The smartphone market in India is blowing up lately. We’ve seen many new entrants in the market, releasing devices in various segments. The e-commerce giant Amazon also entered the smartphone game in India with a brand 10.or (pronounced Tenor).
The company has launched three devices last year which offered pretty good value for money without compromising much on features. 10.or D was the most noticeable one among them as it was priced at just Rs. 4,999. Not just that, it put up a good fight with the Redmi 5A and even managed to outdo the 5A in some aspects. If you didn’t know, the Redmi 5A was the most sold Android smartphone in Q1 2018.
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10.or chose the exact opposite route with the successor of 10.or D – the 10.or D2. The smartphone not only didn’t improve much on internals but also removed quite a few useful features which the original 10.or D had. Unfortunately, 10.or D2 is sort of a downgrade when compared to its predecessor. Let’s take a look at why.
Pricing
Pricing was one of the unique selling points of 10.or D. But with 10.or D2, it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. The 10.or D2 is priced at Rs. 6,999 for the 2GB+16GB variant and Rs 7,999 for the 3GB+32GB variant whereas the 10.or D started at Rs. 4,999 for the 2GB+16GB variant. By bringing a considerable increase in price, that too without many additions, 10.or D2 has simply lost its segment.
Specifications
As mentioned earlier, the internals of 10.or D2 has remained more or less similar to that of its predecessor. The main improvement is the 5.45-inch 18:9 HD+ display over the 5.2-inch 16:9 HD display on the 10.or D.
But 10.or skipped the fingerprint scanner in 10.or D2 which was a major advantage of 10.or D over the Redmi 5A last year. Not only that, the battery capacity has been reduced from 3500mAh to 3200mAh. A larger screen paired with a smaller battery is not a very pretty thing.
Apart from those, the 10.or D2 is pretty much similar to the 10.or D. It comes with a Snapdragon 425, which is a bit old at this point paired with either 2GB or 3GB of RAM and the storage is expandable through a dedicated microSD slot. Both of them have a 13-megapixel rear and 5-megapixel front cameras.
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10.or Playing Samsung?
If we look closely here, what 10.or did with the D2 is just like what Samsung did in their J-series as well as A-series smartphones. Samsung also included an 18:9 display in their J-series devices, but made many compromises, that too while increasing the price considerably.
If you remember, previous year’s J-series models had a metallic back, but Samsung replaced it with polycarbonate in their latest J6 and J8 in the name of “infinity display”. Samsung might get away with all these, but for an online-only company like 10.or, it’d be much harder.
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But the fact that there are not many devices which compete directly with the D2 at Rs. 6,999 itself would give it an upper hand. But I really doubt this to be successful in long-term.
Conclusion
The trade-in of a fingerprint scanner and a bigger battery just for an 18:9 display, that too with a price hike is not acceptable, at least in my books. Also, with the increase in price for the 10.or D2, I’m skeptical about the pricing of upcoming 10.or devices as well. Remember that the popularity they earned in 2017 was mainly due to the value for the money they offered.
10.or D2 might still be better on paper than the ever so popular Redmi 5A, but do you think the handset would gain as much appreciation as it’s predecessor? Especially since it’s almost time for Xiaomi to launch a successor to the Redmi 5A. What do you think about 10.or’s pricing strategy? Let us know in the comments below.
BUY 10.OR D2
Written by Naufal AJ (intern), edited and published by Atish Rajasekharan
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