MobileTechTalk Thanks to Vodafone for the review unit.
When I got the Smart Speed 6 I was not expecting much especially as it retails for £50 on pay as you go. However I was actually quite impressed.
To start with, in the box you get:
- The device itself
- Micro USB cable
- Power brick
- Earphones
- Paperwork
The unboxing.
Just your basic accessories but that’s all you need. So let’s move on from the accessories and talk specs:
- 5 inch IPS display 480 x 854 pixels WVGA
- Mediatek MT6735M clocked at 1.0 GHz
- 8GB Storage
- 1GB RAM
- Micro SD card slot up to 32GB
- 1780mAh battery
- Micro USB
- 5 MP rear facing camera, 2592 х 1944 pixels, LED flash 720p video
- 2mp front facing camera
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
- Bluetooth 4.0
- 4G LTE
- Android 5.1
Not the most impressive specs in the world but they are enough for the device to run well.
Taking a tour round the device starting up front speaker up top, moving down you get the display a 4.5 inch IPS display and the bottom of the device there are 3 capacitive touch buttons which are ok but not the best. Round back you see the camera, LED and the speaker. The speaker gets quite loud but it has a very bad quality. On the right there’s a power button and volume rocker, both of which are not that good. They feel soft and mushy but they get the job done and like I mentioned at the beginning it cost £50 so you can’t really expect much. On the right there is nothing there, which seems like a common thing on most phones these days. Finally up top there is a 3.5mm headphone socket and on the bottom there is a micro USB port.
A full tour round the device.
I used this device as my daily driver for a couple of days and the battery life was ok. The day mainly consisted over being connected to Bluetooth earphone and on mobile data streaming Spotify and checking the usual Facebook, Twitter, Slack etc. I’m pleased to say the battery lasted all day. Not bad considering I started using it at 8 o’clock in the morning. On the subject of battery I also ran Geekbench 3 and achieved 6 hours 26 minutes and 40 seconds which I didn’t think was bad all in all.
Battery score from Geekbench 3.
The two cameras are not best but they will get the job done. The back camera definitely won’t win any awards and I personally wouldn’t recommend it but let’s say you’ve had an accident and you need to take a photo for insurances purposes it would definitely do the job but it does and noise the photos (as shown below in the sample image below). It’s very similar for the front facing camera, again it’ll serve for quick Hangouts or Skype call etc. but it’s not the greatest for taking the best selfie, but it’ll sure do for a quick one never the less.
On the left a sample from the front facing camera and on the right a sample from the rear camera.
Thanks to Moz Ford for the video sample. Find his YouTube here and find him on twitter @mozford.
The display also is a WVGA which is not the best especially with a 480 x 854 resolution but it does kick out some okay YouTube videos. They may not have been the best but I was watchable. As far as the viewing angles are concerned there are quite good too.
Now moving onto performance, well I’m pleased to say that it kept up with almost all of the tasks I threw at it. Games like Leos Fortune ran fine with no lag at all during the 10 minute sessions, which were played on my breaks. Other games such as Crossy Roads also ran really well to. I also ran Geekbench 3 and the device scored 449 in the single core test and 1256 in the multi score test. The device sometimes became warm to the touch but nothing that is majorly hot just warm. But Mediatek MT6735M clocked at 1.0 GHz it is bound to get a little warm to the touch.
In the software department it runs stock lollipop, which is something I was quite pleased to see. But there are still some apps that are some Vodafone pre-installed applications but most of them can be uninstalled if you don’t need them, freeing up room on the device.
All the pre-installed software.
So would I recommend the Smart Speed 6? Well yes at £50 it is actually a good budget phone. Sure the speakers are a bit bad, the camera is not the best, and the colours look washed out but get over the little small bits and it’s a good device. For £50 in my opinion you are not going to get anything better and the fact it features 4G LTE is bonus too. This is a phone I would take camping or to a festival. I only say this because if it was to go missing or get damaged it does not cost a bomb to replace.
Vodafone Smart Speed 6
£50.00
Pros
- Great battery life
- Great specs for price
- Very responsive
Cons
- Low resoloution screen
- Ok cameras
