Just a quick rant: I'm so over black smartphones. Black smartphones are boring. They're the fastest way to say "I have no personality". They're bland, uninspired, and corporate, in the sense that they don't have a soul. White and silver are only a little bit better.
Okay, maybe I'm being a little harsh, but I like colourful smartphones and I want to see some more. The good news is manufacturers are gradually dipping their toes in coloured waters. The bad is that these phones almost never end up in Australia.
There's a couple of reasons we see so few coloured smartphones. The most prominent of these is risk. If you bring in multiple colours, you're dealing with multiple SKUs, and the chance that some sell better than others. While some retailers will chance it - Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi are ranging the Huawei Mate 9 in mocha brown for example - local telcos are especially risk averse. Over the years, multiple industry sources have told me that telcos - in general - rarely want to take more than one colour, especially if they're less conventional. Apple gets away with it because it's Apple, but no other manufacturer has that kind of sway.
OPPO released an absolutely gorgeous red model of its R9s. It never showed up in Australia. The blue version of the Google Pixel didn't end up here either. Huawei's P10 will be available in blue and green internationally, but Huawei is still in negotiations as to what colours will come to Australia. The blue Samsung Note 7 never made it to Australia, and it looks like the blue Galaxy S8 won't either. Blue isn't even that out there a colour. Surprisingly, the blue HTC U Ultra is actually available locally, and more impressively, through a telco.
Motorola's Moto Mod Style Shells are an interesting way of addressing this problem. The Moto Z - one of the Moto Mod phones currently available - comes in three colours, but can be further personalised with the addition of clip magnetic back covers. If you want a red phone, you pay an extra $29 and snap on the Style Shells. It's not a perfect solution (they add on extra thickness and prevent you from using another Mod at the same time), but it means you can get your phone looking the way you want it to, at a much smaller risk to manufacturers and vendors. And Style Shells are far less intrusive than cases.
I've been happily using rose gold iPhones for some time now, partly because they're different, and partly because they complement some of my shirts nicely, and it's hard to imagine going back to a black or white phone. I've fallen in love with the blue Huawei P10, and will be devastated if it doesn't launch in Australia. Hell, I'll even compromise and accept green instead.
By now, you probably think I'm a complete wanker, and that's a fair call. But hey, colour is fun. Smartphones are an indispensable part of our live these days, so in some ways, I think they should also reflect our personality. And if black sums you up, cool, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who's after something a bit different.
Alex Choros
Related Articles
