Mobicel Trendy 2 Review: Should You Buy It or Skip It?

With a lot of focus on the world’s flagship smartphones and the ever-growing mid-range market, entry-level smartphones aren’t given much attention. This is understandable, as many of those devices don’t do much to catch the attention of pundits, techies, and the like. That said, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Mobicel, a local manufacturer, has launched its latest entry-level smartphone, the Trendy 2. While it may seem like your run-of-the-mill smartphone, there are some nifty surprises in the diminutive package.

Mobicel Trendy 2 Build and Design

There’s no getting away from it: the Mobicel Trendy 2 packs in a lot of plastic. At its price point, it was always to be expected. At the same time, it didn’t feel as if it would fall apart on a whim one day and felt fairly sturdy. Unlike many higher-end smartphones, the Trendy 2 still features a removable cover, with the battery included in the package contents. But the cover blends well enough with the rest of the chassis, which initially made it a bit tricky for me to open and insert the battery to power the phone for the first time.

The Trendy 2 still features many of the design elements from smartphones of yesteryear, notwithstanding the plastic rear cover. It uses the not-so-standard micro USB port for charging, a front-facing camera on the top centre with no cut-out and an ear in full view, and a single-lens rear-facing camera coupled with a flash below. It’s not going to be featured in any of the design awards magazines and the like. It does what it has to do without any noticeable weak points or design flaws.

Mobicel Trendy 2 Screen and Display

The Trendy 2 has a reasonably sized 5.45” screen with a 960×480px resolution. The screen’s size and lack of resolution make pixelation somewhat obvious when viewing certain lighter images. That said, the touchscreen interface was easy enough to use, especially for gesture-based tasks, which I initially thought would be a lot more hit-and-miss. Colours and brightness are good, too, all things considered. Overall, then, the screen won’t be a turn-off, even for an entry-level smartphone.

Performance and Battery Life

In terms of its internals, the Mobicel Trendy 2 has a MediaTek MT6739WA chipset with a 1.3GHz Quad-Core CPU, including 8GB storage and 1GB RAM. The device runs Google’s Android 9 Pie Go platform, making the Trendy 2 the most affordable smartphone running the operating system in South Africa. The Go edition is tailored to lower-powered units, refining the user experience and learning your preferences to keep both data and battery consumption to a minimum, shaping the interface accordingly. The OS monitors specific apps and builds a footprint on which features you use most. When it comes to data usage, PGo allows users to set daily, weekly and monthly thresholds on each app for better data management, notifying the user when certain thresholds have been reached.

As a daily driver, the Trendy 2 performed well, with smooth operation of tasks. While certain apps do take a little longer to load, there weren’t any glitches or lag to speak of. One of the great aspects of the device is its efficient use of its resources, allowing you to run the same apps you would on a mid-range and flagship smartphone. In fact, I tested a few resource-intensive games, such as Real Racing 3 and the like, all of which ran without issue. The graphics were turned down, but being able to play your favourite games on the Trendy 2 is still a huge plus.

As stated, even with its limited resources, the unit still uses them quite efficiently. Battery consumption is at a minimum for most of the day, and additional CPU power is only used when required. On average days, the 2500mAh battery was able to power the device throughout the day without too much concern. If need be, users could eke out a few extra hours of use into day two.

The Camera

For most users on a budget, having a powerful camera isn’t their first priority, even if it’s something they would surely love to have. With a 2MP front-facing camera and a 5MP rear-facing camera, the Trendy 2 does just enough to make photos reasonably well received. In good lighting conditions, the image quality is good and crisp. The same cannot be said in lower-lit environments, with graininess being more of an issue. The front-facing camera does include a flash on the other side of the ear speaker, allowing for better lighting conditions for selfies.

Is The Mobicel Trendy 2 A Good Phone?

At first glance, the Mobicel Trendy 2 looks like your average budget smartphone. But, under the hood, there’s a different story to tell. The device operates with limited resources to provide an all-round experience. Apart from the lacklustre camera, the rest of the device is well-received. Running on the Android PGo software, the Trendy 2 can easily power through an entire day on a single charge while delivering great performances across the board, allowing you to play almost all games from the Play Store. At a retail price of R899, the unit is quite a steal, the most affordable smartphone running the PGo software. The Trendy 2 is a really good smartphone at an even better price and is definitely worth your consideration.

Still not convinced? Check out our Honor Magic V2 review.