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Johannesburg - Mobile network Vodacom’s launch of a R799 smartphone in South Africa this week has mostly received praise from Fin24 users.
On Tuesday the mobile network announced the launch of its Smart 6 branded smartphone which is equipped with Android 4.4.
The smartphone packs features such as 400 x 800 pixel resolution, a one Gigahertz dual core processor, 512MB of RAM, a 1 400 milliampere hour battery that has seven hours of talk-time, and 4GB built-in memory.
The Vodacom branded smartphone is one of many cheaper smartphones to hit the South African mobile phone market this year.
READ MORE: Vodacom launches R799 smartphone
Earlier this year, Vodacom also launched its Smart 4 Turbo LTE enabled smartphone, which is priced at R1 499.
MTN, meanwhile, is selling its Android enabled Steppa 2 smartphone at R799 on prepaid.
Other low price smartphones to launch in the SA market this year include Microsoft’s Lumia 535 - a dual-SIM Windows Phone device that costs R1 699 on prepaid and R149 per month on contract.
The prices of these devices are much lower than Vodacom's costing of Samsung's latest S6 smartphones in SA.
Earlier this year, Vodacom announced that it's selling the The standard Samsung Galaxy S6 LTE 32GB for R12 399 and the S6 Edge LTE 64GB, which has an edged screen feature, for R16 149.
In light of Vodacom’s R799 smartphone then, Fin24 users say low cost smartphones are the way to go.
“I think this is nice for people who have the money. But as a pensioner we have to stick to the cheapies. But this phone sounds wonderful and would like to have one,” wrote Fin24 user Louis Malan.
Fin24 user Samsonlefawana is also a fan of cheaper smartphones.
“Cheaper for me will do...waterproof or no waterproof, safety first...they have almost the same features anyway...so I go for cheaper,” said Samsonlefawana
However, Fin24 user NI Samuel is keen to stay with the more expensive brands.
“I will stay with iPhone no matter what,” NI Samuel wrote to Fin24.
Fin24 user Stuart, meanwhile, said he “would be happy to buy a cheaper smartphone”.
And Fin24 user Sharmaine also said that she prefers “affordability as the Vodacom Cheaper Smartphone will suit me fine”.
Fin24 user Nico Smith currently owns a higher range smartphone but is considering buying a cheaper device in future.
“I currently own a Galaxy S4, but I'll definitely buy one of the cheaper brands next time. I bought a R2 000 ZTE for my wife recently and the difference in screen resolution is not so noticeable to justify the huge difference in price, neither does the picture quality of the camera. The type of pictures that one normally takes with a phone does not require the best quality possible. These pictures are seldom printed, but rather posted on facebook or forwarded by MMS or Whatsapp. The rest of the bells and whistles contained in these expensive phones are seldom if ever used in practise. They entertain one's friends the first time around and then they are never used again,” Smith wrote.
“As far as I'm concerned my wife's ZTE even works better than my expensive Galaxy,” Smith added.
Fin24 user Karabo Mamabolo, though, is more wary of Vodacom’s cheap branded smartphones.
“Vodacom data is the most expensive hence the spike in their data revenue. These guys are charging us to death, they must lower their data costs and stop selling their branded phones. We will buy more data for our high end reliable phones,” wrote Mamabolo.
Finally, Fin24 user Schalk Walters had this to say: “I will stick to my top of the range technology”.
