Just to be clear, when I write affordable, I’m trying to keep the prices below Kes 20,000/$200. If the phone is good an allowance of up to $250 is made. And if the phone is too good, price nitasema but with regrets. Tukienda below $100 hiyo ni peasant territory na itahitaji thread zake kando. Nimejaribu as much as possible ku-avoid Mediachieth/Mediather phones kwa vile with qualcomm anything is possible. Price in dollars just multiply by 100 to get a rough estimate.
Category 2: Flagship Killers (Part one. Hizi simu ni mingi na nimebeat)
This term was coined by a Chinese company, which was barely six months in existence, to describe it’s upcoming phone, the OnePlus One. Their motivation for setting up the company was seeing the ordinary person be left out of the technological gravy train and premium android experience by mainstream manufacturers and mobile network companies pricing their best products out of the reach of the common man. Even their slogan, Never Settle speaks of their motiation. What they did was put premium features in a package that they could sell at a fraction of what mainstream flagships cost. And they did sell.
Interestingly, OnePlus is a subsidiary of OPPO, which in turn is a subsidiary of BBK technologies which sells the Vivo brand of phones.
1. OnePLus One:
http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/oneplus/oneplus-one-02.jpg
OS: Kitkat, upgradable to Marshmallow. It uses cyanogenOS so you’re assured of updates for a long time to come
System on Chip: 2.5 Ghz snapdragon 801
Ram: 3Gb
Rom: 16/64Gb with no sd slot
Screen: 5.5" 1080p
Camera: 13mp and 5mp
Battery: 3100mAh
Price: Unfortunately, this phone is so popular getting it below 20k is hard. It ranges around $250-280
2. OnePlus X:
http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/oneplus/oneplus-x-champagne.jpg
This one came out a year after the one plus one as an accompanying phone to the oneplus 2 (which I will not post due to price range)
OS: lollipop, upgradable to marshmallow
System on Chip: 2.3 Ghz snapdragon 801
Ram: 3Gb
Rom: 16Gb with sd card slot
Screen: 5 inch 1080p
Camera: 13mp and 8mp
Battery: 2525mAh
Price: Also above $200
3. Xiaomi Mi 4:
Jina ikikushinda kupronounce sema tu Naomi. Here is another Chinese company with a reputation for offering solid devices kwa bei ya mwananchi. They had other offerings before this but I’m choosing to focus on those that will still give you value for your constrained budget and a premium experience. They have several offerings in the Mi Note series (wale wanapenda kutembea na tiles kwa mfuko), Mi series (normal size flagships) and Redmi (mid rangers that are still better than most flagships)
http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/xiaomi/xiaomi-mi4-1.jpg
OS: Kitkat upgradable to Marshmallow
System on Chip:
Ram: 3Gb
Rom: 16/64 Gb no sd slot
Screen: 5 inch 1080p
Camera: 13mp and 5mp
Battery: 3080mAh
Price: Depends on where you look and which variant you buy. Ranges from $120 to $214
This one has two variants. One has LTE the other does not. There are other Mi 4s with hexa-core snapdragon 615/808 and 2/3 gigs of ram. I’ll list some here, they are many.
4. Naomi Mi 4c:
http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/xiaomi/xiaomi-mi-4c-3.jpg
OS: Lollipop
System on Chip: Hexa-core (4x1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 & 2x1.8 GHz Cortex-A57) snapdragon 808
Ram: 2/3Gb
Rom: 16/32Gb
Screen: 5" 1080p
Camera: 13mp
Battery: 3080mAh
Price: $135 to $150
[B]5. Naomi mi 4i:
http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/xiaomi/xiaomi-mi4i-2.jpg
OS: [/B]lollipop
System on Chip: Octa-core (4x1.7 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4x1.0 GHz Cortex-A53) snapdragon 615
Ram: 2 Gb
Rom: 16/32Gb
Screen: 5" 1080p
Camera: 13mp and 5mp
Battery: 3120 mAh
Price: $120
6. ASUS Zenfone 2:
The first phone with 4 Gb ram. The noise this beast created was raucous (nilipitia shule ya grammar nazi gashui) I remember the time it came out, kila mtu hapo na ma Z2, M8 na S4 kila mtu ni kuangaliana tu hatuamini vitu tunasoma. This phone has two variants
http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/asus/asus-zenfone-2-1.jpg
OS: Lollipop upgradable to Marshmallow
System on Chip: Intel Atom Z3580 (4 GB RAM model) and Intel Atom Z3560 (2 GB RAM model)
Ram: 4Gb and 2Gb
Rom: 16/32/64 with micro SD slot
Screen: 5.5"1080p
Camera: 13Mp nyuma 5Mp mbele
Battery: 3000 mAh
Price: Starting from $130
[B]7. Oppo Find R7:
[/B]
Haven’t had much interaction with this one, seen it though, held it, and it felt good (htc you are my one and only, this one was sampling the goods only)
http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/oppo/oppo-r7-01.jpg
OS: Color OS 2.1 based on kitkat
System on Chip: Octa-core (4x1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4x1.0 GHz Cortex-A53) snapdragon 615
Ram: 3Gb
Rom: 32Gb
Screen: 5 inch 1080p
Camera: 13mp, 8mp
Battery: 2320mAh
Price:
Nimebeat. I will continue at a later date, as well as introduce a peasant phone category and what to do for the technologically able waokote simu za maana kwa bei ya mkulima.