MTN Steppa 2 LTE

[I O U]

MTN Steppa 2 LTE - R1,499
http://www.guzzle.co.za/specials/view/909983/

4G LTE Speeds Of Up To 150Mbps, 4.5" IPS Display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 Processor.


Latest MTN brochure states "coming soon".

 

[cavedog]

that will be pretty cool. Just data share to the tablet sim and it has LTE so a awesome solution.

 

[Lament]

Hope the specs are similar

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon/processors/410

 

[I O U]

Only thing I dislike about this so far, is if you look at the link it shows a KitKat logo.

Co's bringing out phones should be making much more effort now, to introduce them with Lollipop 'out-the-box' .. especially if they're putting LTE on them. What's the point of newer specs with an old OS, which they'll likely never bother to update ?

 

[Fox1]

Curious to know what screen res it's touting.

 

[arr0w]

Only thing I dislike about this so far, is if you look at the link it shows a KitKat logo.

Co's bringing out phones should be making much more effort now, to introduce them with Lollipop 'out-the-box' .. especially if they're putting LTE on them. What's the point of newer specs with an old OS, which they'll likely never bother to update ?

I prefer a phone with kitkat. Android lollipop has ram management issue and kitkat is the most stable version

 

[I O U]

These are now R999 at MTN Stores. I got one last week, but it wouldn't hold the 4G, 3G or even 2G signals, so took it back. Got another one yesterday at a different shop, and so far all seems well. It's a great phone for such a reasonable price.

The one main disadvantage is that it comes with KitKat 4.4.4 ; on trying to either move files to the SD Card or download mp3's / mp4's there, it came up with the error message to do with "EACCESS Permission denied".

Therefore, if you want to make use of an SD Card, you'll have to root the phone & therefore lose the warranty (unless anyone here knows of another way around that) ; I elected to root it - will post the links in the next post of mine.

Going to work on saving the Custom ROM to SD Card or stick sometime this week (via Titanium or TWRP), so can restore it if anything goes wrong with current setup. So far, nothing's been affected by the extramural activity

Any questions about the phone, will try to answer - can't work out the resolution (ppi) ; even though it's supposed to be an IPS display, it only goes up to a max of 360p for YouTube vids., but on this screen size, they seem crystal clear (enough) to me.

 

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

Any questions about the phone, will try to answer - can't work out the resolution (ppi) ; even though it's supposed to be an IPS display, it only goes up to a max of 360p for YouTube vids., but on this screen size, they seem crystal clear (enough) to me.

IPS has nothing to do with resolution. IPS stands for In Plane Switching and is a type of display technology, one which provides superior viewing angles over standard TN (Twisted Nematic) LCD panels.

 

[hubb]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cpuid.cpu_z&hl=en

Install that and it'll tell you everything you want to know about the specs.

 

[I O U]

Links & info for rooting this phone.

If you buy one of these & mess up your phone in attempting the following steps, please don't come crying to me

General notes :
in phone's Settings - Security - tick Unknown sources (Allow installation of apps from unknown sources) ;
reboot the phone after each stage ;
elect to allow Root Permissions when prompted within each app, once you open / run it ;


Kingroot is the only one that worked, out of about 4 rooting apps. I tried.

NewKingrootV4.50_C120_B220_xda_release_2015_09_02_105243.apk
http://forum.xda-developers.com/devdb/project/dl/?id=14250

(click on "Direct Download" to save it to PC, then put it copy/paste it to your Phone's file system, to run after disconnecting the phone from PC)

Afterwards, from Google Play Store you need to download / run :

SuperSU (or similar)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.supersu&hl=en

Thereafter :

Root Check (or similar) ; (which will either confirm or deny the fact you're rooted)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrummyapps.rootchecker

Finally :

SDFix: KitKat Writable MicroSD

(only after installing this can you either download mp3's / mp4's directly to the SD Card, or move (ie. cut/paste) files from the phone to the SD Card :

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nextapp.sdfix&hl=en

Additional info. :

The above should confirm the phone's rooted, and you can freely move files around. However, on further reading, I found links whereby people were concerned with the trust-worthiness of the Kingroot app, as it's developed in China.

