Best smartphone £220 go!!!

stoke1863

stoke1863

stoke1863

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My friend has sold his AWFUL N97 and wants a good stop gap phone for about 6 months.

His prefrence is a milestone due to the keyboard but finding a used one below £220 is tough, He would prefer an android

Any ideas?
 
Stay away from the Sony X10 mini; it's a terrible excuse of a smartphone - the UI has been hacked to death so it's doesn't even have the nice feel of Android and it runs 1.6 with no sign of an upgrade coming!

The HTC Wildfire on the other hand is actually a pretty decent smartphone and would be my top recommendation for this price bracket - it's as fast as a HTC Hero with better styling, the only thing bringing it down is that the screen is a bit rubbish, but for £220 you get a whole lot of phone! (my girlfriend has one)
 
Kona* said:
Stay away from the Sony X10 mini; it's a terrible excuse of a smartphone - the UI has been hacked to death so it's doesn't even have the nice feel of Android and it runs 1.6 with no sign of an upgrade coming!

The HTC Wildfire on the other hand is actually a pretty decent smartphone and would be my top recommendation for this price bracket - it's as fast as a HTC Hero with better styling, the only thing bringing it down is that the screen is a bit rubbish, but for £220 you get a whole lot of phone! (my girlfriend has one)
Click to expand...

lol every review on this forum ive seen has said the complete opposite

infact i suspect youve only ever tried the wildfire... the mini runs an improved 1.6 kernel and the 2.1 update is just around the corner. if you want standard android menus (which are too small on a phone so small) all you do is change some options or download adwlauncher/launcherpro. dont own one but it gets great reviews for what it is


anyway neither are anyway near a proper smartphone and are too small imo

looking for good deals on used phones is the best option
 
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Nexus18 said:
Samsung galaxy spica, probably the best budget android mobile considering it has the best hardware specs apart from the camera which isn't the best tbh, better than the HTC hero and the HTC wildfire, sony Ericsson mini pro etc. for hardware specs IMO.

Some basic specs to give you an idea:

Samsung Galaxy Spica I5700:

CPU 800MHz processor
Internal 180 MB storage
TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 320 x 480 pixels, 3.2 inches
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1500 mAh
Android 2.1 OS
Camera 3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels, autofocus
Video Yes, CIF@15fps

HTC Wildfire:

CPU Qualcomm MSM 7225 528 MHz processor
Internal 384 MB RAM; 512 MB ROM
TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 240 x 320 pixels, 3.2 inches
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1300 mAh
Android 2.1 OS (but getting the update to 2.2)
Camera 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Video Yes

HTC Hero:

CPU Qualcomm MSM 7200A 528 MHz processor
Internal 288 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM
Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 65K colors (think it's 16 million colours though)
Size 320 x 480 pixels, 3.2 inches
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1350 mAh
Android 2.1 OS
Camera 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus
Video Yes, CIF@15fps

Personally I would not even consider the wildfire even though it is fairly nice looking mobile and the specs are decent plus the main thing is that's getting 2.2, but unfortunately the screen resolution is awful, some people have mentioned that you can actually see the individual pixels and also some apps will not work due to this for e.g. the Engadget app, plus it would be awful for web browsing and watching videos.

EDIT: The only thing which the HTC mobiles have over the other mobiles like samsung etc. is the HTC sense UI, however that's down to personal preference, I quite like it in some ways but rather have just stock android and also a lot of people who have the desire on this forum don't like the sense UI and so they have flashed custom firmwares on to there mobiles to get rid of it. Plus you will probably end up using launcher pro (that's if you buy an android mobile) instead for it's pure speed and full customization of your mobile and also it has widgets which are very similar to HTC sense ones now. Also if you wanted you could make your samsung or other non HTC mobile look like sense.

If you want a mobile for the camera, the HTC wildfire would probably be worth considering or the sony ericsson mini, hero as well but it doesn't have a flash so would be useless for photos in the dark.

And for music, I would say that all mobiles would be just as good as each other for that tbh.

Also it depends if your going to root and flash custom firmwares on your mobile as HTC would have a much better developing community but samsung also has a very good developing community at samdroid.net. For e.g. someone has got flash working on the samsung I5700 2.1 (was only able to work on 2.2), leshak is working on 2.2 for the I5700, developers are working on implementing the multi touch feature which hasn't been unlocked on the i5700 yet and also improving the 3d driver as well (originally couldn't play the raging thunder racing game but now you can, apparently it's very smooth but some textures missing etc. but no doubt those will be fixed very soon).

Have a look at this thread for more info on the best budget mobile:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=16987341#post16987341

You really just need to try the mobiles out for yourself to see which one suits you best.
Click to expand...

Nexus18 said:
Actually I would have to say the galaxy spica has a better spec than the wildfire as well (I own the spica :p and I love it apart from a few things). Plus if you buy the mobile on the 3 network you get 2.1 already preloaded on it and it works great, very fast and smooth using launcher pro (I bought mine around 19th April, had 2.1 on, no need for rooting and flashing a custom 2.1 on).

