Vodafone Smart Mini. Cheap and shabby

Hi all.

Today I want to give you a little review of the Vodafone Smart Mini, a £50 smartphone designed by Vodafone and manufactured by Alcatel/TCT mobile. The phone is aimed at the budget market and to be fair it does the job but does have some annoying issues. 

The phone is similarly specced to the Acer, but let's leave the acer there as that was junkish too!

Specs listed below with huge thanks to GSMArena! - Love you guys!

GENERAL 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100

SIM Mini-SIM

Announced 2013, June

Status Available. Released 2013, June

BODY Dimensions 115 x 62.3 x 12.2 mm (4.53 x 2.45 x 0.48 in)

Weight 118 g (4.16 oz)

DISPLAY Type TFT capacitive touchscreen

Size 320 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches (~165 ppi pixel density)

Multitouch Yes

SOUND Alert types Vibration, MP3 ringtones

Loudspeaker Yes

3.5mm jack Yes

MEMORY Card slot microSD, up to 32 GB

Internal 4 GB, 512 MB RAM

DATA GPRS Yes

EDGE Yes

Speed HSDPA, HSUPA

WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot

Bluetooth Yes, v4.0 with A2DP 

USB Yes, microUSB v2.0

CAMERA Primary 2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels

Features Geo-tagging

Video Yes, VGA@30fps

Secondary No

FEATURES OS Android OS, v4.1 (Jelly Bean)

Chipset Mediatek MT6575

CPU 1 GHz Cortex-A9

GPU PowerVR SGX531

Sensors Accelerometer

Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM

Browser HTML

Radio FM radio

GPS Yes, with A-GPS support

Java Yes, via Java MIDP emulator

Colors Black

  - Vodafone Music

- Google Search, Maps, Gmail, Talk

- MP3/WMA/eAAC+ player

- MP4/H.263/H.264 player

- Organizer

- Document viewer

- Photo viewer/editor

- Voice memo/dial

- Predictive text input

BATTERY Li-Ion battery

Stand-by Up to 500 h (2G) / Up to 300 h (3G)

Talk time Up to 13 h (2G) / Up to 7 h (3G)

The phone is pretty chunky, but it feels good in the hand, where the Acer was rounded it felt wider whereas here it's a different feel. You can tell they've compromised on build quality for specs here but to be fair it's similar to some of the cheaper Nokia devices, cheaper plastics but can still take a tonne of abuse. Let's look into it. 

Software wise it's running Android Jellybean 4.1.1 with a plethora of Vodafone applications now these can be useful but some can be unwanted munchers of your data allowance, especially the discover widget on the homescreen. But they can all be uninstalled, Vodafone got that very right, same with the way they've not bastardised the UI by keeping it quite stock bar a few minor changes. Addtionally the only other noted change was the homepage to browser and Chrome being Vodafone Live!
A benefit of this is the limited applications on the device and the 512mb ram  means the device is not hog tied down by operator/carrier apps that can make the whole experience a washout! Another winning point is how they've included a memory manager, meaning keeping the phone running well is a breeze, similarly managing all aspects of memory from Ram to storage is all easily managed with one press of the right hand side multitasking/menu key! 

One thing I also like is the option to update via SD Card or online if Vodafone and TCT/Alcatel release a firmware. It may be useful for roms but we'll see.

The screen is lower quality to some newer devices and could be considered poor to some users, the viewing angles are mediocre with sunlight viewing being poor unless it's on highest brightness settings. Despite this It does the job and does it well enough for the price point. 

The Camera, It's a 2megapixel shooter which lets the phone down, It's slow, with lots of shutter lag. I've seen basic nokias with better capabilities and they shoot in CIF resolution! That said image quality does improve if you use something like Molome.
Also with no flash it's worthless in low light, seriously put it away! For a better budget snapper the Alcatel/Vodafone smart iii may be better due to the 5MP sensor and Autofocus.

 

Audio quality is poorly implemented it's either too low or distortion city. Slap Winamp pro on the phone and the audio is better thanks to the equalizer well, If the pro version is still available that is. The bundled headphones sound ok but are a tad lower than rival makes and sadly uncomfortable to wear due to sharp edges I found sanding them slightly makes them feel better to wear for prolonged times. The microphone does work but it's not the best out there, that said it's in line with budget devices possibly slightly better than some Nokia headsets!

Multi-touch is difficult, when using two fingers to type it does not like to work. But using test tools it registers  movement but not two fingers on the display in the same region/parts of the panel. However pinch to zoom works just enough to be useful! Single touches near edges are poor and the capacitive buttons are a bit hit and miss though! 

