New Zealand's range of mobiles

Forums › Mobile handsets › New Zealand's range of mobiles - Good or Bad?

semigeek

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#195499 21-Apr-2016 20:45

I don't know if it is just me, but every time I walk into a tech shop, whether that is Harvey Norman, Noel Leeming or Jb-HiFi. But I am always disillusioned with the selection of
handsets that we are offered here in NZ. Sure you have the LG's, the Samsungs, Apple, Huawei, ZTE, Microsoft and Alcatel, but the phones
in my opinion seem mediocre compared to what you get from sites like Aliexpress, BangGood or Gearbest(OK, they are all similar across the stores) and the prices steep. Looking at Aliexpress for example,
I can find a 4G Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 for $US 164.99 so about $NZ236. And for that you get a full HD display, 2GB RAM, 5.5 inch screen, 16GB storage, 13MP camera
and a Mediatek Helio X10 Octa Core processor. and it's about $100 less than the Smart Ultra 4 which only works on Vodafone or 2degrees.

Sure the processor is Mediatek, but is that such a bad thing? Anyway, what I am trying to say is, to me some of the phones available here look boring compared to what can be had from overseas.

Am I the only one who thinks like this? And have you bought from overseas and wondered afterwards why you spent a lot of money here on some phones with less features? Don't get me wrong, there are a few nice phones here, but back to walking into the shops, the phones just don't 'grab me' as in buy me, when they look umm, a bit bland.

MikeB4

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#1537749 21-Apr-2016 20:53

NZ is a small market, a rounding error for the likes of Samsung,Apple and Huawei. Given that our range is not too bad.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

toejam316

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#1537756 21-Apr-2016 21:04

Look at the supported LTE and 3G bands, and consider the benefits you get from buying locally in terms of consumer protection, as well as the fact that you apply tax. If you were to import and sell a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 over the counter, you'd have issues with brand awareness, OEM support, increased costs due to after sales support obligations and taxes, and network compatibility.

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Handle9

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#1537759 21-Apr-2016 21:08

You won't find any of the handsets you mention sold by a carrier overseas either. They are sold by specialist retailers or online but not by mainstream retail channels as they aren't carrier supported.

semigeek

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#1537761 21-Apr-2016 21:13

toejam316: Look at the supported LTE and 3G bands, and consider the benefits you get from buying locally in terms of consumer protection, as well as the fact that you apply tax. If you were to import and sell a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 over the counter, you'd have issues with brand awareness, OEM support, increased costs due to after sales support obligations and taxes, and network compatibility.

Would you have trouble though with network compatibility? These are the bands for the Redmi:

3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz

Now correct me if I am wrong, but 850/2100 on 3G is fine and 1800(Band 3) and 2600(Band 7) are fine.

hyperman

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#1537763 21-Apr-2016 21:20

your biggest issue in selling them in any high st retailer is the standard question you will get from almost any customer ...
"So who makes it? apple or Samsung?"

It is hard enough selling brands they may have seen before like Huawei let alone Xiaomi

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Lias

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#1537767 21-Apr-2016 21:28

What also annoys me is the seeming inability for them to come up with a global standard for frequencies. Cellphones, wifi channels, dog collars, all amongst the things that vary from country to country because of the inability for people to come up with a global standard. It's just retarded. Ditto power plugs. At _worst_ there should be one plug for 110v and one for 220v. Not a different one for every sodding country.

/rant

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ajw

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#1537796 21-Apr-2016 22:32

semigeek:

toejam316: Look at the supported LTE and 3G bands, and consider the benefits you get from buying locally in terms of consumer protection, as well as the fact that you apply tax. If you were to import and sell a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 over the counter, you'd have issues with brand awareness, OEM support, increased costs due to after sales support obligations and taxes, and network compatibility.

Would you have trouble though with network compatibility? These are the bands for the Redmi:

3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz

Now correct me if I am wrong, but 850/2100 on 3G is fine and 1800(Band 3) and 2600(Band 7) are fine.

You also need 700MHZ for LTE. Not sure of the band number.

toejam316

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#1537800 21-Apr-2016 22:44

Lias:
What also annoys me is the seeming inability for them to come up with a global standard for frequencies. Cellphones, wifi channels, dog collars, all amongst the things that vary from country to country because of the inability for people to come up with a global standard. It's just retarded. Ditto power plugs. At _worst_ there should be one plug for 110v and one for 220v. Not a different one for every sodding country.

/rant

All side effects of the recent dark age, where communications systems were based on much bigger machines with lots more blinking lights that sent far less stuff far shorter distances. The internet hasn't been around nearly as long as most of the countries that exist, so global standardisation is only really a thing that has started recently, now that we've got more tubes to send the information through.

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nathan

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#1537854 22-Apr-2016 04:12

Lias:

What also annoys me is the seeming inability for them to come up with a global standard for frequencies. Cellphones, wifi channels, dog collars, all amongst the things that vary from country to country because of the inability for people to come up with a global standard. It's just retarded. Ditto power plugs. At _worst_ there should be one plug for 110v and one for 220v. Not a different one for every sodding country.

/rant

indeed https://xkcd.com/927/

Aredwood

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#1547858 6-May-2016 23:13

We are lucky that world wide electrical systems seem to have settled on either 100-120V at 60Hz or 220-250V at 50Hz. Which is a throw back to countries buying electrical equipment from either Britain or America. Of course there are exceptions. Just be glad you don't live in Japan. 1/2 the country uses 60Hz, the other 1/2 uses 50Hz.