We’d love a colorful cheap phone from Samsung

A new set of supposedly leaked renders show a new Samsung device in a variety of bright colors. The leak comes from The Tech Outlook, which was spotted by XDA-Developers. The Galaxy A34 has some good midrange specs, including a 6.5-inch 1080p OLED screen, a 48-megapixel main camera, and an Exynos chipset. But what’s really exciting is that you can choose from colors like lime and purple. Pearlescent! If these renders are accurate, budget phones could have more color in 2023, which is about damn time.

We'd love a colorful cheap phone from Samsung

Photo Credit: The Tech Outlook

Phone makers decided at some point in the recent past that people in the US, especially those on a tight budget, only wanted black phones. A quick look at Samsung’s current A-series models shows that most of them only come in one color, black. Or awesome black, which just looks like black with a stupid name. If you move up to the S22 series or a Z Flip 4, you get a lot more color options, like burgundy, purple, and any other combination you can think of for the foldable.

Apple and Google do a little bit better, but not by much. The iPhone SE 2022 comes in black, white, and red. The Pixel 6A, on the other hand, comes in black, white, and sage. Not quite as exciting as lime. Other manufacturers like Motorola and OnePlus stick to a formula of black phones plus something else for their flagship phones, but as you go down in price, there are fewer colors.

There are colorful low-cost phones, but they’re not available in the US. Samsung India has colors in its price range like copper, mint, and peach. In the UK, OnePlus sells Nord phones in bright Bahama blue and jade fog. As a treat, people in the US get black, black, and black with a dark blue quantum.

Why? Is it a way to save money and keep the prices of budget phones low? Is it because US phone carriers control everything about the US phone market and force manufacturers to only offer their most boring models here? Are we happy to just buy a black phone, put a case on it, and be done with it? I think there may be some truth to all of the above.

Even if they are real, these bright Samsung A34 choices probably won’t make it to our shores at all. They will be sold in other places where people like phones with fun colors. I don’t think it has to be this way. It’s not too much to ask for the moon to have one color other than black. In any case, I’ll keep hoping that phones at every price point will have more colors in 2023, even though it’s more likely that a new, awesome black phone will show up on my desk soon.

 

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