An Android smartphone for 50 quid
There's plenty of choice when it comes to phones. Some people like iPhones; others prefer Samsungs. Google's Nexus series and Sony’s Xperias are popular. One bloke in Norwich has a Window's Phone. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Or in this case, you mostly skip the first part. At £50, the Smart Speed 6 is cheaper than phones used to be before they put computers in them. That’s on pay-as-you-go (PAYG), with no contract or obligations. The only catch is it’s exclusive to Vodafone, which isn’t the cheapest network and may or may not have good reception w'here you live.
It seems incredible that you can spend as little as this and get a phone that’s ready to play videos, browse the web and run Android apps. Surely the Smart Speed 6 must be a bar of soap with a picture of a screen stuck on it? But no - we tried it. The display is quite coarse, and only 70 per cent of the sRGB colours look like they’re supposed to, but for a budget phone it’s not bad, as long as you’re not using it in bright sunlight. Samsung’s excruciatingly named Galaxy Young 2, which costs about £20 more, is much worse.
Android 5.1 runs pretty smoothly, coping well with most apps and websites. Complex sites may stop and start while loading and scrolling, and you can’t really play any but the most basic games, but with a battery that lasted us nearly 11 hours of video playback, the Smart Speed 6 is quite practical for most purposes.
The built-in 8GB of storage is ludicrously small, especially with 3.4GB already taken up by Android, but less than a tenner will buy you a standard 32GB microSD card to slot in. As you'd expect, the 5-megapixel camera is poor, not helped by the inability to tap a point to focus on. Still, it does have a flash, and the 2-megapixel front camera is usable for video chat, though rough and ready if you want it for selfies.
For £50, you don’t get Apple-quality aesthetics. The Smart Speed 6 is a full centimetre thick all the way across, and the camera sticks out even more. The front panel has a clumsy row of pointless ‘soft keys’ below the small 4.5in display, and the silvery coating of the plastic back isn’t fooling anyone. At least it’s plain, except for Vodafone’s apostrophe logo plonked in the middle, mercifully in black and not bright red.
Of course, Vodafone is banking on taking your money in call and data charges. But with PAYG, it’s up to you how much you fork out. At the lowest up-front price we've seen, it’s hard not to regard this phone as a bargain.
VERDICT
Vodafone is working hard to entice customers, and this is a great deal as long as the network suits you.
SPECIFICATIONS
4.5in 854x480-pixel screen • 8GB flash storage • 5-megapixel rear camera • 2-megapixel front camera • 802.11n Wi-Fi .Bluetooth 4.0 • 3G/4G • MicroSD card slot • Android 5.1 • 132x65x10mm (HxWxD) • 146g • One-year warranty