“What? I can’t have the latest and greatest features on a smartphone with my PHP3,000 budget. That’s absurd!”
Juan Cruz (REAL NAME WITHHELD) has unleashed a tirade against all smartphone brands that supposedly doesn’t carry upon his ‘simple’ requests in a future flagship release. He told Unbox Diaries, “Simple lang naman ang gusto ko sa mga flagships ngayon, hindi dapat tinitipid ang mga features. Nakakainis lang kasi pawala nang pawala na lahat ng importanteng specs ngayon habang palaki ng palaki ‘yung babayaran mo.” (My requests are simple: flagships shouldn’t cut all the essential features while still maintaining that high price tag.)
We agree that’s a great point to say. We asked him which features he would want in a flagship device, he replied: “Siyempre ‘yung headphone jack, memory card slot, malaking battery, malaking screen, mas magandang camera setup, tsaka notch-less na screen– kayang-kaya naman nila gawin ‘yan e!” (The headphone jack, memory card slot, bigger battery capacity, bigger screen, even better camera module, and a notch-less screen.)
Juan Cruz is an active member of the group REAL SMARTPHONE GEEKS PH on Facebook (real group name withheld) and always posts about tech news in general, including smartphones in which he always ridicules almost all phones released as “overpriced”, and not up to his standards, because he truly believes that his set of wants and needs are the only right way to do a smartphone– and the brands are missing on his once-in-a-lifetime knowledge. Juan also posts on Twitter (now X.com) with his ‘hot’ takes which garnered a total of 32 likes over a 9-month course.
When we asked about what a flagship device should cost, Juan answered quickly, “Around PHP3,000 pesos or lower”. Our correspondent replied, “But this asking price of yours is absurd. A flagship processor alone can cost a lot, let alone other flagship features.”
Juan replied, “Wala akong pakialam, dapat ganoon ang presyuhan ngayon. Kung mahal talaga nila ang mga customers nila, dapat ibababa nila ng ganiyan ang pricing.” (I don’t care, that should be the pricing they strive for if they really care for their customers.) He then gets his manky-old phone from 2015 which has thick bezels and a worst-for-worn battery that he needs to constantly plug into his equally dirty powerbank just to keep it alive.
Juan also qualified that he is not a poor person in any sense, he is simply ‘fed-up’ by these brands not replying to his emails and pleads via Twitter and Facebook to make his requests a reality. He also insisted that he has no more problems spending ‘boatloads’ of dias on Mobile Legends than buying a decent phone, “Thrashing a phone is simply a habit of mine at this point, why would brands give me their flagship phone instead? My knowledge is priceless at this point.”
When asked if he’s just an out-of-touch individual that doesn’t understand how a smartphone business works, he just said “That isn’t my problem, my job is to consume and not form my research and opinion.” He added, “I want to educate my fellow people but I’m too lazy to leave my echo chamber. Lashing out at brands that did not meet my absurdity is also my source of entertainment.”
When asked about Apple, he said, “It’s Apple, doesn’t matter if it’s overpriced– it just works.”
