Smartphone speed shootout - R449 Mobicel Astro vs R19,999 Samsung Galaxy S10+

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Smartphone speed shootout - R449 Mobicel Astro vs R19,999 Samsung Galaxy S10+

New data from Counterpoint Research, MTN, and Vodacom has revealed that the two most popular smartphones in South Africa are the Mobicel Astro and Hisense U962.

There is a good reason for their popularity: the Mobicel Astro costs only R449 while the Hisense U962 gives a fairly good user experience for its R899 price tag.
 
Dumb question, why not find a phone that has basic LTE, then LTE-A/aggregation support (think Cat6 onwards?) then another with Cat13, then LTE Cat.20 support?
Plus network itself must support it. Had 120/40Mbps on Telkom in CT CBD, Cat6 device.

The article also doesn't mention network support, Cat6 is probably as much as you need for a while. Both the "competing" phones in that article are 3G only.

EDIT: Cheapest I could find on the Telkom portal, comes in at R129 including FreeMe 500Mb, which is R70pm, so the phone is R60pm / ~1200.
https://secure.telkom.co.za/today/shop/personal/device/samsung-galaxy-j2-core/

So R300 more expensive than the U962 (or 1/3 more), which is probably a deal breaker for many, but it's a substantially better phone.
it has LTE Cat4 support, so 150/50Mbps.
 
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Johnatan56 said:
Dumb question, why not find a phone that has basic LTE, then LTE-A/aggregation support (think Cat6 onwards?) then another with Cat13, then LTE Cat.20 support?
Plus network itself must support it. Had 120/40Mbps on Telkom in CT CBD, Cat6 device.

The article also doesn't mention network support, Cat6 is probably as much as you need for a while. Both the "competing" phones in that article are 3G only.
Click to expand...

That would be interesting. Telkom does 2CA at most and MTN does 3CA with 4CA in some places where they refarmed more 2G spectrum. Something that would be really nice is to do the speed difference when using 2x2 mimo instead of 4x4 mimo and the carrier aggregation combos.

Would give a better indication of what you can expect when buying a device.

That said even though the Mobicel only has 3G the 4Mbps average is still decent to have a buffer free video stream on at least 720p which is not bad.
 
cavedog said:
That would be interesting. Telkom does 2CA at most and MTN does 3CA with 4CA in some places where they refarmed more 2G spectrum. Something that would be really nice is to do the speed difference when using 2x2 mimo instead of 4x4 mimo and the carrier aggregation combos.

Would give a better indication of what you can expect when buying a device.

That said even though the Mobicel only has 3G the 4Mbps average is still decent to have a buffer free video stream on at least 720p which is not bad.
Click to expand...
I think they're more likely to watch at 360p if they even watch YouTube as the data cost would be quite high compared to the cost of the phone.
I'd also be interested to see if they had a time of no/very low throughput, since that would be what frustrates users rather than a lower average (since most will work around average while being frustrated that at random times it's slow when they're busy, within reason of course(that the average is high enough for basic usage)).
 
Johnatan56 said:
I think they're more likely to watch at 360p if they even watch YouTube as the data cost would be quite high compared to the cost of the phone.
I'd also be interested to see if they had a time of no/very low throughput, since that would be what frustrates users rather than a lower average (since most will work around average while being frustrated that at random times it's slow when they're busy, within reason of course(that the average is high enough for basic usage)).
Click to expand...

Well MTN does have some decent deals on their double data deals like 500MB+500MB anytime data valid for 30days for R25 on prepaid. You can also data share that bundle for free by adding numbers to your MTN data share list and share the bundles without having to transfer it which is nice.

20190408_205007.jpg
 
cavedog said:
Well MTN does have some decent deals on their double data deals like 500MB+500MB anytime data valid for 30days for R25 on prepaid. You can also data share that bundle for free by adding numbers to your MTN data share list and share the bundles without having to transfer it which is nice.

View attachment 643390
Click to expand...
If you're buying a R500 phone, R25 is still quite a bit. They're probably mostly taking advantage of WhatsApp bundles.
At Uni I actually show people Telkom Mo'Nice and FreeMe, most are shocked when I show them R25 for 2GB as a daily deal, or the R99 FreeMe with WhatsApp data as a lot of them are actually on Vodacom so high costs. Plus the Telkom R29 for 150MB and 500MB social media data.
Telkom Mo'Nice.png
Yours is also randomly selected I assume? Mine hasn't ever changed I think, but I don't use as the 1GB FreeMe is enough for my usage.

Telkom has LTE signal in pretty much all of CT for me, but I do tell them to check their area before they move over.
 
I don't understand the point of this test. The Samsung's performance is in line with what you could expect from 4G and the other two are basically your run of the mill 3G speeds on an average day.

Basically you get what you pay for, or sometimes a little less.
 
I got 160Mbps on my Mate20Pro (Cat21) on Vodacom once
 
I'm often asked by people on a budget which phone they should buy. I'd love more articles featuring cheaper phones.
Some of us spend more per month on cell contracts than many people earn.
 
Captain Beer said:
I'm often asked by people on a budget which phone they should buy. I'd love more articles featuring cheaper phones.
Some of us spend more per month on cell contracts than many people earn.
Click to expand...
I'd hope not, my contract is three days minimum wage. :p
 
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