Low end Android pho...
 

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[Closed] Low end Android phones

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 Bez
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Ok, folks - here are the criteria, what do you recommend (personal experience preferred):

- up to £100ish Sim-free
- a smaller and/or lower-res screen, and a slower CPU are both Good Things, because I have a Nexus 7 for doing fancy stuff and the phone mostly just needs to handle being a phone and a hotspot, so the less it bothers the battery the better
- a camera that puts out usable results (ie worth printing at 6" or so)
- half decent build quality (including decent glass)

Pretty much anything else isn't massively important. Bonus marks for a hardware camera button or vanilla Android, though.

Candidates look like the Desire C, Wildfire S, Xperia Mini, Xperia Tipo...?


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 8:17 pm
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Whatever the current Orange ZTE outing is, Monte Carlo perhaps?

TBH, I'd probably be popping into my nearest CEX and getting a second hand Desire or something for 40p if I were you.


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 8:29 pm
 Bez
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Oddly enough I had a spare Desire and sold it just before Christmas - well done me 🙂


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 8:35 pm
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As an aside, I do wonder if with the rise of 7" tablets we're going to start seeing a decline in huge tablet phones.

Back in The Day, my EDC was a Psion and the smallest phone I could lay my hands on. Best of both worlds and I'd welcome a return to that philosophy.


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 8:46 pm
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Wildfire s is ok but battery life is a bit naff. Wife has the LG l3 and is as good if not better than the wildfire and is half the price


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 8:59 pm
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As an aside, I do wonder if with the rise of 7" tablets we're going to start seeing a decline in huge tablet phones.
I'm rather hoping for the rise (of cheaper versions), as they start to realise that 5.5-6 inch screen could be a phone and a mini tablet

waiting for galaxy notes to turn cheap just now


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 9:03 pm
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I've toying with getting the wife a Desire C to replace her pretty poor Orange San Fransisco, the best price I've found so far is around £107.


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 9:07 pm
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Kids have the Galaxy Y - cracking phone, days of battery and expandable memory.


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 9:38 pm
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Really like my Xperia Tipo.
it's the size of a phone!! and battery lasts days while my mates huge fancy phones run out if they use strava for more than a few hours. GPS is more accurate than their fancy phones too. pretty robust, with me as their owner, phones have to be!
Daughter has a Galaxy Y, also the size of a phone with good battery life but out of the two I prefer mine.

There is one annoying bug with the Tipo, dunno if it's because I have about 18GB of music on it but the music app sometimes won't recognise the SD music tracks (like once every few months) easily fixed by clearing data/cache so not a huge deal breaker, just slightly annoying.
Camera seems decent enough but has no flash


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 9:52 pm
 Haze
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My Wildfire was crap, unless the 'S' is significantly better then I'd avoid.

Very frustrating performance.


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 9:58 pm
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The Wildfire-S is a decent little phone, i bought one a stop gap when the other half's Desire HD went away for a new screen when she dropped it.


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 10:35 pm
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Wildfire is really slow....

My son says painful even for texting


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 10:35 pm
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I think wildfires have some bug that can be fixed to speed them up - haven't owned one so it's just what I think I read somewhere


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 10:40 pm
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I'd heed duirdh, he sounds AWESOME.

Anyway, Orange San Diegos are great FVM @ £100 if still on sale, prob to fancy for you tho.


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 10:55 pm
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i just got me one of these

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/huawei-ascend-g300-1077239/review

http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/sol/shop/technology/mobile_phones/phones/123425383_vodafone_huawei_ascend_g300_black_mobile_phone.html?esrc=googlebase&med=cse&CAWELAID=1509608444
very happy so far and much nicer than my wildfire

120quid payg from vodafone

+1 great phone an if your not on vodaphone you can easily get it unlocked with a code for around a fiver


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 11:08 pm
 nano
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All handsets at Carphone Warehouse are unlocked if you want to be able to swap sims and / or sell on

For around £100 Galaxy Ace is worth considering in addition to those listed above


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 11:13 pm
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Galaxy note is brilliant. No need for a tab


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 11:25 pm
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Calm down with the flattery, Valentines day is still almost two weeks away


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 11:25 pm
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+1 Huawei G300 but quite a large handset


 
Posted : 03/02/2013 11:53 pm
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Samsung galaxy s gt i9000 can be had for about £100 sim free on EBay. Mine was anyway. Not a bad phone and way less frustrating than the HTC Desire I had before it.

Back in The Day, my EDC was a Psion and the smallest phone I could lay my hands on. Best of both worlds and I'd welcome a return to that philosophy.

Series 5 Psion and Ericsson phone here, back I the day. Wonderful set up. I could get on tinterweb before most folk knew what the Internet was.


 
Posted : 04/02/2013 3:34 am
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I've just bought one of those G300s, so I've got a Wildfire going spare if you want it. It is absolutely awful though.


 
Posted : 04/02/2013 12:55 pm
 Bez
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Hm. Assuming it's unlocked, how much would you want for the Wildfire? (I do believe you about it being awful, BTW, but it might do as a stand-in while I send my Sony back for repair again.)


 
Posted : 04/02/2013 1:45 pm
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I dunno, 35 quid? I dont know whether its unlocked, I think its on vodafone. But it wasnt a contract phone, I bought it sim free from Asdas.


 
Posted : 04/02/2013 6:37 pm
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If it's SIM free, I'd have thought it was unlocked pretty much by definition...?


 
Posted : 04/02/2013 6:39 pm
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Fair point. I honestly don't know, it has a vodafone splash screen on start up though?


 
Posted : 04/02/2013 7:32 pm