T-Mobile Vivacity
In essence, the Vivacity is almost identical to Orange's aforementioned San Francisco II. Both are produced by ZTE and upon close inspection, there's little difference between them beyond the fact the Vivacity looks more like an iPhone. I'm staggered that a crack team from Cupertino hasn't come a knocking yet.
As with The San Fran II, the Vivacity's main selling point is its 3.5in display. With a resolution of 480 x 800 and 267ppi it's quite impressive to behold. It also relies on an S1 800MHz processor from a couple years back. Alas, the handset is let down by a glossy fingerprint magnet casing, but does at least bring 802.11n to its Wi-Fi roster.
The Vivacity is a decent all-rounder and, as budget smartphones go, certainly worthy of a look-in, so long as you don't mind being locked-in with Orange, of course.
Reg Rating 85%
Price £89
More info T-Mobile
Vodafone Smart II
Vodafone's Android offering in the sub-£100 category barely scrapes the average barrel in terms of technical capabilities or design for that matter. OK, so the handset is a handy size and feels fairly comfortable to use, That said, the inclusion of a strange two-piece back panel makes little sense and taking the battery out to reach the Sim or MicroSD card is a fiddly affair.
Broadcom's 830MHz BCM21553 processor makes its second appearance in this roundup and steps things up a notch from the original Smart's 528MHz spec, however, the performance is nothing special, though. For a budget blower, there's the somewhat rare appearance of a dedicated camera button, but the quality is at a below-par 3Mp, so why bother? And while the 3.2in display with its 480 x 320 resolution suggests it should be fine, content viewed on it looked rather washed out. Mehs all round on this one.
Reg Rating 60%
Price £70
More info Vodafone
Ten Androids for under 100 quid
COMMENTS
Re: T-mobile Vivacity
Crap? Only if you're taking the same standpoint as someone who drives a high end car and looks down on those in hatchbacks. Given the difference in price versus the difference in performance/features a budget smartphone is an eminently sensible choice for those with a slimmer discretionary wad.
This may come as a bit of a shock, but, well, not everyone wants a bloody iPhone.
Re: Spend a little more.
And I would agree with you 100% if it weren't for the lack of MicroSD card suppport in the U. That just kills it for me. How can you really use it as a smartphone with only around 6GB? Most of the uses that define a smartphone require large amounts of storage.
Thought
Most of them seem to have been based on a rounded rectangle shape. Are they really iPhones in disguise ?
Erm... the 'going rate' for a two year old 3GS is still in the region of £150.
