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Sunday, August 11, 2013

Dual Core Smartphones only £7.70pm... whatever that means

Mark Bridge writes:

Don't sell the steak – sell the sizzle!  That's the mantra of many salespeople. It's all about emphasising the benefits of a product rather than its features. You don't tell people about the 13 megapixel camera when they ask about the new LG smartphone, you tell them it'll capture the first steps of their precious young nephew in pin-sharp accuracy. Or something like that.

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Which is why a hand-written whiteboard in the doorway of a national mobile phone retailer stopped me in my tracks. "Dual core smartphones only £7.70pm" it said.

Who's the target customer?  Certainly not someone who wants a particularly high-spec handset. The first dual-core smartphone was launched in early 2011. In fact Mobile World Congress 2011 was awash with the darned things.

A cynic might suggest the retailer is trying to blind their customers with science. 'Dual core' certainly sounds high-tech. It could as easily refer to a futuristic nuclear reactor in a James Bond film as a mobile phone. This once-unattainable technology can now be bought for just £7.70 per month. Never mind that it's already over two years old and will have celebrated its fourth birthday by the end of your 24-month contract. “If you're smart enough to know that dual-core is good but not smart enough to know that quad-core is even better, we've got a great package for you”.

Of course, it's not that simple. The new Moto X is dual-core... and that's certainly an innovative piece of kit.

Which, I think, is why the advertisement annoyed me so much. Ultimately it's meaningless. You might as well advertise "4-cylinder cars from £99 per month" or "Two dozen meat pies for £10". There are a lot more questions that customers need to ask before they'll know if they're getting a good deal. And if those customers think you're trying to mislead them by focusing on a feature that's too vague to mean anything, they won't trust you at all. Which would be a shame... because a dual-core smartphone for £7.70 per month could be a bit of a bargain.

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Opinion Articles

Last week at The Fonecast: 24th June 2013

More of the same

Mark Bridge writes:

Another week, another couple of product announcements from Samsung. There appears to be no stopping them, despite a recent drop in the company’s share price.

This time it’s a couple of tablets – one of which runs both Android and Windows 8 – and a 20 megapixel camera that’s got a 4G-enabled Android device built in.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 17th June 2013

Making the network truly mobile

Mark Bridge writes:

The telecommunications industry was making plenty of headlines last week – but much of it wasn’t particularly upbeat.

The debate about privacy and security continued in the wake of allegations about US agents intercepting internet traffic. Meanwhile, Nokia prepared to make its last Symbian smartphones and Tradedoubler warned that mobile devices were having a negative effect on high-street consumer loyalty.

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How to shield from internet snooping

George Putic of voanews.com writes:

When news broke about U.S. government agencies collecting metadata about its citizens’ Internet and phone communications, many were surprised by its scope. The surveillance covered a vast number of Internet messages and phone calls. The government did not deny the action but pointed out that the collected data contained, not the substance of the communication, but the so-called metadata.

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Giving it all away

Paying with our privacy

Mark Bridge writes:

There’s been a lot of talk recently about PRISM, which may allow the US National Security Agency - and anyone they choose - to access some of our personal online information if it passes through the USA. It’s unclear exactly what (if anything) is being shared with whom… and given the nature of national security, we may never know.

However, alongside the possibility of governments seeing information we thought was secure, it’s also worth pointing out that we choose to share plenty of online information ourselves.

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6 things you need to know about mobile research, smartphone rumours and imaginary new products

Mark Bridge writes:

Where did it all go wrong?  When did the mainstream mobile industry start to slide away from innovation and into repetitive nonsense?  For a while I suspected the downloadable ringtone was to blame. Just days after hearing 'Barbie Girl' on the mobile phone of a man from Vodafone Value Added Services in the late 1990s, I'd downloaded a poptastic tune to my own Nokia 2110. Soon, the entire mobile world was focussed on 30-second instrumentals instead of technical innovation. It was the beginning of the end.

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