Kenya watches Obi’s Racoon chase Tecno’s P5

Racoon, a medium sized grayish looking mammal native to North America, is known for its intelligence. However, Racoon that is creating buzz in East Africa’s smartphone market is one of the eight models that a new smartphone maker, Obi Mobiles, co-founded by John Sculley, the famous ex-CEO of Pepsi Co and Apple, has recently launched in the region. However, Obi’s Racoon has to face some established challengers out there in order to create its territory. One of the challengers is Tecno Mobiles, which was first to introduce dual SIM smartphones in the region and is now a familiar brand. In this review, we have picked up two models, i.e. Tecno’s P5 and Obi’s Racoon S401, that fall in the so-called affordable segment.

Let us start with what is the most visible in a smartphone, the colour. While Obi’s Racoon offers customers an option between white and black colours, Tecno’s P5 comes in standard black. The physical dimensions of Tecno’s P5 are 124.3x65.5x10.5 mm, where as Obi’s Racoon comes with 126x64x10mm, which makes Racoon a relatively sleeker looking smartphone. However, both the devices compare well in terms of screen size, 4inches screen with a TFT (thin-film transistor) capacitive touchscreen, and resolution 480x800, which means viewing experience would be the same, except that one may prefer it either on a sleeker device or a broader looking device.

The performance of Obi’s Racoon S401 is determined by the Android OS 4.4.2 (KitKat) on which it is based, whereas Tecno’s P5 runs on 4.2 (JellyBean), which is advantage Racoon. Both the devices have a 512 RAM (Random Access Memory), expandable to 32GB but while Racoon has dual core 1GHz processor, it is 1.3 GHz for P5. Here, it is important to understand the relationship between RAM and processor. Normally, higher the RAM, smoother the ability of the handset to run several tasks at once and faster the processor, better is the device’s ability to handle operations. However, if the fast processor does not come with higher RAM then one is likely to encounter bottlenecks such as memory shortage.

In addition, both these devices possess dual SIM capacity and support EDGE/GPRS and 3G. The difference appears in the battery where Obi’s Racoon has a 1500 mAh, removable Li-ion battery capacity with up to 6 hours talk time and standby time of 180 hours, while Tecno’s P5 has a 1800mAh, non removable battery with 8.5 hours of talk time and 288 hours of standby time. Furthermore, both the models have 5MP, fix focus rear cameras and 2MP front cameras, but Obi’s Racoon also comes with other features such as geo-tagging and multi shot.

When the features and specifications of the two devices compete with each other almost neck to neck, it is the price tag that could make a real difference, where Obi’s Racoon set at around KSh 6500 acquires an edge over Tecno’s P5 which is around KSh 8000. Besides, the customer choice may also be influenced by the colour options and the shear look.