£200 Smart Phone Budget

Soldato
Joined
26 Feb 2007
Posts
14,187
Location
Leafy Cheshire
Hey guys

The HTC Hero is availble now for £200 sim free. This seems a good price for a phone that, whilst over a year old now, is still relatively up-to-date.

Are there any other options at around this budget that i should consider? It needs to be sim free as I live abroad.
 
The HTC Tattoo, Samsung I5800 Galaxy, Xperia X10 Mini and Acer Liquid are similarly priced.
 
Last edited:
The Touch 2 is a Windows Mobile device, but it's quite lacking... i don't even think it's got an accelerometer. If it were around the £100 mark then it might be worth a look, but if you're looking at the Hero then i'd consider the Wildfire too.
 
The Touch 2 is a Windows Mobile device, but it's quite lacking... i don't even think it's got an accelerometer. If it were around the £100 mark then it might be worth a look, but if you're looking at the Hero then i'd consider the Wildfire too.


i dont know much yet as im just looking into it but ive read the wildfire has a lower resolution the the norm meaning it can access quite a few apps.

if this isnt true i appologise but im trying to make the decision myself and ive ruled it out for that reason.
 
I think the Hero is swinging it here. Even though its almost 2 years old, it's a solid phone and held the Gold medal for some time.
 
The HTC Hero came out on general release in July 2009, don't think it's quite that old ;) It's a good alround phone still with a huge mod community on XDA should the desire to take it a bit further tickle your fancy.
 
These 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.

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).

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


Actually I would have to say the galaxy spica has a better spec than the wildfire as well (I own the spica 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 . 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://forum.samdroid.net/f38/about-...reen-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/galaxy...d-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.
 
I don't agree about the Samsung support in the 3 weeks I had the Galaxy S i must have flashed 7 different firmware roms which made the phone better each time.
 
My mate just got a 2 day old Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 for £205 on the bay.

Surely better than a hero?

Too right its in a different league too all the phones Nexus18 posted above, all that lets it down atm is its on android 1.6 but i believe September its being upgraded to 2.1, will also get hd video recording with update but i think that's 2.2.


FEATURES OS Android OS 1.6
CPU Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon 1 GHz processor

DISPLAY Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 65K colors
Size 480 x 854 pixels, 4.0 inches

CAMERA Primary 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features Touch focus, image stabilization, geo-tagging, face and smile detection
Video Yes, WVGA@30fps
 
Last edited:
I don't agree about the Samsung support in the 3 weeks I had the Galaxy S i must have flashed 7 different firmware roms which made the phone better each time.

Yeah obviously there support for the most powerful android mobile at the minute is going to be very good, considering how popular it is (similar to the HTC desire, how it's very popular and was the most powerful android mobile along with some others hence that's two of the reasons why it got the 2.2 update) the galaxy S hasn't been out for that long either, so it's not really a surprise that there are so many firmwares being released for it.

But there support for there other mobiles have been crap tbph.

There old samsung galaxy (I7500) didn't even get 1 major update (came out with 1.6 and when 2.1 came out, nearly every mobile got 2.1 apart from it and the funny thing is that there I7500 wasn't even that old [iirc it wasn't even a year old, only out for like a few months], there are a lot of I7500 owners who were very annoyed with this and some even started a group to try and take action against them for there awful support in regards to there updates).

I also had a U900 soul which was brand new, had a problem with it as well, went to the shop where I got it from, the guy told me to do a firmware update using there software (PC studio), got home, checked nothing there, so I searched google and another guy who was trying to update said he emailed Samsung telling them the problem etc. He got a reply back and they said that they aren't going to update the samsung U900 Soul at all, even though it was literally brand new.

Currently the mobile that I have at the minute is the spica I5700, however samsung support for this mobile is awful as well, a few problems with it (a camera bug where once you start the camera app, the processor will go to 800MHz and stay like that unless you open the most recent photos taken or something like that, the audio sometimes crackles and a few other problems but can't remember exactly what they are, BTW, you only get these problems if you have updated to a certain firmware, I am still on the first one of 2.1, so I have not noticed these problems apart from the audio crackling sometimes. However all of these problems could be easily fixed (according to leshak and other developers for the I5700), there are also other very poorly written drivers (which the developers over at samdroid are working on and have improved a lot e.g. the 3D driver).