Now onto ringing tones and alerts.

Again we get the Too quiet, or again distortion city issue, I think however my devices sound system has a few unique issues with beeping. Lots of beeping SMS Messages, Wifi network sniffing and calls mostly work, but any other communication based notifications go wonky turning into a hybrid Beep/Notification. On top of this the famous 'Alcatel forget settings tm' bug will lose your ringtone setting monthly! Same with the OT Star and the 903! That bug is in my opinion an alcatel trait to make you change them monthly to trick you into paying attention! Hatstands!!!!! 

Network. It's 2g pickup is stronger than 3g in places which can be an issue especially when an old nokia E71 that's gone through much heavy abuse and antenna damage gets a stronger signal than the VF875. But i suppose that's the difference between high end and low end though really! 

Wifi is good and picks up a strong signal everywhere, putting the ipad to shame.
GPS works very well too. no complaints on that side of things

Bluetooth. Hates older devices, Tested with Plantronics, Nokia and no name technology and once paired was a pain to reconnect! May be my device is cranky though

In conclusion. Bar the devices quirks it's a good performing handset for those looking for a first mobile with wifi, 3g, gps and memory built in

I've just found out the handset is similar to the ot-4011x too so i'll try a flash of the one touch glory s2 if i'm brave! 

P.S. Screenshots will be up later :D

Paul 

Superuser use on the OT903

Hi all.

This is a post in response to a request on the root achieved post (linky here when i get on the pc) on how to use Superuser.

I'm not an android developer or that clever when it comes to modding Android devices, I can assure you now if you use the bundled tool that came with Eroot on the ot903 you should not have an issue.
Please be aware the binaries are outdated so I say this with no disrespect to the developers of this build, update the version via the Play store, mainly as the online update does not work and the Recovery mode leaves the phone in a frozen state, (trust me I left it for over an hour with no avail)

For now we'll use the application in it's default form as my device died recently, it may be unrecoverable if the battery or charge circuits have failed.

Now from how i understand it, and this could be a very bastardised train of thought, superuser is a tool that grants applications permission to use root access. Now if you're using things like MTK CPU control, (both pro and free are good, will link to playstore soon) font changing utilities and other more complex tools many will require the use root, and thankfully the tool helps you out in a clear fashion.

For instance, when MTK CPU control is used on my device you get a prompt similar to the one posted above, bar looking more like a gingerbread prompt over ICS/jellybean, even in themes. But the setup is similar.

The bundled tool will ask you what you wish to do, grant root permanently, grant root this time, or deny the request. It gives you up to 10 seconds to think before you choose so make sure it's what you want to run in that time. Delaying it may make applications crash due to the way they work, but rest assured on restaring them if all is granted they should work well. I think it's a limitation due to the low memory on the device. So don't worry too much on crashing. If the device crashes you can easilly reflash with the tools on alcatel's website.

This is about as much as I know about the tool itself, so sorry it's not a concise response but i hope it helps for now.

Paul.

Alcatel OT903 Root Achieved!

Update - Enorme Ciao e benvenuto ai Androidiani forums  Felice di averti aiutato!

If you've seen previous posts about the Alcatel OT 903 and 903D I've got a good update for you!

With thanks to an anonymous poster on the original post I give you a way to root! Sends virtual beer to you!

To start you'll need the following

Alcatel ADB Drivers - Clicky Here (Use MTK for OT903 ONLY!!)

Eroot Tool - 4shared - Clicky Here

I will upload a zip with both the root and drivers soon!

First things first. DISCLAIMER!!

I HAVE TRIED THE SOFTWARE AND IT WORKED OK, BUT CHECK WITH ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE BEFORE YOU CONTINUE - SOME TOOLS MAY WARN OF ISSUES AS ROOT IS USUALLY DONE WITH AN EXPLOIT! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU COCK THIS UP! 

I am doing this through 32bit windows xp! swearing may vary!

Let's begin Unzip the ADB Drivers to your chosen folder. Copy the folder location as you'll need it.

in my case it's
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\Downloads\Alcatel_ADB_with_Eroot

Plug your phone into the computer. you'll get a Found new hardware popup.

manually select location of drivers.

paste the folder info you copied earlier, if you get an error about no drivers, click OK, then click browse next to the information you've copied in.
from there select win32 or win64 for what you need.

it'll install from there.


Once done open up Eroot!
you'll see the following screen Please do not be afraid of the language the tool works.

