The mobile device market is growing at such a fast pace that it is very difficult to keep track of which players appear and disappear on it. If we all know about companies such as Nokia, Samsung or Lenovo, then less often people have not heard of less well-known brands from China, or even less from small European countries.
Therefore, in the framework of this article, I would like to mention the BQ brand. Phones, the country of origin of which is Spain, are not so widely advertised in the mobile device market. If you believe the statistics of sales, the devices of this company occupy only 3 percent of all smartphones in their country. Despite this, the company has a turnover of more than 200 million dollars a year.
About company
Devices known under the BQ brand are phones whose manufacturer is called Mundo Reader. This is a Spanish company, which began its activities in 2009. The start of the success of this group was the import of cheap electronics from China, mainly electronic books, the first mobile phones and some accessories. There were no smartphones as such, except for the Apple iPhone .
Seeing success, those who are now releasing BQ phones (the manufacturing country, as already noted, are Spain), have opened their own development. A design line was formed (the phones, however, look typical of many touch devices) and the brand, under which they started production. As time has shown, this decision was quite successful. This made it possible to attract buyers to some extent on BQ phones, the country of origin of which is the birthplace of most of them.
BQ Products
You can see what the company's products are on its official website. A catalog is open here, which presents mobile phones, tablet computers, as well as 3D printers. Of course, there are phones in the BQ catalog. It is not difficult to guess who makes them.
All prices for goods are indicated in euros, you can order from the official website exclusively to residents of Spain. Of course, delivery is paid by the client. For each of the lots on the portal there is a description, a small overview, as well as a section that shows the accessories available for ordering. The latter opportunity is very useful for those who buy BQ (phones). The country of origin of these covers and films is Spain, so you should not expect a catch in terms of quality. Of course, because of this, the price of accessories here is higher than, say, at the Aliexpress auction. Quality, as you know, too.
Device Features
If you carefully study the BQ (phones, whose country of manufacture is also Spain), the difference with Chinese gadgets will actually not be easy to identify. These are ordinary Android or Ubuntu touch smartphones equipped with the same processors and graphics engines as Chinese products from little-known manufacturers. Typically, this is a MediaTek MT6592. If we talk about screens, then here we will not find anything new - the models come with displays equipped with an IPS-matrix.
Reviews
As the few characteristics that we were able to find on the Internet from those who have already purchased a model of this company, BQ (phones) are distinguished from the Chinese by the manufacturing country. This is Spain, where labor is paid higher, but its quality is in line with international standards. If the phone came to us from somewhere in the factory of the Guan-Zhou province, he would most likely have had a backlash and by touch it would be possible to determine the budget nature of such a model.
BQ - phones whose manufacturing country is not famous for as many fakes and various manufacturing "mistakes" as China, in this respect are somewhat different: the panels are tight, and the phone is pretty nice to the touch.
Prices
True, and for this the buyer pays. On the official website, as already noted, the models that are on sale have a price. It can be determined for each of the smartphones and, thus, compare what the company offers and at what price. So, the cheapest BQ model can be purchased for only 169 euros. For this cost, the buyer receives a device running on the MT6735 processor with a clock frequency of 1 GHz and with the Android 5.1 operating system. There are also two cameras here - with a resolution of 8 and 5 megapixels, as well as options such as Wi-Fi, 4G, Bluetooth, GPS.
Another (the most expensive device in the BQ line) is offered at a price of 310 euros with an MT6592 processor (frequency 2 GHz) in a metal case with Android 4.4.4 OS. Other characteristics are not much different from the previous, cheaper model.
Other BQ
There is another company called BQ. More specifically, this is BQ Mobile. It is imported to our country by a domestic distributor, while telephones are manufactured in China. Prices set by sellers of these models are many times lower.
Features of BQ Mobile
However, in order to understand why this is so, some descriptions of models from BQM should be given. Firstly, they are all push-button. That is, there is no need to talk about the presentation of smartphones with a touch screen, as can be seen in the model line of the Spanish company BQ. Secondly, each of the devices claims its own unique design and some special image. For example, there is an apparatus with a device for opening beer; a mobile phone with 3 SIM cards the size of a lighter and some other cool models.
They are inexpensive - about 2 thousand rubles. Moreover, it is difficult to say how reliable these phones are - the country of the brand's manufacturer is China. But Russian representatives quite actively promote it in the device market - there is a website on the Internet where such models are sold. Here you can find incredibly attractive descriptions, photographs and, of course, excellent product reviews. However, if you read the reviews on the Internet, nobody takes the moves of this company seriously.
Due to the installation of a mechanism for opening beer, for example, no major brand will conquer the market, except for Russian distributors. The phones themselves, on the case labeled as representatives of the BQ line, are most likely made to order with that name in order to play into the misconception of the buyer, who may have heard of the high quality of BQ products before. At the same time, of course, hoping that such a phone will serve for a long time and reliably is likely to be too naive.