We’ve seen some amazing smartphones launched this year but we’ve also been susceptible to plenty of hype. As a result, the market today has some overrated phones, products that may be good, but not deserving of the praise or hype that was sent their way. Let’s take a look at five such phones launched this year.
Apple iPhone 6
Apple critics will take this opportunity to say that every iPhone deserves to be on this list, so take five seconds to politely laugh at their ‘joke’...Done? Right. The iPhone 6 is on this list because this is the first time we’ve seen a new iPhone that doesn’t look as good as its predecessor, and also has weird ergonomics. Also, perhaps the only revolutionary thing about this phone is that it’s literally bigger than its predecessors. However, since it is, after all, a new iPhone, and a very good phone overall, it immediately shot to the top of the popularity charts.
RedMi 1S
The Mi3 isn’t on this list because even though it was endlessly hyped, we feel that it deserved most of it. Instead, we have with us the RedMi 1S, a phone that was supposed to do to the budget segment what the Mi 3 did to the mid-range segment for Xiaomi. While the RedMi 1S promised a lot on paper, it ended up delivering on little thanks to a botched launch that saw bugs and glitches make life miserable for the phone’s first owners. Also, the RedMi 1S failed to live up to its specs and was only an average performer.
Firefox OS phones
Mozilla showed admirable intent when it announced its plans for Firefox OS. The idea of extremely affordable phones that ran a ‘proper’ smartphone OS was great. Unfortunately, the reality turned out to be much more mundane. The first Firefox OS phones released in India- the Intex Cloud FX and the Spice Fire One turned out to be very average phones with more compromises than what even entry level phones should have. As a result, even though India would have been the perfect market for it, Firefox OS has failed to amount to anything.
Android One phones
Just like Firefox OS, Android One represented Google’s intent to make really affordable Android phones that still managed consistent performance and experience. The Micromax Canvas A1, the Karbonn Sparkle V and the Spice Dream Uno, the first Android One phones promised much but ultimately disappointed. The phones were average performers, were priced too high and even Google’s promises of a concerted marketing effort have petered out.
Nokia X
The Nokia X probably ended up disappointing more people than any of the others in this list. The concept of a Nokia phone running Android could have launched a brand new market for the troubled Finnish phone maker but instead what we got in the X was a half-hearted attempt at Android support. It appeared that the X cared more about restricting how and what its users did which defeats the entire purpose of Android. The Nokia X has very deservedly been ignored by buyers and now only remains as a sore footnote in the company’s, otherwise stellar, history.