Samsung Galaxy Pocket and Huawei Gaga, low-cost smartphones designed to lure new shoppers to either brands and the Android platform.

This week has seen the launch of Samsung Galaxy pocket and  Huawei Gaga which are both low end smart phones that I will almost term as feature phones since android demands alot of computing power to run smoothly. Samsung Galaxy Pocket  compares not so well against the Huawei Gaga in terms of features and even pricing whereby Samsung cost KES 9,999 against the Huawei Gaga which costs KES 8,799.

I must say I am not a fan of low end smart phones in this time and era since you can get fairly priced smart phones just by topping up a few bucks but it is good to see that Samsung and Huawei are working hard to put smart phones in the hands of many consumers which is more of a dream come true. It is however important for the likes of Huawei and Samsung to realize that they have the power to end their dumping tendencies and bring to the peoples' quality phones that can last over 6 months before being obsolete rather than just enhancing the company's brand awareness and market penetration.

As I was on my to town this morning, I noticed long queues at the phone Express only to realize that Samsung is offering the two Galaxy Pocket phones at the price of one. Only in Kenya do you hear of such a thing and it rises no suspicion from the likes of CCK, consumer groups and so but then again who cares. The most interesting thing I heard from the security guards is that; they vouched for Android saying, "Android the most serious platform that you can have" and even one of them went ahead to tell me about the features. I wish I had enough cash to buy like ten and sell them at a profit when the stocks run out... I know I am not the only one with such thoughts. 

My view is that this gives Android market share mileage as compared to the likes of IOS and windows but at what cost to the consumers? Why cant service providers do better subsidizing of handsets and get at least 1GHZ of and better quality than what they bringing now? It is NO secret that Android is a good OS for service providers as it is data intensive with a lot of stuff running in the background which means more money to the telcos and more hustle to the consumer. I wouldn't mind if it was a smart phone costing me that much.

You can as well get the Huawei Gaga from all the Orange Kenya Outlets and it is bundled with free one month unlimited data from Orange and will be valid for 30 days on activation, after you top up with any amount of airtime.

Well if you interested in grabbing yourself two of the Samsung Galaxy Pockets which comes with  yellow, white,

orange, pink and back covers here then here is a list of the stores are :( BUY ONE GET ONE FREE)

NAIROBI –

1. SAFARITEL, MAMA NGINA STREET

2. FONE EXPRESS HAILE SAELASSIE 
3. MAKARIM, HILTON ARCARDE

4. FONE EXPRESS, NAKUMATT GALLERIA 
5. SAFARICOM, BURU BURU

6. SAFARICOM, EASTLEIGH

7. SAFARICOM, NAKUMAT MEGA 
8. AIRTEL, SARIT CENTRE 9. AIRTEL, KOINANGE STREET

KISUMU 

1. KENSHOP, OGINGA ODINGA,

2. FONE EXPRESS, NYANZA NAKUMATT 
3. SAFARICOM JUBILEE – OGINGA ODINGA

ELDORET 

1. DHAVAL EMPORIUM, UGANDA ROAD 2. SAFARICOM OGINGA ODINGA

MOMBASA 

1. JV SHAH, HOSPITAL STREET

2. FONE EXPRESS, NAKUMATT NYALI 
3. SAFARICOM, REX – MOI AVENUE

4. AIRTEL, MOI AVENUE