Today, every Uganda wants to own a smartphone, probably to WhatsApp, Facebook, SnapChatting, business related…..to name a few. I have to say that most of the people that acquire these smartphones is because of social media. Last week, we had an article of how Ugandans are using social media, this might be one of the reasons as to why, they [Ugandans] are acquiring them.
We managed to do a little bit of research, and found out on the highest percentage of the people we asked about this, 90% of them thought it is worth having a smartphone today.
One of the people PC Tech managed to reach out to was Emmanuel Enabu who works at the Ministry of Finance, said he can’t leave minus his smartphone. He added saying, having his smartphone is part of his life, once it’s taken away from him, part of his life is gone.
Emmanuel told PC Tech that he conducts all this work on his Samsung Galaxy S6 and therefore, it’s worth having it.
Majority of the people we came across where university students, some said it was worth having a smartphone, but it was much better if you also had a ‘Feature Phone’ with you.
Maxwell Kirega, a blogger and a second year student at International University of EastAfrica said it’s better to have a smartphone and a feature because these smartphones consume a lot of battery compared to the feature phones. I personally carry a feature phone as a backup because it saves more power compared to my HTC One M9.[related-posts]
Okena Ivan, at 3rd year student at Uganda Technology and Management University tells PC Tech, smartphones connect people easily and quicker. Mostly through messages, and live chats, plus work is made easier because you move with your office in your pocket.
He also adds saying, when it comes to entertainment and gaming, “I don’t have to move with a whole PC to play need for speed while I have it on phone so my answer is yes, it’s worth having a Smartphone today!”
Diana Nanyonjo, who is interning at Eight Technologies and a 2nd year student at Uganda Technology and Management University, thinks a feature phone is a little bit not convenient in terms of communication, with a smartphone you can spend 500ugx on 25Mbs and communicate to so many people on the different social media platforms cheaply unlike the feature one.
“Back then when Warid Telecom [now Airtel Uganda] used to have a bundle of 700 messages – Warid to Warid at only 1000ugx, it would be cheap if you wanted to send out an announcement, that’s if all the people you wanted to contact were on Warid but remember we’re all using different telecom networks so it would not be favorable and still it would be hectic because you have to forward the message to each an every person whereas with my smartphone I just scroll once to look for the WhatsApp group or Facebook group and am reaching out to every one without incurring much expenses even if a person is out of the country and its expensive to make an international call or send an offline SMS”
She concludes saying, its really worth having a smartphone! its expensive to purchase one but very cheap to use because its convenient, time saving, adventurous, fun, multitasking is somehow made possible, u can do so many things with the smartphone thou not at the same time
To sum up most of the feedback’s we got, smartphones have a lot of functionalities compared to what the featured phones do. With a smartphone, one is able to download mobile applications that s/he desires, particular to follow up on what’s happening around the world [news], social network, entertainment & gaming, business…and so forth which can’t be done with the feature phone.
Conclusion
This isn’t democracy, but I guess it’s worth having a smartphone today. Smartphone is a necessity in our lives today.
If you don’t have one, you can own one today at an cheaper price but genuine. MTN Uganda has “Smart Series” smartphones in the market today. The Smart Series is MTN Uganda’s campaign that aims at promoting the adaptation of data usage with the use of a series of affordable smartphones.
These phones offers affordable 2G and 3G connectivity, which, let’s say! is good for social media, business and any other reason you might want to use it for. So grab yourself an MTN Smart Mega or MTN Smart Mini or MTN Smart Buzz at the cheapest cost possible at any MTN store nearest to you or any other store like; simba telecom, jumia market.
