Top 5 Best Cheap Low End, Locally Branded Smartphone Brands In The Philippines
Here are my Top 5 (1) Starmobile, (2) Cherry Mobile, (3) MyPhone, (4)Torque, and (5) Alcatel and SKK Mobile
Starmobile - has the most neatly and decently designed cheaper phones out there. Their latest the Knight is unbelievably fast, looks good. Content-wise, they hook up with local providers like Inquirer and KristN. Plus, they only need one celebrity to do the endorsing (Vice Ganda), which means they do have plenty of cha-ching for marketing.
Cherry Mobile - does equally good with Starmobile although we hear more hardware complaints about their units. But they spend well on advertising and promotions and boy do they have powerhouse endorsers (John Lloyd Cruz, Sarah Geronimo, Anne Curtis, Kim Chiu). Their Cosmos line up are impressive for a low end market. Although, I haven't liked a single good-looking Cherry Mobile phone, because they are either Samsung or so China-made looking.
MyPhone - the brand is so "masa", nothing wrong with that though, the nationalistic branding is pretty neat. However the designs are less appealing. The brand is known for their TV phones. And some of their feature phones look fun. And yes, I remember they have these super cute feature phones that are almost the size of two commonly-shaped lighters put side to side.
Torque - such a good alternative, nothing really sparky about their array, but their feature phones look good. It is unfair for me to rate this company since I have no personal experience with their phones. But they do deserve the fourth spot since it's a local brand and this means, like the other three, MyPhone, Cherry and Starmobile, they help bring in employment for Filipinos. My gripe is that they don't spend well on marketing, I mean they have Iya Villania and Luis Manzano, but man, when you visit their site, it's like it's created by a grade schooler. And graphics design is horrible, and their website constantly goes out of service.
Alcatel/SKK Mobile - now these two aren't local brands but they do belong to the cheap and low end cat. These two brands get the most complaints. Hardware, design, software, camera. Alcatel however do have some pretty nice looking models. But the hardware baby, their phones are not a good buy. Trust me, and their phone designs, like yeah some look good, but their coating easily peel off, and the paints and cover chip. SKK appeals to the those looking for super cheap phones.But if you're buying a Php3,000 one, might as well, buy two feature phones from any of the top 3.
Runners up:
Arc Mobile
Lenovo
CDR-King Mobile
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