Phantom A: high performance, competitive pricing

 Last night, someone handed me a phone and asked me to have a feel for a few minutes. It was a big touchscreen phone and had a build so at par with Samsung’s Galaxy range that I immediately assumed it was the S3 or S4. The white solid plastic external hardware had a very premium feel – the very same feel of the Galaxy flagships.

Flipping it over, my eyes spied the branding: TECNO. There was also an 8 megapixel camera there. I stood in shock and turned the phone in my hands again and again. Quickly, I dived into the Settings and checked About Phone, where all doubts were dispelled. I was holding in my hands a unit of the yet-to-be-launched new TECNO Phantom A (F7) flagship.

I had read up about the F7 before last night and knew about its 4.1 Jelly Bean Android version, 8 megapixel camera, 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 5-inch display. I had also seen an official photo by TECNO themselves. But holding one in my hands still shocked me. I mean, here was a smartphone with top-notch build, a very slim profile (9.1mm only), up-to-date OS, and smooth performance. Did I mention that it costs about half what similar products from competitors cost? It is priced at N35,000.

Look, I felt that the P3 was solidly and beautifully built, but this F7 guy beat my imagination and expectations hands-down. I don’t know what sort of juju it is that TECNO is deploying to pull this off, but here is my conclusion: the competition are in serious trouble. More trouble than they probably can imagine. They have a lot to worry about.

Culled from mobility