For The Geeks and Wannabes: Before You Buy That Tecno Phone

You ought to be living under a rock if you haven't heard of the latest smartphone rave in Nigeria. I'm talking about the Tecno Phantom also known as Tecno F7 or A1 in some quarters. Touted as a stunning cheaper version of the Samsung Galaxy S3 (abi na S4), the reviews from users in general have been quite positive. So positive that, I had made up my mind to dump my THL W6 this week for the F7 until I read this piece by Odumu Oghenetega >>>>>>>>>> Quick Thoughts On Tecno.

At the moment, Tecno lacks OTA updates for their Android phones and suffer from an inability to upgrade the inbuilt operating system. I admit that this is a major deficiency and believe that these will be sorted soon.

Those lines above shocked me out of buying mode immediately.

Here's what the above line implies:

If there are major bugs in the Operating system, Tecno most probably has no way of fixing that for the masses 'cause it can't deploy OTA fix updates.
One is stuck on Android 4.1 Jellybean and thus shouldn't dream of ever getting version 4.2 or 5 (Key Lime Pie) on the device
For folks like us who are fond of rooting, flashing and tweaking our gadgets, we run the risk of bricking our device and having to pay Tecno to fix it for us. (Rooting a device in almost 100% of cases voids your warranty with that manufacturer)

The third implication is the major reason why I'm staying clear of Tecno for now until when that issue is resolved. Lord knows I've bricked all of my devices at one point or another 'cause of over-tweaking and having the appropriate flashing tools and the right firmwares really came in handy without having to pay no one for repairs.

If you're not a geek and can't be bothered with geeky stuff like rooting and tweaking, I say go for Tecno android phones as the reviews from trusted quarters have mainly been favorable otherwise hold on to your cash for now.

Click here for more details on the Tecno Phantom A - F7

To all those that were expecting a concise review from me, sorry to disappoint you ...... for now.

Feel free to leave a comment and air your views. Those of you who own Tecno android phones should please share with us what their experience has been like so far.