Price: £15, locked to 02 from Tesco
I purchased this phone about a week ago because I decided I hate my iPhone. Yes the iPhone 4 is a good phone however I decided that checking my E-Mail during nights and meals out wasn't the best of ideas and I just could not stop myself so I decided to sell the phone and buy this one!
The design:
There isn't much to say about the design. I love the simplicity and how durable the phone seems. The keys are very each to get along with and I can type faster on this than I could on the iPhone. The circular navigation key feels natural and easy to use. The only thing I don't like about the phone is the stupid bluetooth symbol above the screen, it looks like one of those Chinese knock off phones.
The Screen:
The screen isn't great but it has no need to be good. I don't know the dimensions but its fairly small and cheap, it does the job though and its easy enough to read texts and browse your contacts.
The Software:
The software on the phone is actually pretty good. It is the standard Samsung interface with is both good looking and very easy to navigate. Everything is where you would expect and you get a choice of 3 themes!
This phone sells itself as some kind of MP3 player. The music player is somewhat lacking and it does work fine however you cant have music playing whilst sending a text for example, you can only do the one thing at a time.
The Phone:
As a phone I absolutely love it. You can store around 500 contacts which is more than enough for any home user. The phone comes with a hands free kit which has let me down a bit as the voice quality is good whilst using the in built microphone but when you put the headset on it is drastically reduced. I think maybe I got a broken one however after emailing Tesco they told me to ring a premium rate number to ask for a new one so I decided it was not worth the hassle and just started to use the built in loudspeaker.
Another way this phone trumps the iPhone is the fact I can plug it into the computer (had to buy my own USB cable) and send/receive text messages. This is a really nice feature and because my phone plan gives me unlimited texts I can use my laptop keyboard and not worry about sending limits or the amount of texts I send!
Camera:
For my £15 I also got an built in camera. It is VGA quality so its not really a camera you can use day to day however the pictures display OK on the screen and you can clearly see everything in the pictures so its not too bad!Battery Life:
The battery life of this phone amazes me. I have charged the thing once since I got it (8 days ago) and it is still showing full battery. To be fair I have plugged it into the computer a couple of times which charged it whilst I transferred pictures and used the Samsung PC suite.
I have no idea how long the battery will last but I am absolutely amazed by it so far, so much better than the iPhone.
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Overall I give this phone 4/5 stars. I would have given it 5 if it wasn't for the headset. I would have still given it 5 if Tesco would have just sent me a new one rather than asking me to ring a premium rate number to talk to a phone specialist. If you are listening Tesco, send me one!