Eventually you'll see the following screen with a huge root button. If not reboot the computer and try again, as XP may require a reboot to make things work. 

WARNING! IF YOU DO THIS I AM UNSURE IF YOU CAN UNROOT WITH THIS - YOU ARE FAPPING YOUR WARRANTY UP THE WALL THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE TO GO BACK!!!!! 

Click the big green Root button. and wait up to 10 mins for all the ticks to become green. 

Unplug, reboot and all should work. Use Root checker to confirm all has worked, if not try again. 

It does go weird at times but a hard reset aparently fixes this. That said my device has no SDCard so that could be the issue too! 

Let me know how this goes 

Paul

The Alcatel One Touch Star Review

Hi all.

A few months ago Alcatel sent me a new phone because of issues with the previous device I had.I was expecting a similar model for them to send me one of their higher specced models. The one touch star 6010x arrived at my door a few days later.

First impressions were. Dang! Why have they put an iphone in the box! To the untrained eye it looks like an iphone, many people in the town have asked me about it, including one apple geek who thought I had a prototype Iphone in my hand. He actually went to buy one as a result of looking at it. 

The phone has a decent set of specifications, including 

• MediaTek MT6577 Dual core running at 1GHZ
• 512mb Ram
• 800*480 amoled display 
• Gorilla glass touch panel
• 2.4gb free space
• Micro SD slot can take up to 32gb officially (works with 64gb) 
• Android Jelly Bean, practically stock 
• 5.55Wh 1500mAh battery

The phone performed really well with many tasks, including social media, video making and editing. Due to the (to some in the industry) limited ram on the phone more aggressive applications or games, the dual core processor does cope but pushing the phone to it's limits does cause it to overheat a bit. I'm sure it's to be fixed in a firmware update. 

Audio quality is impressive, a tad quiet but protecting peoples ears is a good thing. The supplied headphones surprisingly are fantastic, no. EPIC is the word I'd prefer to use as they perform greatly, with good all round sound and can take a huge pounding with bass. They sound fantastic. External audio quality is fantastic and loud too. Earpiece is quiet if the noise cancelling microphone is blocked in any way (cases do this) but still audible 

Image quality again is very impressive here. Instead of maxing the Mediatek chipset with a 8, 12 or 14 MP shooter They went with a conservative 5MP sensor, benchmark tools claim it's a sony sensor. The quality of the images it can take I would suggest it's a sony or high end autofocus camera sensor. 

The screen is very clear and crisp. Made tough by gorilla glass. it survived a fall out of my pocket while cycling.just a small mark on the bezel. 

Now we get to build quality. Sadly one of the weaker points in this handset. The phone looks solid and in daily use Betty (all my phones must be named) felt nice but while using it heavily you could feel it creak in the corners. It wan't too much of a worry, then I realized that how the phone flexes in my pocket was the cause of Micro SD Card failure. As the card slot has no locking mechanism when the phone flexes the card moves, just enough to lose the card from the phone. Annoying when using the phone for music or voice recording. A piece of duct tape reduced the frequency of this happening. 

Sadly the build quality killed betty. While doing laundry, moments after contacting Alcatel saying i was happy with the phone. I lent down to pick up the basket of clothes to hear the notification that the card has come loose. I pulled it out of my pocket to check the phone to be greeted with a blank screen with nothing displaying, usually its lit up with a warning on hot swapping. 

On locking and unlocking the phone the screen was still blank. on getting it inside I discover to my horror the amoled screen has cracked while in my pocket. Betty has broken. 

I have contacted alcatel to find out how much it'll cost me to repair her. Let's hope she can be saved. 

Paul 

Alcatel One Touch 903 no root optimisation +ROOT

Image credit Futek

Before you laugh at me for owning a budget device think one moment. It's cheaper to fix than the galaxy s2 by a huge difference

HUGE UPDATE - A Root has been found and works well, but does have some bugs! How to post is linked here! 

But i do admit it's a sluggish thing due to a slow processor and it's hampered by it's small internal memory (256mb ram) But with a few tweaks we can make it better WITHOUT ROOTING and for free. (note: Thanks to the developers who made these free applications - Please consider buying the full versions over the free variants I  will be once I can get a play store gift card - HURRY THE HELL UP GOOGLE - Finally I found one today)

************** UPDATE *****************
to help speed other bits up go to settings, Applications. Manage Applications. go through lots of preinstalled apps, remove what you won't use and what you will tap the app and move to SD card
this will speed the phone up a bit. use the other tips to make it work fantastically
*****************************************



The default launcher that comes with the phone is a memory hog. Alcatel Please make a vanilla rom without the bloat! But we can change this with Holo Launcher.