Plus the internal memory isn't a problem for me, the most apps I have had installed was 56 apps and I had 20Mb left and most were silly games around 3Mb and other apps around 1Mb, I only have 31 apps installed now and I have 40Mb free, just make sure you clear cache every week and you free up around 20Mb-30Mb, well I do anyway :p. Plus if it is a big problem, the memory, then you can simply root your mobile and get appstoSD.

Anyway heres my views on both mobiles:

1. Spica on 2.1 already if you buy mobile with 3, however you can still root it and flash a custom 2.1 firmware which will be better than the official one

2. Camera is very good when photos are taken in good light (my previous mobile was the samsung soul U900 which had a 5MP camera and flash but seriously I think the camera on the spica when taking photos in well lit areas are much better than my 5MP samsung U900) but bad when photos are taken in dark areas due to no flash, which is a big down side if you take lots of photos in dark areas etc.

3.Spica has a very good development team over at samdroid.net and will have it's own XDA forum this week, so very good support by lots of developers. Wildfire will also have very good support, probably be much better due to open drivers etc.

4. Screen Resolution far better than the wildfires (certain apps will not work with the wildfires screen resolution, I think the engadget app is one of them), plus a lot of expert reviews and user reviews have said the resolution is awful looking especially for web browsing, plus it would look pretty bad when watching videos as well, some even say that they can see the individual pixels on the wildfire. It would look fine if the screen was smaller to make up for it but it's the same as I5700 (3.2"). Plus the screen on the I5700 is very good in the sunlight when set to 80% I find.

The screen on the I5700 for quality is very good IMO and a lot of other people on a number of forums agree, here is a video showing the ipod touch 3G and the I5700 and also some guy asking if it was an IPS screen lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQPr5kg5jzA

http://forum.samdroid.net/f38/about-i5700s-lcd-screen-ips-1461/

5. Wildfire will receive an official update to 2.2 (froyo) where as the I5700 probably won't, no confirmation directly from samsung for I5700 yet, however you can root and flash custom firmwares on both the wildfire and I5700 (leshak has an alpha 2 of froyo running on I5700, won't be long till it is fully working)

6. Developers at samdroid.net are working on the drivers of the I5700 to unlock the hardware capabilities that aren't yet implemented (more memory will be unlocked some time in the future as well):

-The Galaxy Spica has 256 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM. But only 146 was made visible to the OS.
-It has a FM capable chip BCM4325, but was not implemented.
-QT5480 chip is multitouch capable but was not implemented

http://forum.samdroid.net/f37/galax...capabilities-not-yet-implemented-81/#post1667

Now that XDA are making a specific forum for the I5700, we should get those capabilities implemented much quicker, but the people at samdroid.net are doing a very good job on there own.

7. You get the sense UI and there widgets with the wildfire, which is very nice, however launcher pro plus now has widgets which look just like the HTC ones and will probably work exactly the same as them, and also launcher pro is much faster than sense and fully customizable

8. The battery life is sort of on par with the wildfire, but this depends entirely on usage like what apps are updating etc:

HTC:
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1300 mAh
Stand-by Up to 480 h (2G) / Up to 690 h (3G)
Talk time Up to 7 h 20 min (2G) / Up to 8 h 10 min (3G)

I5700:
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1500 mAh
Stand-by Up to 650 h (2G) / Up to 580 h (3G)
Talk time Up to 11 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 6 h 50 min (3G)

I can get 2 days and a bit out of my spica with loads of usage, 5 homescreens with weather and news widget updating every 1 hour, hotmail and googlemail updating every hour, screen brightness on 50% when inside and 80% when outside, wifi on permanently when able to, which is most of the time, loads of texting, phone calls, browsing, playing games, mini info which monitors battery and other general stuff.

9. 3 things which I don't like about the I5700 is that the hard buttons are not back lit at all, phone is ok looking but would have looked much better if it had a graphite metal housing instead of a plastic housing (I got a red and black back cover with my phone) and also no flash.

Biggest problem though is samsung and there support which is one reason why I won't buy a samsung mobile again unless they improve there support system a lot.
Click to expand...

Those are my thoughts on the best android mobile around that price. IMO the spica is the clear winner out of the android mobiles around that price apart from the camera though, if you really need a good camera, wildfire or the sony Ericsson mini would be the best around that price and the Hero after them but it doesn't have a flash at all.

EDIT: You can also buy the samsung i5700 brand new for less than £220 pounds.
 
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Just an update.

He got a 2 day old Xperia X10 for £203 on the bay. I know it is still 1.6 but he really isnt the type to give a crao about it. Its a better phone than stuff like a wildfire surely?
 
The full X10 (not mini or mini pro) has hardware to rival the Desire, ie the top tier of current Android device hardware.

If it is fully working then I'd say £203 was a steal.
 
I dunno why people expect so much out of a budget handset like the wildfire

out of the new handsets I ll take the wildfire, even I m tempted by it ( hay my first android phone hint hint.)

if you have had a legand or something before than you will miss the high res screen...the critets love the wild fire for good reason its just as capable as a phone and media player as a desire ( and can probley last longer) yeah fine the screen has a bad res bad move on HTCs front imo, becasue of that it has combatiblity issus with some apps/games but thats about it.

with that said if you going to go second hand, you can pick up a legand for around that.

thats a steal if you found/got a x10 for £200 if its working
 
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