Although at least we were lucky to receive the update from 1.5 to 2.1. But one thing which I don't get is that they aren't going to update this mobile to 2.2, even though it is very popular in Europe (not confirmed by Samsung yet, but the twitter page for samsung firmwares said that they don't think it will happen because they "think the phone is too old" [what a load of xxxx, the mobile was only released like 6 months ago, it's not even a year old, it came out here in the UK around February-April, can't remember exactly when), and plus I doubt it very much as well considering samsungs crap support history.

The hardware is perfectly capable of running 2.2, even the wildfire is getting an official update to 2.2 and it's specs are pretty crap tbh (but then again it's HTC and there customer support is much better).

There have been a lot of other mobiles where samsung have put no effort into updating the firmware either, or they have released 1 or 2 small updates just to keep some of there customers happy.

Not only that but the I5700 has 3 hardware capabilities that have been implemented, but haven't been unlocked yet, one of which is the multi touch, there reason for that was because apple were suing HTC for copying them, so samsung didn't want to get into all that trouble etc. which was fair enough back then, but there new mobiles have the multi touch now, so why don't Samsung update there I5700 to enable the multi touch drivers? Also why don't they unlock the extra memory and RAM and also the FM radio chip for the I5700? Simple answer they shaft all there customers that have a mobile which isn't even a year old, TBH I won't even be surprised if they don't update the Samsung galaxy S to android 3 OS as the mobile according to them will be "to old", whenever android 3 Os comes out, and also that all the owners of the galaxy S received the update from 2.1 to 2.2 will be another excuse as well probably.

And yes I know all the marketing reasons as well like they don't have enough time because of there new mobiles, there new bada OS, cost more money etc etc. but it just simply isn't good enough the way they are pretty much just dumping there mobiles and all there customers who own them after about 6 months of the phone being released, if they can't keep up to date with updates for there old mobiles cause of all the new stuff there doing and releasing then personally imo they should not be releasing all of there new things as soon as they have just released there new (old generation) mobiles (and yes again I know that's how companies work, how they make money etc. but IMO samsung are the worst for it and there just going to do more harm to themselves in the future if they keep on doing this to all of there customers with there mobiles, they will loose a lot of customers for this, I can guarantee that (probably have lost a lot as well so far and they will loose even more especially if they don't update the I5700 to 2.2 or at least keep it on 2.1 but unlock the hardware capabilites and improve there drivers a lot etc.), just read a lot of forums to do with some of there mobiles and especially forums to do with the I5700 and you will see a lot of people who are furious with there approach to updates. E.g. have a look at this:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?sgalax22

http://samsung-firmware.webs.com/apps/blog/show/3854673-android-2-2-on-the-spica-

Read a fair few of the comments.

There are also a lot of other sites where this discussion is going on.

Also Samsung don't release any of there open source drivers info or whatever it is that HTC release to help developers make custom ROMS and improve features etc. which is very bad as well considering they can't be bothered to do anything at all for the I5700, so they should at least let there stuff open source to help the samsung I5700 developers to improve the things, which the people at Samsung should be doing IMO.

My mate just got a 2 day old Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 for £205 on the bay.

Surely better than a hero?

Yeah much better than all the android budget mobiles that we have suggested so far. Would get 1 of them if you can get it for a similar price with out a doubt. Your m8 got a damn good deal.
 
Last edited:
Yeah much better than all the android budget mobiles that we have suggested so far. Would get 1 of them if you can get it for a similar price with out a doubt. Your m8 got a damn good deal.

Exactly, his mate got a very, very good deal.

You will have trouble finding one that cheap, so its hardly an option unless you are lucky.
 
If I remember properly does the galexy have full flash support ?


also the wildfire and hero share the same guts just (annoylingly) not the same screen type
 
Exactly, his mate got a very, very good deal.

You will have trouble finding one that cheap, so its hardly an option unless you are lucky.

it really is an option. just watch buyitnow's that go up and dissapear within the first day. people putting them up to sell quick

only paid 300 for mine and that was in release week

infact here http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sony-Ericsson...?pt=UK_MobilePhones_MobilePhones#ht_527wt_970

im 99% sure the 'light scratches on the screen' are actually on the plastic screen protector that most people dont even notice , the actual screen is mineral glass and would never scuff like that pic. also worth noting that SE had a no questions asked warranty when i sent mine back
 
Last edited:
When I sold my desire a month back I saw a x 10 go for £250 for a brand new in un-opened box, from the bloke that bought my desire. I guess the worry would be why are they selling so cheap now compared to phones it's in the same class ass.
 
Back
Top Bottom