If you were to look into the cell phone market just a couple of years ago, you would had only found about 5 – 6 companies to choose from. Today, the options have increased and thanks to the open source nature of Android, cell phone companies are popping up left and right. Sure, you have your major players in the form of Samsung, Sony, HTC and to some extent Q Mobile (in Pakistan) but there are still a lot of other brands which are dubbed as “China phones” for simplicity.
So, who are these “China Phone” producers and should they really be given any spotlight? Well, in terms of opening up the market and making cheaper alternative available to the market, the answer is yes! There is a prime reason why online retailers and local shop keepers explicitly feature these devices: these devices promise premium features for almost quarter of the cost, making their sale among non tech savvy people all the more easier.
The downside is that this has inevitably flooded the market with devices that often end up being nothing but cheap garbage which underperform and give problems from day 1. There are undoubtedly a few Chinese manufacturers such as OPPO which do manage to produce high end, innovative flagship devices but then again we don’t really consider their phones to fall in the above mentioned category of “China Phones”.
Another key thing to remember here is that not all China Phone producers are Chinese. We, just like the general populace of the country, are also putting manufacturers such as Haier and Innjoo in the same boat. The term basically is derived from the sheer subpar quality, cheapness and the ability to break down at any point in time of everyday Chinese devices available in Pakistan. Sure, some of their devices may meet expectations but most of their smart phones are nothing but an improperly cracked joke and simply give a bad name to Android devices in general.
Even when these devices are well done, any customer who uses their phones for anything but the sheer purpose of calling people and watching videos can’t help but feel a bit underwhelmed by the device’s performance in the long run. Just take the example of Q-Mobile and Samsung, both of their premier flagship devices often provide similar features. For the average cell phone user, both of these devices behave exactly the same with Samsung being just a big company taking advantage of its name. However, if we were to compare both of these devices in terms of performance and longevity, we would clearly see the reason for the higher price tag of the Galaxy series. The one thing to remember here is that we are comparing brands which promise to bring you same features as the high end devices just at the quarter of the cost! We are fully aware that there are companies out there which have managed to produce the same if not better smart phones as the Galaxy/Xperia/One series for almost half the price tag.
No, we are not picking on Q-Mobile or any other Pakistan based cell phone manufacturers, as we have nothing but respect for them. These companies have not only managed to produce above par devices in the low end price range but they have also helped the country’s economy by creating job opportunities for a lot of people. The only purpose of the aforementioned example was to highlight the differences between the two major cell phone brands in the Pakistani market at this time.
Almost all of this is negligible compared to these manufacturers greatest crime of not making their source code public. This not only dampens any after market development for these devices but has also resulted in them having unpatchable security flaws as quite often these manufacturers only care about chugging devices out into the market and not maintaining the software of their already available ones.
In conclusion, yes these cheaper devices do manage to provide their users with premium features and faster speeds at almost quarter the cost but the hard truth remains that most of these smart phones do underperform and usually aren’t fast enough to patch up any security flaws that are uncovered, making them nothing but a shiny piece of jewelry you carry as a status symbol.
