There are some really crap budget phones out there. Vodafone's Smart Ultra 7 isn't Not so long ago, the idea of buying an operator-branded phone would have filled most people with horror. For years these were typically budget feature phones for skint punters, too time-poor to do their own homework. Vodafone Smart Ultra 7 . From vodafone uk website But then a couple of years ago, EE introduced its Kestrel, …
I went direct from China, for under £150 I got.......
3Gb RAM
64GB Storage (+ TF up to 128Gb)
Helio X20 10 core CPU @ 2.1GHz
5.5 inch IPS FHD screen
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, it's quite nice. Also gets 4G on Voda which is something you need to watch out for. Value wise? Crushes anything sub £400.
Though at end of initial contract period they now have to unlock for free?
There should be affordable 6 month contracts.
No contract subsidy, that's hidden HP
Here the minimum contract on many sorts of subscriptions has crept up to 18 months and meanwhile PAYG credit expiry period keeps dropping, making it nearly impossible to have an emergency phone in glove compartment or drawer.
and the battery life is, well, very decent / immoral / outrageous
and the battery is removable / non-removable / explodable
and the call quality is terrible / best in its class
and the no-sim feature is what makes it stand out / not
and the expansion memory aka micro-sd is there / not
and it's called a review
and it's free
and it's ok
You forgot the most important thing.
This is a phone, how good is it at making and receiving calls, also what is the quality of the sound and do you have to shout for the microphone to pick up your voice.
And they call this a review.
And of interest to the jailbirds and recidivists, will it fit your rear cavity comfortably or is that asking a bit much of a reviewer ?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/19/triplemurderer_prisoner_keeps_mobile_phone_in_his_butt_for_a_week/
Have an upvote sir
"Prior to the Kestrel was the Orange San Francisco, which I remember very fondly."
<snip>
Some of us would have to reject that on religious grounds.
Spotted in Belfast Toilet, mid eighties written in different hands:
ULSTER SAYS NO!
But the man from Delmonte says yes.
He should know as he is an orange man.
My OSF is still in daily use, sim removed as a nice little MP3 player with OLED screen for watching the odd video. With all the network stuff turned off, it lasts a few days on a charge. I had a look for a colour screen MP3/MP4 player that would take SD cards and have wifi etc and couldn't find one to match the OSF's original £99 price.
I 2nd that!
A phone IMHO is just that. I've tried numerous so called smart phones (and they're all shite).
I just want a phone to make calls, send texts, add calendar reminders and the odd alarm - and that's it. Oh an FM radio is a bonus.
Just my opinion but people who believe that a phone takes the place of a desktop / laptop (i've had many people make this claim) are just deluding themselves. Oh sure it can do a small percentage that a desktop / laptop does (most of the time it does them very badly or at best just about scrapes by).
But it's kinda like saying that you can live in a car - sure a tiny minority of the world may do this for short periods of time, but I don't see may people intending to give up their homes to live in a car because it does just the same thing!
Another thing that is a must on a phone (and frustratingly very rare these days) is buttons. I really fail to see what the worlds childish obsession with touch screens is all about! I mean what is the point of having a high def screen on a device when all you can see is high def finger print smudges ?
We tell tots not to put their paws all over the tv and then pass them a smart phone (or other dumb touch screen device).
I myself use a Samsung GT-S5611 - it does everything I want, a full charge lasts for a around a week (I use the phone little - but a smart phone only ever lasted me around 2 days) oh and best of all it cost about £40, so if I drop or lose it i won't be bawling tears like an i-phone user.
I can feel them downers in the post. Come on frantically hit me with your down-votes (it'll take you ages to clean the touch screen afterwards ;-) )
I had its Vodafone branded predecessor with a battery that the user was not supposed to remove. Well, I didn't know that and tried to prise it out only to damage the thing causing the battery to combust Samsung style.
So, I ended up with one and I have to say, apart from not being sure about the speaker it's a good bit of kit. Would spending an extra £200 really make much of a difference??
When we in our North London suburb read Mad Magazine for the first time we suddenly realised that there were people out there on the other side of the Atlantic with a shared culture. It wasn't just the Yiddish - it was the entire Jewish sense of humour aimed at all the sacred cows, and seeing American pop culture get a drubbing was a liberating experience. I owe a lot to Mad Magazine. The English department at our school was divided into those who hated it and those who loved it.
"It's a schlep" certainly means that, but just "schlep" means to carry or, especially, to drag. And is usually used in amusing context. Thus "schlep it along".
"Schmutz" is another good one, meaning dirt or grime. A good example was a weatherman using it correctly in context during a light snow, describing the dirty wet stuff that ends up on your windshield, thrown up by cars ahead of you esp. in town. In PA, at least, we like to salt our roads during snow, so dirty wet schmutz is exactly what you end up with.
My daughter loved her first phone, a Nokia 1100 for all the reason you give as well as it tended to get a connection in important places friends smartphones couldn't; like on the school bus. Having worn the keycaps away, after nearly 18 months of daily usage, I replaced it with an Apple iPhone 3GS, which in a matter of weeks required a replacement screen...
This post has been deleted by its author
That linked Pixi4 is cheaper than my Pixi3 was. Bastards! In my defence it was only intended to be a better camera than the one I had and far exceeded expectations. The only downside is nobody makes wallets that size so I had to use duct tape and a bit of plastic which is now a sort of fck-you badge of pride to wave at all you fancy-pants posh people.
Back to the main subject of the article, it does look good, but I see it doesn't have the only feature that a modern phone actually needs, which is the bit that electrocutes anyone trying to film in portrait mode.
With the speakers top and bottom the sound is very good - quality is fabulous actually.
I've been a big fan of Samsung for many years but decided to go cheap (all this before the exploding 7's) and I have to say I do not miss the Samsung - in fact I would go as far as to say that for what I use my phone for (calling, TXTing, browsing, specific apps, etc) this phone is quite remarkable!
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
