Motorola Motoluxe
Out of the box, the Motoluxe looks like a high-end smartphone – it’s almost all screen, has good build quality and an 8Mp camera. The 4in screen is sharp too at 480 x 854 pixels but the ultimate pay-off for all the surface USPs are an average 800MHz processor and around 300MB of internal storage to play with, a MicroSD card upgrade is essential.
The Motoluxe is an attempt to bring big budget items like a large screen and impressive camera to the mid-range Android market but falls short given that, in day-to-day use, despite its good looks, it feels sluggish against its rivals.
Reg Rating 70%
Price £190
More info Motorola
Orange Monte Carlo
The Monte Carlo is an Orange branded version of the ZTE Skate featuring a giant, 4.3in, 400 x 800-pixel screen that immediately impresses. Indeed, the size eclipses other Android smartphones at a similar price point. While responsive and bright, it's not the most detailed display, truth be told.
The embedded Orange apps are annoying bloatware but the battery life is good considering the screen size and its 800MHz processor. Naturally, the price is subsidised by the fact you’ll be topping up with Orange credit on PAYG but that doesn’t change the fact that the Orange Monte Carlo is still a value for money option and certainly accessible for Android virgins.
Reg Rating 85%
Price £119
More info Orange
Next page: Samsung Galaxy Ace
COMMENTS
Battery
In phone reviews I'd like to see the battery life measured for each one. Battery life of portable electronics is so important to me. Having gone from a Sony Ericcson P1i (3G, touchscreen with stylus) which gave me over a week to an HTC Desire which would give me a day and a half even when just sitting idle in my jacket. Changing to CyanogenMod extended that to a long weekend. But it's still not good enough.
Battery tech keeps improving but any advantages are negated by useless UI animation, fancy graphics and pointless cruft.
System storage???
Not a single mention of how much space any of these handsets has for application storage which I'd argue is the most important bit of info to have when buying any Android phone, esp a cheap one.
Re: "The Samsung Galaxy Ace looks remarkably like an iPhone 4."
It's a rectangle with rounded corners and single button. Enough to inflame any manufacturer with insecurity problems
What No Ascend G300 ?
By far the best budget android phone.
Re: System storage???
My HTC desire suffered really badly from the lack of system memory for apps., but by rooting it, and installing a different rom that had better memory management and built in scripts to map SD card space as App storage space then limits on storage space was boosted from 120MB to2GB...
since then have installed CyanogenMod 7.2 rc3 and it works better than ever...
