Since the Chinese smartphone market has already reached its saturation point, more and more brands are now expanding towards developing markets like Pakistan, India, Malaysia and Bangladesh.
In Pakistan we already have 6-7 Chinese smartphone brands with Huawei and OPPO leading the charts. Others like Xiaomi, Tecno, Vivo and Meizu are also testing the market, considering its huge potential.
The main reason behind the success of Chinese brands in Pakistan is their affordability, these devices offer top-notch features at reasonable prices, so anyone can afford them. Unlike the established brands like Samsung or Apple, Chinese smartphone makers try to minimize their profits in order to get more market share.
Clearly this strategy is working and not only in Pakistan but across the Globe Chinese brands are now taking the top positions.
Elephone and Daraz Partnership:
Quite recently Daraz.PK has partnered with Elephone, yet another Chinese smartphone maker to launch its much popular Elephone S7 in Pakistan. It merits mentioning here that this is the brand launch as well and Daraz will offer more models in the coming months.
Elephone S7 at a Glance:
As the name indicates, this phone takes much of its design inspiration from the Samsung Galaxy S7 and probably the Note 7. Elephone S7 features a real curved display with glass on both front and back, giving a ritzy posh look, while completely eliminating the size bezels.
The phone comes in 5.2-inch and 5.5-inch screen sizes, but in Pakistan only the 5.5-inch variant is offered. It has a JDI fully laminated in-cell display with 1080p resolution and Corning Gorilla Glass protection as well.
On the inside, it packs a Helio X20 Deca Core processor, coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage. It offers microSD card support as well and you can use a card up to 128GB.
The primary camera is 13-Megapixel with f/2.2 aperture, PDAF and a single LED flash, the front side features a 5-Megapixel selfie camera with f/2.4 aperture.
The phone offers Dual SIM 4G+ VOLTE connectivity, Front mounted fingerprint scanner, OTG, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and microUSB connection.
It packs a 3,000mAh battery which does offer fast charging as well and you can get a 90% charge in one hour. Wireless charging and USB-C would be welcome, but in this price range the current setup seems good enough.
Elephone S7 runs on Android Marshmallow out of the box, there are no major customization and you’ll pretty much get the stock Android experience. We’re skeptical about the future Android updates but hopefully this phone can get Nougat update.
Pricing and Availability:
This phone is now available exclusively on Daraz.PK for a price of Rs. 22,000 and you’ll get to choose between Blue, Black and Gold colors. Daraz is offering 1 year warranty with this phone and you can also return the phone with in 7 days of purchase if you don’t like it.
The price for this phone is quite good considering its specifications and it matches with the price offered at Chinese stores including AliExpress.
However, we have to see if the actual build quality of this phone is good enough and how’s well it performs in real world scenarios. For that we’ll be reviewing this phone in the coming days, make sure to read the review so you can make a well-informed decision to purchase this phone.
