and the 140MB internal storage. It also has the lowest spec battery, though this may not quite work against it since it doesnt have the always-on feature android devices have with automatic sync and push notifications to strain the battery. The Huawei Gaga has the fighest frames per second on the video shooter at 25 QVGA and the 512MB ROM.Low point is the OS version which is Android 2.2.2 Froyo, it also has the lowest processor at 528Mhz, though this is compensated by the fact that it is the lowest priced in the bunch. LG Optimus L3’s strongest point is the battery which is a 1500mAh which promises a 10h talktime then it has a 3inch screen(with the lowest pixel per density) but at the same time the highest in price.
Tell us in the comments what you think of each, the comparison and what would drive you to purchase the one you would.
