While last year was a positive one for the smartphone market as a whole, the feature phone market took a distinct turn for the worse. After all, while smartphone growth rebounded to 4.2% in 2017, the demand for feature phones fell by a whopping 8.1% across the globe.
Some of this can be attributed to the evolution of the premium smartphone market, which has created a new breed of high quality handsets with genuinely appealing specifications. With the demand for these mobiles soaring, it’s little wonder that feature or budget phones are no longer as popular as they once were in regions such as the UK.
Despite this, there are suggestions that the premium market players may be faltering in the early part of 2018. Apple’s groundbreaking iPhone X has seen demand fall thanks to an unflinching price point of £1000, for example, while the initial pre-orders of Samsung’s Galaxy S9 have fallen well below expectations.
At the same time, handsets such as the Huawei P Smart have broke new ground at the budget end of the market, while arguably offering far greater value for money than it’s premium rivals. Below, we’ll ask how this handset fares, and whether it can revive the flagging budget marketplace.
Why is the Huawei P Smart so Impressive?
In many ways, Huawei are an underrated smartphone brand. After all, their flagship device the Mate 10 Pro proved that they can compete with players such as Samsung and Apple, despite a number of failed attempts to crack the premium market.
Still, Huawei remain synonymous with high quality, budget smartphones, and the excellent P Smart handset represents the continuation of this trend. Launched in the UK last month, it can be purchased for as little as £229 outright, while Fonehouse’s Huawei P smart deals is the cheapest in the UK if you’re in the market for a pay monthly deal.
This handset delivers value for money like few other Huawei offerings, however, particularly terms of the design and premium quality display. Like many Android handsets in 2018, the P Smart has borrowed heavily from Apple’s design book, creating a finished product that has been expertly crafted from a single sheet of aluminium. This creates a solid and ultimately sleek design by budget smartphone standards, and while the handset may lack the polish of high-end iPhones it certainly stands out among its contemporaries.
In terms of the display, Huawei have pulled out all the stops to deliver value to users. Headlined by a stunning, 5.65-inch IPS LCD screen (OLED displays are a little out of the realm for such low cost models), the P Smart also features an 18:9 aspect ration panel that is also found on the high-end Galaxy S8. This makes the handset particularly appealing among gamers and avid movie streamers, as you can visualise more on the screen than through a standard, 16:9 display.
In fact, the brightness of the display is something to marvel at, even in comparison with handsets that cost considerably more in the current market.
Even the build quality of the Huawei is impressive, particularly in relation to its retail price. You may even be hard pressed to distinguish between a flagship handset and the P Smart on this factor alone, as Huawei have ensured that their phone is durable and capable of surviving numerous drops onto a variety of surfaces.
Where Does the P Smart Stand and Can it Popularise Budget Smartphones Once Again?
We’ve yet to see the initial sales of the P Smart handset, but there’s no doubt that there’s a growing market for it in 2018. Sure, premium smartphones may have dominated the market last year, but the cost issues of the iPhone X and the dwindling pre-orders for the S9 suggest that customers may be in the market for cheaper alternatives as the economy worsens.
If this is the case, the P Smart could well be an influential player in the smartphone market this year. The same can be said for cheaper premium handsets such as LG’s upcoming G7 (which is due for release in June), of course, but the additional savings available through the Huawei P Smart and the quality of specification available in exchange means that value-conscious customers may well be swayed by the budget offering.
Not only this, but the P Smart has an excellent chance of reviving the ailing budget and feature smartphone market, at least in turns of generating interest and reinforcing the benefits of lower cost handsets. Whether this is sustainable depends on other brands and upcoming releases, and whether they can manufacture a similar quality of handsets at rock-bottom price points.
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