Therefore, there is the option after running Kingroot, to download & run :
http://androidxda.com/replace-kinguser-with-supersu
.. perhaps if I'd done this immediately after installing / running Kingroot it would've worked out 100% (ie. my phone would still be rooted).

I deleted SuperSU I'd already run before (above), so there'd be no conflict ; however, after running this, it lost root privileges for me, even though it promised they wouldn't be lost. (EDIT: think some other app promised that, not this one). But it did seem to by & large get rid of Kingroot.

And I was still able to move files around & save directly to SD Card - as still confirmed afterwards by the SD Fix app - which was my ultimate aim anyway.

 

[I O U]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cpuid.cpu_z&hl=en

Install that and it'll tell you everything you want to know about the specs.

Thanks - more specs than I can understand, or care to know about !

The res. is 480 x 854.
Screen density is 159 dpi , which I know seems very low, but in fact doesn't look bad on this size screen.

I think the cheap MTN & Voda 7" tablets are about 170 dpi, so on this 4.5" screen, quite a bit more acceptable. At least there's a huge discount - possibly only for this month ? - on the full price of R1,499.


EDIT : felt inclined even a few days after initially posting these stats, to adjust / update this figure of 159 dpi, as it must be incorrect.
The app recommended in an earlier post - CPU Z - measured the screen size incorrectly at 6.13", whereas it's in fact 4.5", so I'm far more inclined to believe the 240 dpi as indicated by AnTuTu in post # 15, is far more accurate.

 

[I O U]

IPS has nothing to do with resolution. IPS stands for In Plane Switching and is a type of display technology, one which provides superior viewing angles over standard TN (Twisted Nematic) LCD panels.

Thanks as well - I can therefore vouch for the fact that text & graphics - on a website for eg. - still look good when viewed at from the sides, or top & bottom on this phone, so makes sense if that's the intention of IPS. Vaguely remember reading about it in the past.

 

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

Thanks as well - I can therefore vouch for the fact that text & graphics - on a website for eg. - still look good when viewed at from the sides, or top & bottom on this phone, so makes sense if that's the intention of IPS. Vaguely remember reading about it in the past.

Yeah IPS is meant to avoid those gamma-shifts that you got on older LCD panels. So for instance no longer should blue warp into purple when viewed from the side. So it maintains a greater colour authenticity across a wider viewing range (still not quite perfect, but a looot better) and overall greater contrast. Unfortunately they've got a slower response time which leads to more ghosting (after images from rapid movement basically, like a contrail of mousepointers when rapidly moving your mouse across the screen) which is why they haven't completely replaced standard LCD panels (TN) in all aspects of life. Well that and they're traditionally crazy expensive and still are somewhat.

 

[Adoxographist]

Thanks - more specs than I can understand, or care to know about !

The res. is 480 x 854.
Screen density is 159 dpi , which I know seems very low, but in fact doesn't look bad on this size screen.

I think the cheap MTN & Voda 7" tablets are about 170 dpi, so on this 4.5" screen, quite a bit more acceptable. At least there's a huge discount - possibly only for this month ? - on the full price of R1,499.

Few questions:
How much RAM?
Is the screen plastic or glass?

 

[cavedog]

I also got a Steppa 2 LTE this weekend and must say for R999 for a LTE cheap device it is not bad at all. With only 512mb RAM I was left a bit dissapointed and expected atleast 768mb or 1GB. The phone is snappy guess it's the quad core CPU that makes it fast but once you start running tons of apps you tend to see a lag now and then. Comparing it to my Samsung Galaxy J1 it's way way way better and the J1 is a dual core 512mb and lags like hell.

