A few days back I entered a store selling smartphones and in the thirty odd minutes that I was there choosing a cover for my phone, I discovered a strange fact. Not one person walked out with any of the expensive variants and this includes those by known brands like Samsung and Apple. Most of the buyers asked for a good robust smartphone that was priced below 10 thousand.
I asked one of them, ‘What is it that you are looking for in your smartphone?’
‘A good camera,’ he said, ‘and a long-lasting battery.’
‘That’s it?’
‘What more does one want,’ he replied, ‘I mean, most phones are anyway nicely designed and internet ready. If Whatsapp works and the sound is ok, I am happy. Why must I pay more for features that I know I will never be using?’
A bit of research told me that we have a constant population shift from rural to the urban environment and with 25-30 people migrating every minute this could easily reach 600 million by 2030. These are figures that should interest every company selling anything from smartphones to branded underwear because this is the kind of consumer poised to contribute 75% of our national GDP in another decade or so. I then reasoned that it was anyway illogical for the masses to invest a huge sum in just one smartphone if their family needed five or more. I then made my way to the venue where a new smartphone was being launched.
This new smartphone that was being launched is the Yuho Vast Plus and when I asked Chanpreet, the inspiration behind this brand, about the availability plans for Yuho, he said, ‘Affordability is our primary aim. Good and workable technology with the newest inclusion in design is what most of the consumers are looking for. We are targeting small town buyers who need to invest in more than just a smartphone.’ This was fairly agreeable with my own conclusion as it makes a lot of sense to use disposable income in the best possible way.
Yuho – the intelligent option
The name Yuho Vast Plus doesn’t have ‘vast’ and ‘plus’ added only for effect. You wouldn’t dream of calling a charmingly curved 6.2 inch (15.75 cm) phone a midget, would you? A bezel-less 1280×720 pixels screen resolution with a big notch display is what everyone wants today as the days of small devices resting unnoticed in the palm are over. A 3000 mAh long-lasting battery also falls under vast as it is sufficient for most people. A 32 GB internal storage with an able support from a 4GB DDR3 RAM is also way more than enough for most users across age, profession, and income segmentations. And yet, it isn’t as if this is all that the thrifty Indian consumer is looking for. The consumer wants more in terms of camera and design. There is always more scope for adding value to a hundred other things to keep him happy. Yuho doesn’t disappoint.
We are talking about a feature rich phone with a diamond-cut back panel that makes black, blue, and red jump out from obscurity and into the glitz and glamour of contemporary times. By the way, if anyone assumes that a sub-10k phone is devoid of the frills of cutting-edge technology, think again. The Yuho Vast Plus has a Quad-core 1.4 GHz processor for a flawless experience while running high-end applications and games. This phone comes loaded with Android 8.1 Oreo, has a fingerprint scanner, FM radio, GPS, proximity sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer, and even a slot for micro USB. A 3.5mm headphone jack connects the phone to the millions of users who use conventional headphones.
If it the camera specs that interest you, let just say that 13 megapixels for both front and rear cameras is a fair deal. The rear camera comes with a dual lens that lets you get your bokehs right. Auto flash, face detection, geo tagging, HDR mode, touch to focus, white balance presets, and a digital zoom are all there. No, I do not have a review device with me or I’d have added a few pictures to prove that the camera works well in all sorts of light conditions.
There are, of course, a lot of brand options in the sub-10k segment and I would urge the consumer to go and try them all out and come to a decision that suits them best. However, the one fact that I will lay emphasis on is that over-shooting your allocated budget for the sake of a mere smartphone can be counter-productive in most cases and, therefore, you need to first understand your own needs. Listen, I would be nervous using a phone that costs me 50k because the newspapers are full of snatching incidents these days. So if all you want is a smartphone that looks great and does your work, helps you with clicks for the social media, and connects well to entertain you, the Yuho Vast Plus must certainly be in your list of considerations.
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Arvind Passey
05 March 2019
