Lupus
Honorary Master
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2006
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I decided to get my nieces two phones as theirs were gone over the years and I've noticed that since we got them two phones two years ago, the budget market hasn't really moved on. You're still only getting quad core mediatek chips, 512MB to 1GB of RAM and maybe 8gig to 16gig roms from the R600 to R1200 range.
Their mother originally asked me to look for one in the R399 range, which I saw the Vodafone Kicka 4 VE going for roughly that price, stating 8gig ROM, quad core cpu and 512mb ram running Android 9 Go. So I got it thinking the specs for that price match a lot of the other phones sitting at R599, yeah turns out that the Spectrum SOC sucks, it really really sucks. I could barely navigate through the phone to enter in the Google password.
My wife made us drive back and return that phone, we ended up with two different brands with "similar" specs to the Vodafone but they were bigger screens and R200 more.
The Mobicell Blink - 16GB rom, 512 MB ram and it is a quad core but I didn't see which one, it's running 8.1 Go though not 9. Screen is 5" but resolution is sub 720p, clarity isn't too bad, there is some distortion when moving off to the sides but not to bad, Go on here runs strangely well, though there's only ever 150 to 200megs free, while the Kicka 4 VE was always 100 to 140 megs free. It's not going to blow you away with speed but for a 13 year old it does the job. Camera is supposedly 5mp.
Techno Pop X2 or something - 8GB Rom and 1GB ram, other than it's almost exactly the same as the Blink above. Though the screen is not as good as the Blink, because of the 1GB it feels slightly faster it normally goes for R50 more than the Blink but it was the same price so my eldest niece got this one.
So for budget phones there's still really no good option unless you start going to R1200+ for Xiaomi or maybe Doogee phones which Cash Crusader stock.
Their mother originally asked me to look for one in the R399 range, which I saw the Vodafone Kicka 4 VE going for roughly that price, stating 8gig ROM, quad core cpu and 512mb ram running Android 9 Go. So I got it thinking the specs for that price match a lot of the other phones sitting at R599, yeah turns out that the Spectrum SOC sucks, it really really sucks. I could barely navigate through the phone to enter in the Google password.
My wife made us drive back and return that phone, we ended up with two different brands with "similar" specs to the Vodafone but they were bigger screens and R200 more.
The Mobicell Blink - 16GB rom, 512 MB ram and it is a quad core but I didn't see which one, it's running 8.1 Go though not 9. Screen is 5" but resolution is sub 720p, clarity isn't too bad, there is some distortion when moving off to the sides but not to bad, Go on here runs strangely well, though there's only ever 150 to 200megs free, while the Kicka 4 VE was always 100 to 140 megs free. It's not going to blow you away with speed but for a 13 year old it does the job. Camera is supposedly 5mp.
Techno Pop X2 or something - 8GB Rom and 1GB ram, other than it's almost exactly the same as the Blink above. Though the screen is not as good as the Blink, because of the 1GB it feels slightly faster it normally goes for R50 more than the Blink but it was the same price so my eldest niece got this one.
So for budget phones there's still really no good option unless you start going to R1200+ for Xiaomi or maybe Doogee phones which Cash Crusader stock.
