Cheap smartphone

[irocfan]

Mrs Irocfan's Galaxy Note is starting to show signs of crapping out and so I'm looking to get a cheap replacement - I found the below on another thread I just wondered how many people have one and what their experiences are...

https://www.chinavasion.com/china/wholesale/Androi...

[dudleybloke]

Got one. Its bloody good. Fast, good screen, good speaker, and it feels good quality too. the dual sim is handy and the battery lasts ages.

[magpie215]

Mate has just bought one... Great bit of kit also comes with soft case screen protector and 16g SD card

[mattley]

I'm looking at one of these as dual SIM will be handy, do they run security updates via google play?

[paul99]

I bought one off the back of a recommendation on another thread on here. It's a massive bargain, I average 3 days between charges, best so far is 4 days with reasonable use. Its fast, well made, cameras good, screen is excelent, runs vanilla Android with no bloaty crap so no need to root it, gets over the air firmware updates from manufacturer and its dual sim. Aside from 4g it does everything the top end phones do very well.

For ~£180 its a no brainer, i would definitely buy another for the battery life alone.

[jas xjr]

Take a look at a 2014 moto g as an alternative. Dual sim , simple version of android . battery life is not the best though

[ZesPak]

Agreed, Moto G is a solid mainstream alternative.
I've had mixed experience with Chinese import, some offer tremendous support (eg. Oppo) while others just leave you to your faith.

[roryfizz]

I have had mine a few days now after my Sony Xperia died a death of being no longer waterproof. For the money it really seems an unbeatable deal. Compared to the sony I had it seems to be missing nothing whilst offering twice the battery life for half the price. I seem to be getting about 2 days use out of it but then I use it heavily for browsing in the evenings and my sony often needed an evening charge.

Overall I would recommend one so far.

[ZesPak]

Isn't the Sony's camera significantly better?
Not that it matters to everyone, mind you.

[dudleybloke]

Its a sony camera on the thl.

[tobinen]

+1 for the Technology Happy Life 5000 - had mine a few weeks and pleased with it.

[andy-xr]

Bringing this one back up rather than start a new thread, I smashed up my Note 2 a couple of weeks ago, bought a first gen Moto G as a stopgap but looking at changing that now because a) it's payday b) the camera on the Moto G is really bad and c) It's Black Friday

I considered the THL from Chinavision but really for my next phone I think I'd like 4G LTE and a reasonable camera. I like instagram and I like selfies. What I found with the Moto G is that the front camera is pretty hopeless, the rear is OK as long as you dont use the zoom, but it's not great resolution. Hardly a surprise, it's £150 and has some other nice hardware in there

What I've found is as follows:

Asus Zenfone 5, 8Mp Sony lens camera, 2Mp front camera, 1080 screen, 16Gb ROM, 2Gb RAM, £200 at eBuyer: http://www.ebuyer.com/660811-asus-zenfone-5-lte-16...

Infocus M512, there seem to be a couple of spec differences between sites, the one I'm linking says it has a 13Mp rear camera and a 5Mp front camera, but I think it's actually 8Mp rear and 2Mp front. Only 4GB ROM, so apps2SD might be needed and 1GB RAM: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MHL3ZM0/ref=wl_it_dp...

XRT Swift, 5.5 inch screen, 3GB RAM, 48GB ROM, 20Mp camera (faked resolution), Dual SIM, 4800Mih battery and a spare for £184: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/6040808802/ref=wl_it_dp...

I think, unless I find out that the XRT has a load of backdoors in it like another manufacturer that's the one I'm going to go for

ETA - The Xiaomi Note 4G, £150 at Amazon, 4G, Quad-Core 2GB RAM 8GB ROM http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NOCH9DW/ref=wl_it_dp...


If anyone else has any recommendations please feel free to add them!

Edited by andy-xr on Friday 28th November 10:41

[RadoVR6]

Any recommendations for sub £100 phones?

Is the Sony experia M any good?

Thanks

[AW10]

My brother recently bought a Huawei Ascend Y330 for the equivalent of £20 on the continent and is quite pleased with it. See http://www.phoneshopbysainsburys.co.uk/huawei-asce... for the UK.

[ZesPak]

RadoVR6 said:

Any recommendations for sub £100 phones?

Is the Sony experia M any good?

Thanks

Android: Moto E
WP: 530 or even 630

[andy-xr]

andy-xr said:

XRT Swift, 5.5 inch screen, 3GB RAM, 48GB ROM, 20Mp camera (faked resolution), Dual SIM, 4800Mih battery and a spare for £184: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/6040808802/ref=wl_it_dp...

I think, unless I find out that the XRT has a load of backdoors in it like another manufacturer that's the one I'm going to go for

Well, I went with this one, and mixed feelings tbh. The phone itself is good, bit plasticy but kind of expected. There doesnt seem to be a micro/nano SIM slot for the primary, it appears to be a full size, which is OK, I think I can get one from my phone provider. Havent been able to sync it with my Google account yet, everything's added, I'm signed in where I should be, but no contacts and no browser favourites coming up.

Sent the Amazon seller a quick message asking for support, if they cant help I'll try and return it. Other than that, for under £200 it's been OK

[BigsimonY]

bit of a resurrection, but does the THL come with all the google stuff on it out the box?

[dudleybloke]

BigsimonY said:

bit of a resurrection, but does the THL come with all the google stuff on it out the box?

Yes.
The only preinstalled software are twitter etc and they can be deleted.