Smartphones5.11.2014

MTN Steppa 2 announced

By Jan Vermeulen

MTN has revealed the Steppa 2, the successor to its popular and affordable branded Android smartphone which it launched at the start of 2014.

Speaking to journalists at a press event in Johannesburg on Wednesday, 5 November 2014, MTN said that it is keeping pricing information under wraps for “competitive reasons”.

The Steppa 2 is expected to launch in the last week of November, MTN said.

MTN announced the original MTN Steppa towards the end of 2013, saying that it wanted to shake up the South African smartphone market. It launched in early 2014.

Based on Qualcomm Reference Designs, MTN said that the Steppa was not an ultra-low-cost device, but rather “the most affordable high-performance smartphone ever”.

Mike Fairon, MTN South Africa’s head of products and solutions, said that the MTN Steppa was the second best-selling smartphone in South Africa during April 2014.

More than 80% of the subscribers who bought the Steppa had never owned a 3G-capable device before, and MTN saw a 3-fold average increase in data consumption among these users.

The MTN Steppa 2 features a 4“ WVGA display, is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor, and runs on Android 4.3 ”Jelly Bean”.

Pre-empting questions about why the Steppa 2 doesn’t run on Android 4.4, Qualcomm’s Dominique Friedl told journalists at the press event that it takes some time to put a device together.

However, he promised that the Steppa 2 would be upgradable to Android 4.4 KitKat.

The rest of the MTN Steppa 2’s key specifications are summarised in the table below.

Specifications	MTN Steppa 2
Dimensions	127 x 64 x 11mm
Operating system	Android 4.3 (upgradable to 4.4)
Display	4″ WVGA (480×800)
Rear camera	5MP
Front camera	0.3MP
Storage, internal	4GB
Storage, expandable	microSD
RAM	512MB
Processor	1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon 200
Graphics	Adreno 302
Battery	1,500mAh
Cellular data	HSPA+ (up to 42Mbps)