The new Orange Android phone (San Francisco) £99...but a Question??

shaddy666 said:
Thank you for the link will give it a try.I will try different settings and see what happens.Just a real noob were phones are concerned :D
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Don't get your hopes up of using t-mbiles network down here as i have only once seen my phone connect to it in the month i have enabled it.
 
I'm considering ditching my HTC Legend for one of these. I was initially interested in the Acer Liquid, but I'm not totally convinced that'd be the right move.

The Main annoyances with my Legend are:

- It's a little laggy (although I could live with similar performance)
- The screen is a bit pap for browsing (800x480 is far superior)
- The buttons feel like they're going to fall off

How well built is the San Francisco compared with the Legend? I know the casing of the legend is leagues ahead, but are the buttons flimsy, or are they quite solid? The Legend's buttons feel like you could pick them off with a fingernail TBH.

I'd buy a Liquid e if they weren't so expensive (don't like the fact the vanilla Liquid only has 256mb RAM). The screen is a bit of a letdown on the Liquid phones too, being only TFT.

My Legend is in very good shape, with a couple of tiny marks on the casing, fully boxed etc, and a scratch free screen so I could probably get ~£170 for it. I can't seem to find anything other than the San Francisco for ~£200 or less that is as good spec wise or better (must have a higer res screen than the Legend).

Help me decide!
 
danza said:
I'm considering ditching my HTC Legend for one of these. I was initially interested in the Acer Liquid, but I'm not totally convinced that'd be the right move.

The Main annoyances with my Legend are:

- It's a little laggy (although I could live with similar performance)
- The screen is a bit pap for browsing (800x480 is far superior)
- The buttons feel like they're going to fall off

How well built is the San Francisco compared with the Legend? I know the casing of the legend is leagues ahead, but are the buttons flimsy, or are they quite solid? The Legend's buttons feel like you could pick them off with a fingernail TBH.
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The sanfran has a 600mhz cpu too so I don't think it would be much faster than a legend.

There have been plenty of people reporting that the buttons are poorly build: The power button not responding (it's one of those microswitches with a cheap plastic cover), the volume buttons squeaking (mine are ok) and the home/menu/back buttons becoming less defined/clicky, which mine definitely have in the month i've owned it, - my home button creaks sometimes too.

There are plenty of threads on modaco with people complaining of faults, bad screens (red/pink), stuck sensors and also some with phone casing worn down which reveals pink metal underneath.

To be honest, I think the build quality of mine is just average. If you look after the phone it probably won't be an issue but the build quality is not up with any old nokia or sony ericsson i've owned.
 
Cheers for that.

I'm not expecting the earth really, just the better screen is appealing. I mainly use my Legend for browsing, and that's where it's really let down as text is pretty poorly defined unless zoomed in a fair bit. Using my mates Liquid and Nexus One makes the Legend feel a bit of a letdown in that respect.

I tend to nurse my phones while I own them anyway, so I'm not overly worried about the build of the SF. I can't see the buttons being any worse than on the Legend TBH as they're awful. I recently got rid of a well used Nokia 6600 classic that I'd had for 18 months which was almost unmarked, and that thing was built terribly!

Something faster than the Legend would be nice, but I'm not really that bothered by the odd hesitance it gives when opening the browser or opening the bookmarks screen etc. I think I could live with it. Besides, there are plenty of idiots paying over RRP for the SF on eBay, so I doubt I'd lose any money if I didn't get on with it anyway!

I think I'll order one from Orange in the week and see what I think of it. I can't think of any other phones that aren't over £200 or a lot more that will perform as well as the Legend and have a higher res screen.
 
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Buttons seem to be HTCs Achilles heel recently...

The sf is defiantly a good stop gap, alternatively have a look at the Motorola defy (great contract deals on t-mobile but it should be cheap if they bring it out on payg)
 
Just noticed that Orange offers a £20 discount on handsets to public sector workers. My wife's a teacher. :D

I might get her to call in the Orange shop this week as there's seemingly no way of getting the discount online. Whether they'll have any in stock is another matter though.
 
danza said:
Cheers for that.

I'm not expecting the earth really, just the better screen is appealing. I mainly use my Legend for browsing, and that's where it's really let down as text is pretty poorly defined unless zoomed in a fair bit. Using my mates Liquid and Nexus One makes the Legend feel a bit of a letdown in that respect.

I tend to nurse my phones while I own them anyway, so I'm not overly worried about the build of the SF. I can't see the buttons being any worse than on the Legend TBH as they're awful. I recently got rid of a well used Nokia 6600 classic that I'd had for 18 months which was almost unmarked, and that thing was built terribly!

Something faster than the Legend would be nice, but I'm not really that bothered by the odd hesitance it gives when opening the browser or opening the bookmarks screen etc. I think I could live with it. Besides, there are plenty of idiots paying over RRP for the SF on eBay, so I doubt I'd lose any money if I didn't get on with it anyway!

I think I'll order one from Orange in the week and see what I think of it. I can't think of any other phones that aren't over £200 or a lot more that will perform as well as the Legend and have a higher res screen.
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Screen isn't great. I was surprised how underwhelming it actually is compared to the HTC hero (its better but not by much) i have and just how far away it is from The Galaxy S i have.
The phone is only slightly better than my Hero in terms of speed.
Its not really an achiever and just remember, you buy a £99 phone teats what you're getting.

I have a modded ROM with all bloatware removed as OOTB its very poor. Orange had killed it filling the phone with crap.
 
Hey guys, got a san fran on the 6th and overall iam pretty pleased but the thing seems to be using credit even when its on standby.

I havent swapped my address book over yet so for the weekend i was using my old phone, i had a quick play sat morning just seeing how well the net worked and sent a few texts etc, his took the credit down from £10 to £8.15.

Anyways i leave it on charge over the rest of the weekend come back this morning and its down to £4.01, all 5 icons on comms screen are off but the 3g icon on the top occasionally flickers on/off. otherwise it seems to be running fine.

any ideas?
 
dalin80 said:
Hey guys, got a san fran on the 6th and overall iam pretty pleased but the thing seems to be using credit even when its on standby.

I havent swapped my address book over yet so for the weekend i was using my old phone, i had a quick play sat morning just seeing how well the net worked and sent a few texts etc, his took the credit down from £10 to £8.15.

Anyways i leave it on charge over the rest of the weekend come back this morning and its down to £4.01, all 5 icons on comms screen are off but the 3g icon on the top occasionally flickers on/off. otherwise it seems to be running fine.

any ideas?
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Auto syncing on?
 
data connection and background data were on, i have switched those off for now.

yep still running on orange, will give it a few months to make sure it doesn't have any warranty worthy defects before sodding that off.
 
I've been looking at reviews, and one thing that keeps coming around and bothers me is that there appears to be quite an issue with the wifi connection dropping. Has this been addressed yet/sorted with an update/hack/whatever, or does it persist?
 
Cheers for the info. :)

Is it confirmed to be a software bug, with a permanent fix once Froyo is released?
 
Cool. :)

I've been flicking through this thread on and off today, but must've missed - is there going to be an 'official' Froyo release for this handset, or will it be a community hacked version? Is the current version over at Modaco worthwhile, or is it still early days for it?

Thanks for answering my questions, much appreciated.
 
I'd use modaco for most up to date info. ZTE have recently stated they will release with froyo in china and other countries but not the UK. I reckon we'll get a hacked version. Soon hopefully :fingers crossed: Tried the alpha for a day and it was sublime in its smoothness.
 
Thanks for that. I'll defo be picking one of these up and having a fiddle. It'll be interesting to see what it's like next to my Legend (which may well end up sold on).
 
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