The main phone that I use is getting fairly old and I’m overdue upgrading to a phone that could run apps and I decided to try out the Vodafone smart 6 because there seems to be a huge leap in price but little difference in specifications besides the outdated operating system.
A lot of features most phones seem to have are irrelevant to me as I have a decent camcorder which I use for recording and don’t really need a great camera on the phone and if I’m accessing the internet I prefer to do things on my pc so that I can actually use a keyboard and type quicker and navigate better so for the most part this is fairly pointless to me and the only thing I would additionally want is to be able to run mobile specific apps and games that you cannot access via the pc.
While the specifications seem to match up to be able to run some apps that I wanted to access like onion force actually running the game it had a tendancy to crash and revert to “desktop” for lack of a better word, and in other games like arcade math pro the inputs were so delayed that you couldn’t really play such a timing based game effectively. I tested out some other games such as matching blocks games and the like as anything beyond simple games just wouldn’t run despite seeming to be within the specifications listed on the product and the amount of space you had to store any apps was severely limited and seemed not to be improved by inserting a memory card for additional storage so if you’re attempting to use this for apps in any way you’re unlikely to be able to have any success which defeats the purpose of it being a smart phone at all and if you’re looking to get a mobile phone one with an easily accessible screen that often unlocks itself in your pocket is not ideal and I would rather return to the days of a flip screen that’s hidden and protected so it doesn’t do unwanted things in your pocket and don’t tell me you haven’t called or had calls from someone not knowing they’ve set off their phone in their pocket it’s happened to everyone.
As a result of this not really working effectively for apps I have been put off purchasing any better phones for using apps and instead opted for a tablet which I will review separately but I’m sure you’ve already seen the unboxing video of by this point. This is part of the problem, if you have to get a tablet to separately do all the things your smartphone should do but isn’t powerful enough to do or lacks the storage for then perhaps phones alone need to revert to just offering the basic phone and text services for those who want a basic phone and don’t need all of these apps as they don’t work anyway on the phone.
At the very least I expect to be able to run fairly common apps and store enough space to have multiple of the essential apps on a smartphone otherwise you’re just needlessly adding features that are unusable anyway, and this phone cannot do the most basic of apps I would expect any smartphone to be able to run and as a result of this I would prefer that it was just a standard phone and offered shielding in my pocket from accidental unlocks and phonecalls.
As a phone yes it works and it does the job, but if you’re looking for a smartphone to use apps and everything you would expect I would suggest you look elsewhere and pay a little more as this is only a phone and that’s all you’ll ever use it for, but if you get this and a tablet it’s probably the most cost effective way of having a phone and access to the apps you want to use.