MTN unveils Steppa 2, Steppa Tablet
MTN has revealed the Steppa 2, the successor to its popular and affordable branded Android smartphone which it launched at the start of 2014.
Speaking to journalists at a press event in Johannesburg on Wednesday, 5 November 2014, MTN said that it is keeping pricing information for the Steppa 2 under wraps for “competitive reasons”.
The Steppa 2 is expected to launch in the last week of November, MTN said.
Alongside the Steppa 2 announcement, MTN also unveiled plans to launch an affordable Android tablet, which it calls the MTN Steppa Tablet, for R999 during the last week of November 2014.
The pre-paid offer will include 200MB of data per month for 12 months.
Contract options are being considered, MTN said, and any other deals will be announced closer to the launch.
MTN Steppa Tablet
Affordable smart devices
MTN announced the original MTN Steppa towards the end of 2013, saying that it wanted to shake up the South African smartphone market. It launched in early 2014.
Based on Qualcomm Reference Designs, MTN said that the Steppa was not an ultra-low-cost device, but rather “the most affordable high-performance smartphone ever”.
Mike Fairon, MTN South Africa’s head of products and solutions, said that the MTN Steppa was the second best-selling smartphone in South Africa during April 2014.
More than 80% of the subscribers who bought the Steppa had never owned a 3G-capable device before, and MTN saw a 3-fold average increase in data consumption among these users.
Tablets offer a different kind of value proposition, such as education and productivity applications as well as media consumption, Fairon said.
For this reason, and due to the success of the Steppa, MTN wanted to offer a tablet which lower-income earners in South Africa could afford, Fairon said.
Steppa specs
The MTN Steppa 2 features a 4“ WVGA display, is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor, and runs on Android 4.3 ”Jelly Bean”.
Pre-empting questions about why the Steppa 2 doesn’t run on Android 4.4, Qualcomm’s Dominique Friedl told journalists at the press event that it takes some time to put a device together.
However, he promised that the Steppa 2 would be upgradable to Android 4.4 KitKat.
The Steppa Tablet, however, will run on Android 4.4, using the same 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 chipset.
The tablet will have a 7″ WSVGA (1024×600) display, with a 2MP rear camera and 4GB of internal storage (microSD expandable).
More on MTN
MTN Joburg street light antennas on hold
Loading ...