THe Qualcomm Quickcharge 1.0 is cool and charges in just less than 2 hours fully charged with my LG G4 charger. Much slower than Quickcharge 2.0 or other quickcharge technologies but faster than then normal android phones.

Feels good in the hand. Soft texture back and front panel. Edges of the screen feels a but sharp. Call quality is good and comparing call quality to my G4 they are the same. Very good speaker and I was impressed with that because some smartphones lose the fact that it is actually a phone.

Back speaker is a bit soft and disappointing and so is listening to music but it's not bad and for a R999 smartphone I think it's very acceptable. Very cool direct link like an default installed app to make the device into a hotspot instantly.

Another very cool feature which some of the big smartphones can't do is the network options. LTE Only mode can be selected which is a great option if you want to force LTE and make the device a hotspot. There is also a option to allow only for 3G and LTE and then the last option that allows 2G/3G/LTE. Pretty cool.

The phone has a 5 touch screen which is sufficient for most smartphones I think. Although it is a MTN exclusive phone for R999 cash with a 2 year warranty it is not network locked and accepts all local networks. Works with both MTN and Vodacom LTE. Sadly Telkom LTE is not working and I could not clearly get a list of LTE bands the device got so if you have a app that can indicate that would be awesome!

Here is some pics of the device.

 

[ahoudet]

Looks like a rather impressive phone! The 410 is the same processor that's used in the Samsung A3/5!

 

[cavedog]

Looks like a rather impressive phone! The 410 is the same processor that's used in the Samsung A3/5!

Yeah and it's fast. The only problem I got is why they just not add a extra 256mb RAM to it. Still working great. The CPU is really awesome and makes the phone super smooth and responsive.

R999 is a decent price for a phone and it has LTE. I had to buy it. Saw it when they first launched it @ R1499 and said yeah I need it but when they dropped it to R999 I went and bought it.

 

[Adoxographist]

Yeah and it's fast. The only problem I got is why they just not add a extra 256mb RAM to it. Still working great. The CPU is really awesome and makes the phone super smooth and responsive.

R999 is a decent price for a phone and it has LTE. I had to buy it. Saw it when they first launched it @ R1499 and said yeah I need it but when they dropped it to R999 I went and bought it.

I'm guessing it's glass screen?
Shame about the ram. If it was 1gb, would be a huge bargain.

How is the sound quality with earphones? I noticed with cheap ones you get static in the background.

 

[I O U]

I'm guessing it's glass screen?
Shame about the ram. If it was 1gb, would be a huge bargain.

How is the sound quality with earphones? I noticed with cheap ones you get static in the background
And how is the battery life. Gobii had similar spec and battery capacity, it sucked and I had to charge twice a day.

Screen certainly sounds plastic to me when I tap it, but may be wrong

I mainly listen to tech mp3's / watch mp4's on my smartphones using basic Philips in-ear's (not those pointy ones that go right into the ear, but like the old Sony's), and the sound is still fine.

I'm aware of the static you wrote about, as experienced it with some podcasts only, and only on one app.

The apps I use to listen / watch are :

MX Player - watching ;

Audipo - listening, to speed them up
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.ne.sakura.ccice.audipo&hl=en

So far, there's been no static on either, but the sound isn't as loud as my previous cheap phone, the Ascend Y300 (marginally softer). However, I did contribute to Audipo for extra features, so with that can boost the bass (which makes no diff on this phone, ironically, but playing with the equalizer frequencies helps boost the volume quite a bit ; attempting to use the Reverb" feature - which itself has many options, and is usually fantastic, sends the podcast over the edge on this phone, and it becomes impossible to listen to anything).

Therefore, normal settings on these apps, on this phone, is 100% ; without the earphones, it's also loud enough.

 

[Adoxographist]

How is the battery life? Gobii had similar spec and battery capacity, it sucked and I had to charge twice a day.