On Saturday I went to Nakuru town to shop for an affordable phone, and by affordable phone I mean a functional phone I can buy for shs 7,000. After walking up and down and seeing that the only reasonable phones are those that go for shs 12,000 and above, I came across a Nokia 1 Plus that the retailer was selling for shs 8,500, none negotiable. Although this phone was close to my budget, looking at its specs drove me off completely.
The things I nowadays consider as important in a phone are only three: 1. RAM 2. Storage 3. Processor 4. Battery. Screen is also important but when I am going for low budget a 720p resolution is still tolerable. On RAM, I cannot buy a phone with a less than 2GB RAM. This is because Apps and Operating Systems have become RAM hungry such that when you have a phone running on less than 2 GB RAM means you’ll be experiencing freezes at least once a day. The Nokia 1 Plus has a 1GB RAM. On storage, the minimum any human should have is 16 GB, and that’s only when you can add another 16GB in form of a memory card to get 32GB. Again, this is because of Apps. Even if you are someone who just uses social media Apps like FB, WhatsApp, Twitter maybe, Xender, and a few others, you’d still need more storage to install those Apps. The Nokia 1 Plus that has 8 GB storage where the OS takes up 6GB; leaving you with 2GB for your Apps, Photos, Videos and other files. Just imagine the frequency you’ll have to delete those files in order to create free space. On speed, the phone must be at least a quad core with speeds no less than 1.5 GHz, something that the Nokia 1 Plus meets.
Lastly and definitely not any less important is the battery capacity. a Nice battery that can serve me for at least 12 hours is very important, as within that time I should have found a place where I can charge the phone, even if I am traveling. Only on very rare cases will you find yourself incapable of finding a place to charge your phone, and those rare cases includes days you are having really long trips, or when you have visited your village folks. Nokia 1 Plus comes with a 2500mAh battery, and the last time I checked, the least one should have in a battery is 3000mAh on a phone with the lowest functional specs in 2019. Even if the phone’s screen is 720p, a 2500mAh can only keep it awake for 12 hours only when the battery is still brand new. After a few days of use, the phone will hardly survive past 8 hours of uptime.
And it is true. The phone is ugly. It looks like some handset you’d buy in 2015. What Nokia ought to realise is that the minimum features I expect in a phone are already available in Honor 7s, and Jumia is selling that phone for a paltry shs 6,900.
See also: You can move to Faiba 4G with Nokia 1 for Kshs 9,500 ONLY
