Samsung Z2 Review, and Price in Kenya

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There’s a device for old school feature phone users looking to plunge into the world of smartphones, you know the physical number pad-toting gizmos with incredibly long battery life. You probably should have one of those by your side in case a monkey decides to fall on one of our generators down in Gitaru and trigger a 3-day national blackout.

Cheap and Simple To Use

Jokes aside, I’m talking about the recently unveiled Tizen-powered Samsung Z2. This is the first ever Tizen OS device to hit the Kenyan market. The Z2 is insanely simple to use and very cheap, of course by smartphone standards. Price in Kenya is KES 6000 available in all Safaricom shops countrywide. Most feature phone users would need some hand-holding to get to know their first smartphone due to the complex nature these devices.

The level of complexity will of course, vary from one person to another. With the new Samsung Z2 smartphone, the company is aiming at addressing the price and complexity issues.  The goal here is to provide the most staunch feature phone users with a decent option. The Tizen OS is not as complicated as Android hence easy to decipher for anyone really.

4G LTE Enabled

The Samsung Z2 is among the cheapest 4G LTE-capable smartphones in the Kenyan market at the moment. It is a new model in the market targeting first-time smartphone users. Why I’m stressing that fact so much? It is from Samsung. Samsung is a top tier brand which leads me to brand value and brand recall, two vital parameters in the world of smart gadgets. Therefore, the fact that it is a Samsung device is a really big deal.

Tizen Operating System

The Samsung Z2 is powered by Tizen OS version 2.4, whose user interface comprises of an app drawer accessible by swiping up the screen and multiple home screens.  Towards the bottom end of your home screen, you will find your eight most used apps at any time. The Tizen OS is being actively developed and supported by companies like Intel and Samsung.

For those of you that don’t know, the operating system is a fork Android, in other words, it is Android without the complicated bits. The OS is relatively easy to use, and what’s even better, you will find the most popular Android apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter on the Tizen store.

Samsung Z2 Vs. The Competition

The device is the successor of the previous Samsung Z1 and Samsung Z3, both of which didn’t make to the Kenyan market and the entire African continent. It offers competition to other devices in the same price range such as Safaricom's Neon, Huawei Y3 and the Samsung J1, which is a little expensive, though.  The Z2 won't kill Samsung's top-selling J-series, not possible. Most of the devices in this price range are however not 4G enabled so the Samsung Z2 wins.

Full Device Specifications

Network

EDGE, GPRS, 3G Network, 2G Network

Camera

5 MP, 2592 х 1944 pixels, LED flash primary camera

VGA Front camera

Display

Size

480 x 854 pixels, 4.5 inches (~218 PPI pixel density)

Type

TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours

Memory

8GB, 1GB RAM, micro SD, up to 32 GB

Processor

Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7

Operating System

Tizen OS v 2.4

Connectivity

Bluetooth V4.0 with A2DP

Micro USB v2.0

A-GPS support and GLONASS

WIFI- 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot

Battery

1500mAh non-removable battery.

Sensors

Accelerometer.

Design

There is nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to the design of this device. Samsung Z2 comes with a 4-inch display with a 480x800 pixels resolution. It is an all-plastic device with a surfaced rear.   It sports a 5-megapixel shooter on the back with LED flash along with a VGA front shooter.

Performance

We are yet to measure the performance of Samsung Z2’s performance during real-time usage, but the phone's core is a and is powered by a 1.5Ghz quad-core Spreadtrum (SC9830) processor clubbed with 1GB RAM which should be sufficient taking the price range into consideration.

Battery

The phone comes with a 1,500mAh battery which is rated to deliver up to 8 hours of 4G web browsing on a single charge. The Tizen operating system is not as battery draining as Android.

Pros

·         Very cheap smartphone

·         4G LTE enabled

·         Extremely easy to use

Cons

·         Below par camera, especially the front camera

·         Not as many apps as in the Tizen store.

Conclusion

These are not ground-breaking specs. From the design point of view, the devices looks aren’t exactly dazzling and no. The design is exactly not cutting-edge. But all that is beside the point, which is whether the device is utilitarian or practical. Most significantly, is it easy to use? The Samsung Z2 manages to meet all these stipulations. The smartphone, without doubt, offers many practical prospects for an entry level smartphone user.

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