I think the playing field has somewhat been opened up especially with Android coming on board. Personally I am an Android fan and I think that the fact that it i is open source has allowed for many more players to take advantage of this powerful software which has significantly helped make it popular. This has allowed cheaper brands to capitalise on quality software. In my view, few specs really matter except the operating system, processor speed and internal memory and maybe a good camera. This can be found, if you know where to look, on reasonably priced phones.
I agree with the assertion that GTel phones are just as good when it comes to quality. They borrowed a brnd with bad rep, yes, but I feel they have made strides and continue to move in the right direction. Blackberry, though a big brand outside our borders, has suffered in Zimbabwe mainly because of BBM service not being available in Zimbabwe. It's just too inconvenient to own one because simple tasks that can be done easily on other phones like installing certain software need 'specialist' help.