Okay, let’s be honest, smartphones these days are incredibly better than they were, not even ages ago, but these past two, three years have seen immense improvement in the gadget industry.
This is especially true for some of the recent mid-range smartphones hitting the market that offer premium specs, questioning the difference between flagships and these amazing A-list devices.
To put this in perspective, we are going to take a trip down memory lane and see what exactly has changed. In 2015, Samsung released the Galaxy Note 5. It was, if not the best, the greatest smartphone that you could purchase at the time.
It was good-looking, flashy with specs to match. It had a 5.7-inch super AMOLED display and a 16MP camera, running on an Octa-core processor clocking at 2.1Ghz.
The same year, Samsung released the Galaxy A7. It was an exemplary mid-ranger with a 13MP camera and a 1.5Ghz Octa-core processor.
Fast forward to 2022, and we have the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. Definitely, an improvement to the S7, featuring grandiose specs including a 108MP camera system and a performance profile that can handle anything you throw at it.
However, in this instance, we have a better mid-ranger, the A73, also packing a 108MP camera and an AMOLED display.
Now, in no way am I insinuating the S22 Ultra and the Galaxy A73 are the same, although, their spec differences aren’t as ‘obvious’ as the Note 5 and the Galaxy A7.
Plus, this doesn’t just apply to Samsung, Infinix last year produced the Zero X series which saw a first 108MP lens that could also take shots of the moon. This year, we have the Note 12 VIP also sporting a 108MP main lens. Back then, comparing a Zero series gadget to a Note device was like comparing apples to oranges, but now, differences are minimal, if any to say the least.
Take also the example of the Find X and the soon-to-be-launched Reno 8 Pro. Even on a performance level, the two have almost the same processing speeds as well as memory and storage options.
Examples like these beg the question as to why you should buy a flagship device, especially in 2022, when you can get almost the same premium specs at a mid-range price.
Well, if you are an economist like me, you’d buy a mid-ranger and save a couple of bucks. However, I still believe that there is a niche market for flagships consisting of consumers who have a taste for the latest and greatest.
Alfred Gitonga is a passionate tech news writer with a deep interest in smartphones and related technologies. He is a staff writer at Mobitrends.co.ke.
