Mobicell

Rouxenator

Rouxenator

Dank meme lord
Joined
Oct 31, 2007
Messages
46,376
Reaction score
22,389
Location
Stellenbosch
Does anyone have a Mobicell phone? They seem to be quite popular at outlets such as Pep / Jet and more recently online at Takealot.

I decided to try it out and see if it is any good. The model I opted from is the Mobicell Retro http://mobicell.co.za/products/smart-series/retro/ which sells for the same price as the Vodacom Smart Kicka. On paper I noticed the following :

Mobicell has an LED flash vs no flash on the Kicka
Mobicell has a front camera vs no front camera on the Kicka

I also saw some problems on the Mobicell specs listing and contacted the company about it. Three weeks later I still have no response from them. These issues include :

1 GHZ CPU, is this a dual core processor?
HVGA screen has a claimed resolution of 1024x600, should be 480x320.

My first Mobicell came sealed in a retail box however inside the battery was already in the phone and neither the battery nor the phone were in the sleeves that was at the bottom of the box. This makes me wonder about their packaging process or whether they simply returned dud phones to suppliers.

Right now I am waiting for two new ones from Takealot. Hopefully one of them will work so I can do a review on it. So far Mobicell has disappointed me and while I will try to do an unbiased review on it I am not going to hold back if their phones are crap.
 
The Air looks nice, but for that price I think I would rather buy a Huawei G7 from Orange for a bit less compared to the price I saw mentioned for the Air.
 
For me the big concern is build quality. The Vodacom/Vodafone phones are not too bad, Mobicell should be able to match that. Getting my two Mobicell retros tomorrow.
 
Right then, got my two Mobicell Retros yesterday and this time there were no out of box failures. These are well built little phones and after some hours with them I can recommend it over a Smart Kicka for the following reasons :
It is dual SIM
Dual cameras
Has a proper GPS
Build quality is better

There really is no reason to buy a Vodacom Smart Kicka when you can get the Mobicell Retro from Takealot or Pepcell or Jet or any other cheap phone store.

Digging around with CPU-Z revealed that the phone was built by Tinno and according to a French wikipedia page they make (amongst others) Micromax and Wiko. You may have seen Wiko on Orange Store as this French brand of phone is somewhat popular amongs budget buyers in Europe. The Mobicell Retro is in fact sold as a Wiko Goa.
Screenshot_2015-04-30-07-46-46.pngScreenshot_2015-04-30-07-46-55.png
On the software side we have a fairly unmolested Android 4.4.2 with no bloat ware, although it does have a horrible icon pack that changed the icon of the browser to a blue e for some odd reason :whistle: Most games will run on the limited 512MB RAM, Epic Citadel is smooth thanks to the HVGA screen res.
Screenshot_2015-04-29-20-27-20.png

Antutu gives an honest score with this plastic phone.
Screenshot_2015-04-29-20-56-57.png

Hardware, as mentioned, is good and more than you get in similarly priced phones. The digitizer is not the most accurate out there but given the 3.5" screen size this is something you can live with. The GPS works well and does not take too long to get a proper lock.

The front camera is near useless and the rear camera is not far from it. Sticker on the back claims 3.2 megapixel, default camera app will not go above 1.3 megapixel and camera apps from Play store will let you shoot at 2 megapixel. Elixer2 reports the camera module to be 2 megapixel. The photos are bad as are the videos, does not matter if you are recording in 480x320 or 864x480 the frame rate is about 8fps.

Will upload some photos later.
 
Spent more time with this phone over the weekend and I can add the following.

Digitizer : The multi touch is two points only, you can do pinch zoom and that is as far as it goes. Considering the price this is what you can expect. Hovering one finger about 1 cm above the screen does seem to have an effect on it, so two thumb typing can be frustrating if you do not lift your fingers far enough from the screen between key presses.

GPS : Yes it is quick to lock however it is a little inaccurate, regardless of the environment it is. I ran a half marathon with the phone and even on open stretches of road it tends to jump around a bit. End result is that instead of an actual 21.1km it recorded 21.55km. The speaker is slightly on the soft side so voice feedback as not always as clear as I have become used to.

Camera : Avoid HDR, it is completely useless, very little exposure detail is gained though it and there is always a blur. The front camera is rather pointless too with a smeared look to it. Below are some pictures shot with the phone. The first ones were taken with the native android camera app that only does 16:9 ratio pictures at 1.3mp (1440x960)

HDR OFF


HDR ON


REAR CAMERA


FRONT CAMERA
 
More camera samples taken with CameraZOOM Pro which allows using the full image sensor at 2megapixel (1600x1200). No autofocus means no close up or macro mode and the dynamic range is extremely limited. Indoors the flash does not aid taking pictures and as a flash light it is not very bright, yet handy in some cases.


 
I had a look at the Mobicel Air at Makro this past weekend. It looks like a nice phone. Thin and very light. Screen seemed decent and responsiveness was good. For that price however I would rather by a Huawei G7 though.
 
I would not spend more than R600 on a Mobicell, that implies the Retro I have now. The more I use it the more I like it, really incredible little phone despite some of the drawback I have noted above.

The Air seems to be a slightly reworked Wiko Highway Pure : http://world.wikomobile.com/m541-HIGHWAY-PURE however having owned two Huawei phones I'd also go for the G7.
 
I'd rather go with the HiSense H6. Same price but superior quality. I'm not sure how it compares with the G7.
 
DrYes said:
Its crap. Only has 3gb of internal and not the advertised 8gb.
Click to expand...
That is normal. The 8GB refers to the size of the flash memory, it is partitioned so that the OS and apps take some of it, what is left the user can access.
 
Rouxenator said:
That is normal. The 8GB refers to the size of the flash memory, it is partitioned so that the OS and apps take some of it, what is left the user can access.
Click to expand...

Nope
plugged it in to a pc and total storage is 3Gb.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X