Budget handsets often don’t get enough limelight compared to pricier premium siblings; however, we’ve decided to stray a way from what has become a normal norm of focusing on flagship devices to critically analyze just how one of the currently available budget phones – the Itel A11D holds up against competition. To be fair, we’re not going to compare Itel A11D with the likes of galaxy s8’s or the iPhone X, but what it offers against its price-point. It has an interesting price tag; here in Kenya for example, you’d be okay with KES. 5,000 at Telkom Kenya shops and KES. 3,800 at Jumia online store.
The Itel A11D was announced way back in 2017, and currently sold by several outlets here in Kenya, in fact, just recently Telkom Kenya added to its catalogue. For someone with no need for extra processing power i.e playing the likes of Pokémon go or fortnight, this could be a major opportunity to own a decent budget phone without feeling a pinch in your pocket.
The handset runs on Android version 5.1 Lollipop – which is impressive at this price point but don’t expect everything on it to run nifty. To start with, underneath is only 512GB RAM. In 2018, having a device with such low RAM is practically unacceptable. Even the master of optimization – apple, stopped being mean on RAM years back, and considering the Itel A11D runs on Android, it doesn’t make it any easier. We expected this handset to feature at least 1GB of RAM at best, but unfortunately that’s what we get. I don’t think the price should matter here, there’s several devices within this range that has usable amount of RAM installed.
We have fewer complains against the 4.0 inch display panel and the resolution is modest at that price – coming in at 480×854 pixels. You also get 8GB internal storage which is enough to install basic must have apps from the play store. Everything else looks pretty much what you’d expect on majority of devices at this price plus, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a free protective cover in the original packaging.