Smartphone Marketing Hype 2020

India alone in the year 2019 sold approximately 283 million mobile units. The number is enormous, and it continues to grow. Different OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) are ramping up their daily production to meet consumer demand. Out of these numbers, some consumers are not happy with their purchase after a few months or regret their decision to go for a particular product. There can be several reasons for this inferior product selection. One of the biggest mistakes they make is to fall for the smartphone marketing hype by the OEM's.

Here is my tech blog, which will burst most of the smartphone marketing hype techniques used by the manufacturer. This blog is written on the back of in-depth research, reading different articles, and listening to various tech reviewers. I know how bad it is to buy the wrong product for a significant amount of money and later regretting. I made a mistake twice, and after that incident, I started learning and analyzing all the smartphone launches to come up with this blog. I am sure, after reading this, no one will have any confusion while buying a smartphone.

The content is divided majorly into three sections –

• Budget and Mid-Range Segment
• Premium Segments (a.k.a Flagship Killers)
• Flagships  

To begin, let's start with the most popular segment in India, the Budget and Mid-Range Segment.

Budget / Mid-Range Segment (Rs.6k – 24k)

This segment of smartphones is the one that sells the highest number of units and has seen tremendous growth. Also, these are the ones around which the hype revolves. 

So, what should we look for before buying a smartphone in this segment?

• User Interface (User Interface) – UI has to be the most crucial aspect of a smartphone. The smartphone should have as clean UI as possible with a minimum of bloatware (pre-installed system apps which you can't remove). The user should not experience any ads, promotions. Stock android is best, but to get it, you have to compromise and other specifications. One of the worst UI experience is MIUI, it will render plenty of ads that too those ads are shady and unacceptable. Also the Redmi phones are full of bloatware which will spams with tons of push notifications. Few of the best UI in this segment is- Realme UI, Samsung's One UI, Oppo Color OS.

• RAM & ROM – This is where the most significant smartphone marketing hype comes in. In reality, a 6GB RAM is enough. The manufacturers tease you into buying the 8GB version by just keeping the price 1000 or 1500 more, but why pay even if we don't need it. Especially if a phone for middle-aged people who will use it for just standard stuff even a 4 GB version is excellent, which will save you around 3k. You need an 8GB only if the intention is to do heavy gaming and keep using the phone for 3-4 years. Now coming to ROM 64GB is more than enough.  

• Camera- 4, 5 cameras are the trend going around in 2020. But how many people having four cameras use all the 4. I have used my wide-angle lens only once in 7 months till now. The most common camera setup is a primary camera, a wide-angle, a portrait sensor, and a macro lens. Like seriously, why give a macro lens 99 out of 100 will never use it. And why to keep depth sensor separately, depth sensing can be implemented using the primary camera itself. Doing it brings the camera module down to 2 cameras, which looks much better at the back of the phone. But again, if they do not give 4, the people will not be attracted to it, and that is why there is a hype going around. The next time you are buying a smartphone, don't buy it seeing a four-camera module.

• Display: 60Hz, 90 Hz, or 120Hz which display do you need actually. In this segment, we have seen displays with 90 Hz, not the 120 one. If we look carefully, a few of them with a higher refresh rate offer an LCD Display. The question is, will you go for a 90Hz LCD over a 60Hz "AMOLED." The irony is that 90Hz LCD is a lousy display along with high battery draining, and AMOLED is one of the displays going around. It offers an immersive experience along with its excellent battery-saving property. Also, one of the significant issues is, there are very few apps that support higher refresh rates. You'll see the difference in refresh rates when you scroll, which is not that required.So, Next time you see a smartphone marketing and creating hype around 90HZ check its display if it is IPS LCD, go for 60HZ AMOLED without a doubt. 

• Processors: Almost all the smartphones come with Mediatek or Snapdragon processors, which are pretty good, but one thing to be very careful about is the Samsung phones. They use their own Exynos processors, which are worst compared to other processors. They start lagging very soon though their processors in flagships like S series and Note series is excellent.

Premium Segments (a.k.a Flagship Killers), (24k-45k):

This particular segment has a significant user base, and there are some major players. The biggest of all is OnePlus, Huawei, and Oppo with Xiaomi, Realme, and Vivo, giving some stiff competition.

Realme comparatively offers many lower-priced phones around 30-35k, and others provide their phones around the 40k.

There are few things when it comes to Smartphone Marketing Hype, which should be considered in these segments but are very important to consider when buying them.

1. Upgrading with every launch- Since these are flagship killers and have the latest snapdragon processors, they have one of the best performances at par with premium flagships. Nowadays, OEM's are launching phones around every 6-8 months. So, what should a person do if he buys one and another one launches? Well, the answer is quite simple; you don't need to upgrade. These phones easily last around two years without any degrade on their performance. Moreover, the launches don't have any significant upgrades except for the processor, and there is not a substantial change in performance, which the new phones bring at least for a year and a half. E.g., If you have a snapdragon 855 phone, you don't need to upgrade to 855+ or even 865. Maybe 865+ (if it comes with this name) can be considered but not required.
2. User Interface- OnePlus's OxygenOS is the best hands down. It offers stock android experience with minimal bloatware. No other custom UI is near it. The worst is the MIUI with tons of ads and bloatware. 
3. Camera- OnePlus hypes the phone's camera, but it is not the best in the segment. Some of the best Camera providers are Oppo and Huawei, with some amazing camera features and great photos. Huawei has one of the best camera module setup in the segment with best of the class hardware and amazing software optimizations but their phone gives a bad UI experience.

Rest all things are more or less the same in every smartphone, and it boils down to OEM you want to go with. My recommendation will be OnePlus devices because it provides an all-round experience, almost covering all the departments.

Flagship Smartphones (24k-45k):

This segment has very few players, significant of them being Apple and Samsung with OnePlus Pro series offering excellent specs too. So everything here boils down to IOS vs. Android. Let's not get into that battle. Apple has the best ecosystem possible. That means if you have other Apple products, the lifestyle is seamless.

This segment is not much to say because people who are consumers of these mostly upgrade with every launch since the OEM's have yearly launches. Also, the consumers of this segment generally know what to prefer, be it Android or IOS.

Huff, that's a lot about smartphones and marketing hype and techniques. I hope that this blog will clear most of the confusion and sway people away from falling into these marketing hypes.