Pepsi P1 smartphone;Why no sugar rush for Nigeria yet.

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November 24, 2015
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3 min read

Last month, giant beverage maker Pepsi announced they would be delving into the smartphone market and so many reactions trailed the news. It was said the phone was going to flop,others straight out called it a publicity stunt even though the company specified it would be licencing production to a Chinese manufacturer.

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All that is water under the bridge as the super cola makers officially unveiled the P1, a Pepsi branded Android smart phone and its not that bad. Shenzhen Scooby Communications Equipment were in charge of the production as Pepsi earlier stated. The phone's specs are quite "impressive" as online reviews pointed, but with a 5.5 inches screen, 1,080p display, Octa-core, 1.7GHz MediaTek processor, 2B RAM, 16GB ROM, and 3,000MaH battery. I honestly think the phone is just basic, no big deals. 13MP back camera and 5MP front camera still points to its normalcy. There's a fingerprint sensor around the back that is cool in my opinion.

In all, the phone seems to be an attempt at brand hype than any serious hardware or software perfection as there does not seem to be any attempt at releasing software updates anytime in the future. In all, we really cannot blame Pepsi as everybody wants a share of the Android market these days, even my beloved BlackBerry are going 'Priv", so lets give the sugar vendors some breathing space to do their thing.

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After the launch, Nigeria's google search page was awash with search terms of the prices and places to buy the Pepsi P1. Naija and their love for sweet things never ceases to amaze me. So we've left all these smartphones flooding the market and everybody is running for a bit of Android sugar rush already? Before you search again, let me tell you a thing or two.

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Firstly, the Pepsi P1 has not been made available to the public as it is still being crowdfunded. Yes you heard me right, Pepsi the second biggest 'jedi jedi' merchant in the world has gone on JD.com China's crowdfunding website to source for funds to aid production on a large scale. Personally, I think the crowdfunding angle is just a kind of feasibility test to determine the phone's acceptability.

It was first made available on JD.com for a dollar equivalent of #15,800 to the first 1,000 pledges which you would agree with me was a whooper of a deal. After the first 1,000 units sold out, the next thousand after is currently put at #31,300 and when that is sold out, it would be available at #40,700 until funding ends. And the company hopes to raise an equivalent of #94million before December 3rd. Even if you want to pledge on the site and receive one unit, it is geographically restricted to China. So unless you do not mind adding shipping costs to the price, then chill until they are done crowdfunding and probably consider Africa and maybe Nigeria too.

 

Photo credit: Next Geekers, <a href="http://Photo Credit: Ben Ward via Compfight cc">CompFight

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tech. media. startups. africa. vc | Twitter: @victor_ekwealor
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