MY TAKE ON CHINESE SMARTPHONES (PART I)

dhruvtalksstech
Nov 19, 2022
4 min read

Updated: Dec 7, 2022

Hats off to Chinese companies for what they have done but we've got to remember the fact that they are Chinese foreign companies at the end of the day. So, privacy remains the in the red. Chinese companies, let alone smartphone companies, are known around the world for their disregard for the laws of the land and the nature of incessant breaking of the laws, stealing from the people and the government, and acting on the direction of their home dictator. Chinese smartphones are a cesspool of fierce data collection, malware, surveillance, overriding of privacy settings, targeted ads, bloatware, and invasion of privacy. In the past, I have talked about the low cost of Chinese smartphones and the reason why they sold well because of their low price. Ever wondered how they are able to achieve that? They do it by selling data they collect from each and every device sold on the planet.

Chinese companies tie up with American and global ad partners such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Flipkart, and other tech giants to sell your data to them. This allows those tech giants to create a digital profile of you that consists of everything from your preferences to dislikes to opinions to recent events and more than you can possibly wrap your head around.

It is indeed crossing some very thin gray lines of law but they are never questioned because of the cash-rich lobbying tech companies which drive Congress in the US. You can almost think of it as a symbiotic relationship between American and Chinese tech companies where they seem to be almost colluding and cooperating to make the best use of users’ data.

When you buy a Chinese smartphone, (especially the cheaper one) you will always have a lot of in-house and external apps preinstalled on the device. This is another way by which they offset costs. They tie up with startups and other established companies to pre-install their services on your phone to incentivize you to utilize more of their services without even signing up for them in the first place. Chinese companies make a ton of money off of these schemes. If you open the privacy settings of any Chinese smartphone, it’d be almost unthinkable not to notice that you can’t really alter the settings a lot. A lot of them are set to ‘always use’ by default and it does not always allow you to go back to disable or limit the functionality of particular components such as the mic, camera, location services, etc.

Just remember that whenever you are using a Chinese phone you are being watched, recorded, taped, analyzed, auctioned, targeted, and commodified and all of this is just adding to your profile making you an easier target for companies by making the list more and more extensive and detailed.

Apart from just privacy loopholes, Chinese companies are also well known for fitting cheap components in their phones. Components that do not last very long, break down easily and only look good on the outside. They try to pack in features such as high refresh rate and fast charging at the cost of new-gen processors as they also know that people nowadays look at features that turn heads rather than caring for the ones which are actually useful and can significantly elevate your experience and longevity of a smartphone. Most Chinese smartphones don’t last for over 2 years and they get slow and buggy. As soon as a new model is released, companies stop caring about last year’s phones. This is apparent from the fact that most Chinese companies only give software updates for 1-year post-release. This is very menial even by Samsung standards which have really done a lot in this field in the last year by promising 4 generations of software updates.

Chinese smartphones at large are a lot like fast fashion. They launch every 2nd day, create buzz, sell a few units and the cycle keeps on going. There are just too many of them in the market even from brands you have probably never heard of especially in developing markets like India and South Africa. Chinese companies have also been in the middle of several scandals, corruption rackets, bribing of officials and abusing market position, and suppressing competition. All of this goes against the very spirit of competition and capitalism.

I would personally advise you to try to avoid Chinese smartphones as much as possible. They are literally selling you without you having even the faintest idea. It’s not you who is buying the smartphone. It's a smartphone company that buys, sells, and trades you and everything you hold dear and personal in this expansive universe. You may not have told your best friend about your new crush but your phone certainly knows that you are attracted to her. How? Machine learning and AI are designed to do just this - collect users’ data, monetize their behaviors and searches and then sell the information to the highest bidder.