Depends if the fall in price offsets the lost months that you could have been using the phone but weren't.
Depends if the fall in price offsets the lost months that you could have been using the phone but weren't.
VodkaOriginally Posted by Ephesians
I would rather get a SIM free Huawei U8800 for around £174:
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mob...learance=false
Here is a comparison with the ZTE Skate:
http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3...&idPhone2=3784
I think we have recently uncovered a real flaw with Huawei that was not initially obvious. Their phones look like crap. I didn't notice with the T-Mobile Pulse because it was a <£100 phone when it was the only <£100 phone, so you take a bit of a hit on looks, but bloody hell that U8800 is terrible. ZTE is doing some kind of cheap HTC style, but i cant even begin to think where Huawei are going, Samsung after a lot of drugs?
Last edited by MadduckUK; 11-08-2011 at 03:26 AM.
VodkaOriginally Posted by Ephesians
The U8800 at least looks well built:
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...d.php?t=928549
http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Hu...Preview_id2646
The Monte Carlo looks cheaply built:
http://montecarlophone.co.uk/2011/08...-carlo-review/
The U8800 uses capacitive buttons too.
The plastics used in the Monte Carlo look similar to something like the £50 Samsung Genio. The Orange San Francisco also weighs more!!
The ZTE Skate is just a tarted up Orange San Francisco. An ARM6 CPU and Adreno 200 GPU for £160 or £20 a month on contract and no on-board storage too. The 65NM CPU and GPU is less energy efficient than the 45NM ARM7 CPU and GPU found in the U8800 and slower. On top of this the battery is smaller in the ZTE Skate and ZTE have announced a faster 1GHZ model already.
It looks like ZTE probably got a whole load of MS7227 SOCs on the cheap and are finding creative ways to offload them. All their "new" phones have this SOC. Even a £40 Samsung Galaxy Europa uses the same SOC.
The Monte Carlo would be a good deal at around £130 not £160. On top of this I like how Orange have quietly increased the average selling price of the San Francisco too in the last few months.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 11-08-2011 at 04:00 AM.
it doesnt, it is screaming confused KIRF, certainly not some aluminium unibody or anything, so we wont be bigging up either of these for build quality.
No worse than either the U8800 or a SGS, the minimal wastage above and below the screen hint at a serious, well thought out device. The rounded U8800 hints at something child safe ( or operator safe? plenty of room for a nice big logo), or easy to swallow, and its odd that both these feelings can come from the same item.
The plastic of the Genio looks identical to the plastic of the SGS, just there is less of it on the Genio. And the SGSII is lighter than the SGS!!, even though it has a higher quality feel to it.
onboard storage is an arguement? see HTC with even the shiny new Sensation, onboard storage? 1GB. SGSII onboard storage? 16x that amount - it really doesn't matter, if it has an MicroSD slot then it has ample storage.
The next bit is not so much about specification, but by standby/talk time statistics since it is a consumer device.
The "already announced a faster" is completely irrelevant, ARM are announcing faster chippys all the time, and its the same for bloody everything, get what you want now, not what may be available in 3 months.
putting them is phones is a creative way of getting rid of phone cpu's?
If £30 is all it takes to make you accept all your listed problems and declare it a good deal, then quite a few of the complaints must have been frivolous, no?
VodkaOriginally Posted by Ephesians
It is still better built if you bothered to actually look at the videos of both phones. The U8800 uses a Gorilla glass screen protector too whereas the Monte Carlo has a plastic screen.
The Monte Carlo looks poorly designed. The buttons look rubbish too(large panel gaps) and probably will have the same issues which plagued the San Francisco(power button issue). The U8800 has capacitive buttons which will take longer to wear out. The Samsung Galaxy S2 also has capacitive buttons.
The phone also is made of quite shiny and slippery looking plastic. The back has no texturing or ridges meaning it will be much easier to drop. This indicative of a poor design cornered on trying to make it look better. The Samsung Galaxy S2 has a textured back.
Wrong. They are a different grade of plastic. BTW,many of the San Francisco have issues with dust entering behind the screen(I knew a few people this has happened to). Build quality is not as good as you think it is.
Apart from the fact it comes with 2GB on-board and has an SD card slot too. The Monte Carlo has nothing.
A rubbish irrelevant argument. It is an ARM6 CPU. It does not support flash and ZTE even lied though their teeth saying it would but they would not pay the license fee. The SOC is ancient and it is not energy efficient. Even the GPU is three to four times slower times lower than in the U8800. On top of this the battery is smaller in the Monte Carlo.
BTW,the MSM7230 in the U8800 is also known as the Snapdragon SOC which is probably 30% faster than the MS7227 at the same clockspeed and more energy efficeient. It is the same SOC used in the HTC Desire Z and Acer Liquid Metal.
No, putting them in tarted up rubbish is a creative way of getting rid of CPUs. Like I mentioned it is the same SOC you can get in £40 to £50 phones.
Your argument is frivolous. Whether a phone is good value or not is dependent on price. It is the same almost any product.
For example is the HD6870 1GB good value at £160 or £135?? What if the GTX560TI cards were available for £160. A 20% difference in price does make a difference.
The £130 I quoted includes top-up. The £20 to £30 more is for the bigger screen and the pre-overclocked SOC. The Orange San Francisco still blows this phone out of the water for value even at its new higher average selling price. At £160 it is way to close to other better phones which are SIM-free.Most people won't be using custom ROMs on this phones anyway and this comes with all the rubbish pre-loaded Orange crapware. At £20/month over 2 years it is extremely poor value.
£130 including top-up for existing customers which is a far better price. Hopefully it will be this price for first time customers.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 11-08-2011 at 11:23 AM.
not worth it, seems incredibly stupid for them to announce they are releasing a 1ghz version at the time they are releasing this version....
I tried one of these at my local Orange at lunch today, good lord they are bad. Just get an sgs1 instead.
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