Budget Smartphone

Here's my Ace's home screen....pretty much what I need from my phone.

AceHomescreenmod.png
 
http://www.antelife.com/presell-thl...een-android-4-0-1g-ram-3g-gps-wifi-black.html

Getting myself that phone. Looks awesome. Getting extra battery and 4GB sd card for R1850. Looks like a epic phone. Will see when I get it in a couple of weeks. Not to sure if I will be charged customs fee but will see. Bought lots of phones from them but never paid customs fees but some people that imported stuff from china did so hope I don't have to.

I wouldn't always advise people to buy online but there are good phones that you can get from china and with prepaid cards from vcpay you can pay with paypal ect ect
 
Last edited:
cavedog said:
http://www.antelife.com/presell-thl...een-android-4-0-1g-ram-3g-gps-wifi-black.html

Getting myself that phone. Looks awesome. Getting extra battery and 4GB sd card for R1850. Looks like a epic phone. Will see when I get it in a couple of weeks. Not to sure if I will be charged customs fee but will see. Bought lots of phones from them but never paid customs fees but some people that imported stuff from china did so hope I don't have to.

I wouldn't always advise people to buy online but there are good phones that you can get from china and with prepaid cards from vcpay you can pay with paypal ect ect
Click to expand...

Looks like a HTC. 4.5" screen.....
I saw one on Bid or Buy that looks like a Samsung Galaxy S2, with a 5" screen.
 
Interesting info about smartphones. Which ones actually have good speech quality? That is important to me, since the BlackBerry is dreadful and I have stopped using it. Tried a Chinese import and while it would play TV stations and even had a spell-checker, dual SIM and all that, the speech quality was poor.
 
chrisc4290 said:
Interesting info about smartphones. Which ones actually have good speech quality? That is important to me, since the BlackBerry is dreadful and I have stopped using it. Tried a Chinese import and while it would play TV stations and even had a spell-checker, dual SIM and all that, the speech quality was poor.
Click to expand...

Best budget phone for voice quality I've used is the HTC Wildfire S - it is really crystal clear. I would go so far as to say that it's miles ahead of the Desire HD's call quality.

The Ace is not far behind, not bad at all.
 
kingrob said:
Best budget phone for voice quality I've used is the HTC Wildfire S - it is really crystal clear. I would go so far as to say that it's miles ahead of the Desire HD's call quality.

The Ace is not far behind, not bad at all.
Click to expand...

Wonderful, thanks. So good to get an independant opinion instead of the box movers in the store
 
kingrob said:
Screen is only 260K color?? Not 16M? Does not sound right. And in the heading they say 512MB RAM...or is it 1GB?

You can get cheapies, but I wouldn't take the risk. Rather buy local and get a warranty on the phone.

How much in Rand value for everything?
Click to expand...

Well chinese website always gets the info of the phone wrong. The reason I bought the phone is cause I found some screenshots from the settings and hardware.

http://i00.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/676/522/490/490522676_342.jpg
http://i01.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/678/522/490/490522678_868.jpg

So by the looks of it it has 1GB ram and 1GB storage space onboard. BTW I saw some video's on youtube that showed how it playes videos and they demonstrated with a 720p movie trailer and it looked awesome. No way the screen can be 260k no way especially not that 720p resolution.

All of that said I will bump this thread when I get my phone. I did buy from them before so I know I will get it it will just take some time.

That is actually the mains concern that I always have with buying phones from china. If it breaks after 6months you are kinda screwed unless you pay shipping back to china.

Also I there are plenty of MTK6577 models. They generally share the same hardware is just made by different companies.

Ohh before I forget I got a SMS from nedbank when I bought this it came to a total of R1848.35. Not bad cause its the phone, extra battery and 4GB micro sd card included and free shipping.

But lets just see how it works out if the phone is as good as they show on youtube. If it is then what a bargain for R1800
 
Last edited:
FairTalk said:
http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-ace-gt-s5830-android-4-1-1-jelly-bean-cyanogenmod-10-cm10-105936/
Click to expand...

It is very exciting, but a lot of things not working....

Mind you, my phone is great with Android 2.3.6, not sure I want to flash it again.
 
FairTalk said:
Hey guys, been here stalking for almost a year so i decide to join the family.

Im looking for my first Smartphone, im using an old Nokia 5130 XpessMusic 'S40', its near its end of life even battery sucks cant last for 3-4 hours.
So atleast it might have a decent camera 'not more than 5MP', should have media media capabilities with 3'5mm headphone jack, long lasting battery.

I guess theres no phone contract for an unemployed person as im still as student ,so it will be in prepaid for not more than R3000.

Thanks in advance guys.
Click to expand...

It's a bit over your budget, but might I suggest the HTC One V?

It sells for around R3,500 at Vodacom. And it's a genuinely nice smartphone made from good materials, that feels good in the hand, and is powerful enough to run your apps without making you frustrated over the horrible lag. The internals are very similar to the Desire S, which is itself a very nice phone. Best of all, it's one of the (still) relatively small number of phones on the market that runs Ice Cream Sandwich.

If I was looking for a budget smartphone in today's market, this would be at the top of my list.
 
There are lots of budget phones around, but if I can give you the best advice for buying any cheapish phone, it would be : internal storage.

Make sure the phone comes with at least 1GB of internal storage and not a paltry 150MB.

If you install a few apps, you'll see how fast 150MB fills up, because some apps will just not install on the SD card, like DSTV Drifta, which is a healthy 20MB app, once unzipped on your internal storage. :(
 
cavedog said:
Well chinese website always gets the info of the phone wrong. The reason I bought the phone is cause I found some screenshots from the settings and hardware.

http://i00.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/676/522/490/490522676_342.jpg
http://i01.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/678/522/490/490522678_868.jpg

So by the looks of it it has 1GB ram and 1GB storage space onboard. BTW I saw some video's on youtube that showed how it playes videos and they demonstrated with a 720p movie trailer and it looked awesome. No way the screen can be 260k no way especially not that 720p resolution.

All of that said I will bump this thread when I get my phone. I did buy from them before so I know I will get it it will just take some time.

That is actually the mains concern that I always have with buying phones from china. If it breaks after 6months you are kinda screwed unless you pay shipping back to china.

Also I there are plenty of MTK6577 models. They generally share the same hardware is just made by different companies.

Ohh before I forget I got a SMS from nedbank when I bought this it came to a total of R1848.35. Not bad cause its the phone, extra battery and 4GB micro sd card included and free shipping.

But lets just see how it works out if the phone is as good as they show on youtube. If it is then what a bargain for R1800
Click to expand...


Im bumping this thread. So I got my phone from Hong Kong. http://www.antelife.com/presell-thl...een-android-4-0-1g-ram-3g-gps-wifi-black.html took about 2 weeks. I only had to pay at the post office R53 custom fees. Epic phone. With hd display, 4GB memory card 3GB internal stoarge and 1GB ram. It also has a 1Ghz dual core processor with a 8mega pixel camera at the back and a 3.2 mega pixel camera in the front. Its a epic phone. Got charged R1850 on my credit card and when I went and collected it was R53 to pay.

Now playing with the phone its running android 4.0 and its smooth in the UI. Ohh forgot to mention that I got 3 batteries in the box for this phone with not extra cost.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X