Great South African 4G smartphone you can buy for under R600

South Africans looking to upgrade to a 4G-capable smartphone do not need to break the bank, and the Mobicel F50 is an excellent option for residents at R599.

The government wants to shut down the country’s 2G and 3G networks. South Africans without 4G or 5G-capable devices will be left unable to communicate over cellular networks when the shutdown becomes a reality.

Mobicel is South Africa’s only successful smartphone brand, and the F50 offers a variety of helpful features at the price point, including a 5-inch display, a decent rear camera, and expandable storage.

The smartphone ships with 16GB of storage, and users can increase storage by up to 16GB with a microSD card.

While the default storage may seem small compared to more premium devices, the Mobicel F50 runs Android 13 Go, a stripped-down version of the Android 13 operating system OS), which doesn’t require as many resources or as much storage as other OSes.

The Mobicel F50’s 5-inch full-wide video graphics array (FWVGA+) display has an 854 x 480-pixel resolution. Regarding performance, it packs an octa-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor combined with 2GB of RAM.

The smartphone has a five-megapixel rear camera with flash and a VGA selfie camera.

Battery life is important for many South Africans when buying a new smartphone. The Mobicel F50 packs a 2,200mAh battery, which it says provides up to four hours of talk time and up to 220 hours of standby time.

The Mobicel F50’s 4G data service supports the full spectrum of LTE networks, and it can download data at up to 150Mbit/s and upload data at up to 50Mbit/s.

It also includes a wide range of helpful features, including a proximity sensor, G sensor, GPS, flashlight, and FM radio. However, the FM radio only works over earphones through a 3.5mm jack.

The table below lists the specifications for the Mobicel F50.

South Africa’s only successful smartphone brand

While it isn’t the only South African company to venture into phone production, Mobicel can be considered the country’s only successful phone brand.

Brands like the African-founded and Dubai-based Mara Phones have tried and failed in the South African market.

Mobicel launched roughly 18 years ago and has since released hundreds of phone models. Polokwane-born Ridhwan Khan founded the company in 2007 after running a successful phone refurbishment business between 2002 and 2007.

“I saw the opportunity to strike the perfect balance between affordability and quality, with the ultimate aim to manufacture a local range of devices,” he said.

Khan used the profit from his refurbishment company to launch Mobicel and ordered a custom-made phone that he believed would prove popular in the South African market.

Today, Mobicel’s phones are sold by all four of South Africa’s major mobile networks, as well as large retail players like Pep and Ackermans.

Many of its devices are assembled at its production facility in Johannesburg, and according to Khan, there is a big focus on customer service and ensuring value for customers.

“In our box, we have a warranty card and a hotline which they can contact, and online support. We take this seriously,” he said.

Khan was even carbon-copied on Mobicel’s call centre email at one point. He said he went through every email at the end of the day and would reply to customers himself at times.

He recognises the value of brand loyalty in the lower-end market.

“The top-end of the market is brand conscious, not brand loyal,” says Khan.

“The bottom of the market isn’t like that. They want value, (but) affordability is not the only thing we offer.”

“We’re offering a product, value add, after-sales, and we can upsell you onto something better when you are done with that product,” he said.