Holo Launcher replaces the default launcher on any device with a low memory consumption launcher made to look like Android Ice cream Sandwich. This makes a huge difference with performance.

Now the processor. It's a 650mhz Mediatek CPU with PowerVGR graphics. but it's slow at default. We can overclock it safely to 806mhz for free using the MTK CPU Control test Just make sure you apply the mod and set to apply on boot. I've done benchtests and it's increase in speed is shown. It's far from a placebo tool. The processor still shows 650 in any settings but the benchmarks show it works.

Memory optimisation. Use Memory Cleaner and Advanced task killer  
Memory cleaner is a bit placebo but in tests it does a small bit of good combined with Advanced task killer.

Use these freeware tools to make your Phone fun faster than it has before.

Now for Social media.

If you want to run Facebook Give up. it's too slow for anyone's liking on the phone in it's huge 30mb footprint. (10-15mb minimum ram use too)

I suggest Fast for facebook it's basic but works well. But as it's in beta they are improving the tool every few weeks. It's a lot more fiddly than facebook on the first look. But it works well enough.

If that's too slow for you look for Opera Mobile and use the basic mobile facebook and twitter

For twitter. use the official app. it works ok but slow at times.

Instagram users it'll throw a wobbler despite installing.(unless they listened to my email) install molome  it's just as good and can send pics to instagram too!

One more tip is the 3g access is slow, it's the limitation of the device itself.

This is a quick post and more will be added over time (i just realised i can get a new phone already. but will stay with this one as i like it. quirks and all)

Paul

The Vodafone 543 Review - Part one UPDATED

Well howdy!

It's my first tech review of the year!

My son bought himself a phone the other day and the geek inside me want's to see if it's any good.

The Vodafone 543 is a colourful budget touchscreen device tailor made for Vodafone by Alcatel.

So before we talk tech let's get down to basics

What's in the box.

• The phone itself
• Battery (3.7V 750mAh rated 2.78Wh)
• Interchangeable covers (in this case blue and black)
• Micro USB charger (yes, on a £25 device)
• 3.5mm Headphones
• Sim Card
• Manual

The features of this device are very impressive, even for a basic device aimed at beginners to touchscreen.

• 1.3Megapixel camera (no button, just a shortcut)
• Music Player
• FM Radio
• 2 inch resistive touchscreen
• Physical call and end button
• Joystick
• media player keys
• slim package
• Basic user interface
• 2.5g only GSM, EDGE and GPRS (not compatible with the sure signal)

The handset seems to be of a high build quality, even at the sub £30 bracket. But it seems that's where the good side ends.

I was going to do a more in depth review this week. But, sadly I'll be taking it back to the shop for replacement tomorrow.

Unfortunately the touch screen has stopped responding properly. Now I had read reviews on the Vodafone's reviews pages and between myself and others on a few forums came to the conclusion this was an issue affecting only a handful of devices.

This ties in with another problem I have observed other touchscreen strangeness too, which I will explain further down.

Here are the pros of the handset (there is plenty of goodness here.)

A really sensitive FM reciever, meaning it'll even pick up the pirate stations with ease.

A simple UI

MicroUSB connectivity and charging.

3.5mm jack - top banana

It's clear. even in patchy areas a clear voice can be heard.

Healthy battery life.

Cons some minor some major!

• Double Tap on many menus. Oh dear, Symbian^1 here we go again
• Apps listed as installed in the literature on many sites is not installed. including The PC suite, Facebook and Opera mini.
• No WMA Playback (my Media library is in WMA MP3 and OGG
• Touchscreen requires calibration every few days, sometimes taking 7 or 8 attempts with a stylus or finger
• Poor handsfree kit making the iPhone headset sound glorious.
• Flakey blue-tooth connectivity with my Motorola headset!

So, In current conclusion. The device promises so much, but fails on many levels too!

We shall now review Vodafone Luton's Customer Service. and see if they are as accommodating with a faulty 2 week old device

At the moment. The Vodafone 543 picks up 2 out of 5 stars. hopefully they will make the situation better tomorrow.

Update:

The handset has gone for repair, at two weeks old. I will be blogging about this later.

Update 2:

The first member of staff was really nice, and tried to see about swapping it for a new device. for him (i'll hopefully get his name soon) you get 5 stars for trying.

For the rest of the staff i'll reserve my Judgement until I get home.

For now. It's sleepy time. New painkillers mean sleepy paul!

Paul :)