When speaking of budget smartphones, Samsung doesn’t come to mind. This is because the company has strongly position itself as a premium brand pushing flagship devices and higher midrange offerings.
Things are however about to change as the Korean company is working on releasing a number of budget smartphones running on the Android Go platform. Of course, it’s not the first time that Samsung has made budget smartphones, but it’s the first time they seem to be putting in effort while at it.
The budget smartphones would be targeted at emerging markets (including Kenya) in a move that is perceived to curb the rising popularity of Chinese-branded smartphones that offer decent specifications at low prices.
Since Google launched the platform, we have seen a number of companies take it up with open arms. Locally, in Kenya, we have Nokia and itel who have pushed Android Go-powered into the market.
Samsung already enjoys brand equity and a budget offering from them, especially one with Android Go will be well received, but only if it’s well priced.
Going into specifications, there’s nothing official from the company but in true Android Go nature, the devices will definitely have 1GB of RAM. An interesting thing to watch would be to see whether the company will ditch their own Samsung Experience UI in favour of Stock Android.
There’s no timeline placed on the arrival of the devices but my guess is we’ll be seeing them sooner than we’ll see the Galaxy Note 9. Would you buy a Samsung smartphone running on Android Go?
