Vodacom Smart Grand 6 VF696 Review

[Rouxenator]

Managed to get my hands on two of these as part of Vodacom's back to school upgrade deals. The idea is to pass them on to my folks since they are current using a dying Galaxy S2 and Vodafone Smart 4 Mini. But a quick review seems like a good idea for now.

The first thing you need to know about the Smart Grand is that it's actually a Alcatel Pixi 3 5" running a clean version of Android 5.1 bundled with some Vodafone apps that can be uninstalled. Interestingly Vodacom does not hide the fact that the Smart Grand is a Pixi 3, if you look at the data on https://handsets.vodacom.co.za/mweb/ you will see

<![CDATA[ Pixi 3 5 (VF696) Black ]]> 104028301 4894461310220 <![CDATA[ VODACOM SMART GRAND ]]>

The email that Google sends to confirm the a new device signed in on your Google account also confirms this with the subject "New sign-in from TCT (Alcatel) VF-696"




Performance is good considering the quad core CPU, 1GB of RAM and FWVGA display.


Build quality is good, as I have come to expect from TCT, there are no creaks in the body and buttons are sturdy without requiring too much effort to push. The 5" screen with 480x854 pixels resolution has a 196ppi pixel density, somehow even with a low PPI there is little sign of pixelation. At the price this is a very good screen, albeit a normal TFT LCD, so don't expect miracles in direct sunlight.

The standard Android 5 buttons are below the screen so they don't take away from the limited display real estate. You only start to notice the resolution limitations when trying to view full size web pages.


Connectivity is good, you have 3.5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4, FM radio with RDS, USB 2 and microSD. The camera is not good, it does have a flash which comes in handy when you need a torch in the dark, but for taking pictures both the front and rear cameras are seriously lacking. That is actually a pity as the MediaTek camera app has a rather funky manual mode where you can play around with ISO, exposure, flash and white balance.


More on the actual camera a bit later.

 

[Rouxenator]

More on the camera, front is a VGA camera that is won't cut it for selfies, best to use it for video calls only. Here are some samples from the front camera :


The rear camera is 5 megapixel although being fixed focus with an all plastic lens does not help.

HDR On | HDR Off


Some indoor shots

 

[Rouxenator]

Just for the fun, playing with the manual ISO setting provided by the MediaTek camera app.


ISO 1600 | 800 | 400 | 200 | 100


Having the manual settings in the camera is a nice feature, however it is useless on this 5 megapixel unit.

 

[Rouxenator]

Video review.

You can capture videos up to 1080p Full HD, but it is actually just a 720p source that gets upscaled to 1080p with noticeable pixelation. It is best to just shoot at 720p since that is the maximum video feed that image sensor seems to be able to provide.

Here is a Full HD sample:
[video=youtube_share;x2MfoBe3Dvc]http://youtu.be/x2MfoBe3Dvc[/video]

You can take pictures while recording video, if we look a picture taken from the 1080p video it is clear that the source was not 1080p but in fact 720p

1920x1080 photo taken during the video


Same photo scaled down to 1280x720


Scaled back to 1920x1080 from the downscaled 1280x720 picture - looks the same as the first on.

 

[Rouxenator]

Here is a 720p HD sample:
[video=youtube_share;Ylu2nkmfnzo]http://youtu.be/Ylu2nkmfnzo[/video]

1280x720 photo taken during the video


All videos are recorded as 3gp files using the old H.263 MPEG-4 video compressor. Full HD is 24mbps and 720p HD is 12mbps. Audio is stereo 48khz AAC at 128kbps. The sound is actually mono since there is just one mic being used for recording audio.

Conclusion is that it's best to shoot videos in 720p mode.

 

[saa044]

If possible please try a couple of pics with the Camera360 app. It works great on low budget camera's for me, makes everything look a bit better and less grainy.

 

[Rouxenator]

I have tried with Camera360 and Camera ZOOM FX Premium however the output was the exact same as with the built in camera app.

Here are a few more pictures taken with Camera ZOOM FX Premium and some with the built in camera app. You will notice there is quaite a bit of chromatic aberration in scenes with high contrast.

 

[saa044]

Still not toooo bad I think. If you don't plan to view it on a pc or print it and it's only purpose is a whatsapp image to a friend, I suppose it will do.

 

[Rouxenator]

Flash photos, I am quite surprised at how good these came out

Low light with flash


No light with flash






Some evidence of Pixi dust inside the Vodacom Smart Grand

 

[saa044]

Maaan I almost saved some money by not buying this phone, so close.

 

[Rouxenator]

So these phones have been with their target users for two weeks. My mom loves her new phone and took nicely to pure Lollipop 5.1 coming from a Touchwiz Jelly Bean 4.1 SII. My dad made the jump from a Smart 4 Mini to the Smart Grand but is now back on the old phone after the digitizer on his fone went all fuc*y and you could not even draw the unlock pattern. Gave the phone back to Vodacom today and will see how it goes.

Seems the Smart Grand can't roll with the punches like the Smart 4 did.