Hello Paul, Ian and all,
On Mon, October 3, 2011 23:34, Ian Grody wrote:
> The ZTE Blade (Orange San Francisco) is a far better choice than the
> Wildfire
> S. Same specs, but has a 640x480 screen and better display overall. Even
> if you do get one locked to orange, there are free aps on Android Market
> that will work out your SIM unlock code easy peasy.
I have this phone, and I have to say that even though it is by no means
"perfect", it is certainly one of the most impressive phones I have had. I
had the pleasure of using an HTC Desire for a week, and it really sets the
bar. As far as I'm concerned, the Desire is the bare minimum one should
want in the medium to high-end smartphone. Anything equal to or better
than the Desire will make you smile! :-)
Back to the OSF (ZTE Blade). I have to say that in comparison to the
Wildfire S, it's not neccessarily "better". The HTC just oozes quality and
solidness, whereas the OSF is plasticky. The OSF's buttons is also not
it's best feature. The "Back" button doubles as the indicator, and the
little arrow graphic is so small that you won't notice the flashing red or
green LED, unless it's really dark.
You might think that I'm unloading a huge indictment against the OSF, but
really I'm not! :-) Even though the phone itself has these shortages,
there are major plusses that pulls it into a class of it's own:
* It has the biggest screen in it's price-class (£89-£99 brand new,
depending on where you buy it)
* It is one of the prime Android hacking platforms available today. You
have a broad choice of Android distros you can load on this phone
* Battery life, depending on your Android distro, is actually quite good
for a smartphone. I almost get 48 hours on a charge with light usage,
which goes down to 16-20 hours with heavy usage.
* Even though the CPU is rated at 600MHz, it is overclockable. My current
distro (Ginger Stir Fry [1]) overclocks to just below 900MHz on demand,
which makes the phone really nice to use. OK, it's not a 1.2GHz dual-core
monster, but for what I need it is perfectly acceptable. There is another
Android distro called Monfro CAE [2], which apparently is quite a bit
better on this front, but reportedly at the cost of some battery life.
Links:
[1] Ginger Stir Fry:
http://android.modaco.com/topic/342009-romgen2zte-gingerbread-ginger-stir-fry/
[2] Monfro CAE:
http://android.modaco.com/topic/346475-monfro-cae-zte-leak-234-v31/
--
Regards,
Jan Henkins
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