The mobile that hopes to take the Android world by storm
When the Wileyfox Storm was announced, alongside its little brother Swift, the Android community was instantly intrigued. The British startup has partnered with Qualcomm and CyanogenMod, one of the world’s most popular Android forks, to create an Android phone that has that much needed unique element.
Cyanogen’s big selling points are its customisation and security. To get the Storm’s range of themes and security features you’d usually have to root your phone and flash a custom ROM yourself or download a ton of apps. However, by making Cyanogen the stock OS, Wileyfox has brought that level of customisation to the masses and given its users the chance to create a truly original phone.
Cyanogen has an enormous, ever-growing stock of wallpapers and themes for you to choose from. Not only that, but you can mix and match using a particular font with a different wallpaper and app icons. Customisation on this scale is out of the reach of most users so Wileyfox really has carved a niche for people wanting a personal experience.
From a security point of view, Cyanogen again comes up trumps. It has Privacy Guard preinstalled, where it denies certain apps access to sensitive data on your phone, and Caller ID, so you know who is calling you even if you haven’t got their number saved in your phone.
The speed with which Cyanogen is able to roll out updates, bug fixes and general improvements is impressive. While Android users have to wait months for incremental changes to their software, Cyanogen’s open-source nature means that updates can occur on a weekly basis, so you will always have the most up to date phone possible.
The design of the Storm isn’t pulling up any trees. From the front it is a pretty standard 5.5-inch smartphone, albeit with extremely thin side bezels that make single-handed use very achievable. The rear of the phone is made of a strange textured plastic that has an almost cardboard feel to it. This lets the phone down considerably, but at least they have continued to try something a little different. Nevertheless, the orange and black theme is pretty striking and it’s definitely the kind of phone that will get a lot of people talking.
Considering Wileyfox and Qualcomm have partnered together to create this new phone, it does come as something of a surprise that they’re only using the Snapdragon 615, a 1.5GHz octa-core processor. Admittedly you wouldn’t expect a normal phone that costs under £200 to house the very latest processor, but as they have partnered, it’s a bit of a let down that they haven’t at least gone for the 808. This is refl ected in the Storm’s benchmarking scores that rank way below its big rivals. It doesn’t feel particularly slow and games and videos aren’t hampered but you also don’t get the same kind of zip you get from the ZTE Blade S6 or the Moto G. It also gets very hot extremely quickly, even with only medium use.
The camera app is really enjoyable to use. Both the 20MP rear-facing and 8MP front-facing cameras use Sony imaging sensors and they are extremely quick to focus. A simple swipe on the display can change the shooting mode, which proves to be a very useful feature and HDR brightens up images nearly as well as using the fl ash. The app is refreshingly different from the stock-Android camera app and all the changes have been positive.
For one of its first-time phones, Wileyfox has done a pretty good job. There are things to work on as there always are, such as material quality and power, but on the whole this is certainly a mobile that can mix it with the big hitters in this increasingly crowded market.
Verdict
This is a great start from Wileyfox and puts root-style customisation into the hands of non-modders.
Technical specs
Operating system - Cyanogen 12.1
Processor - Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 1.5GHz octa-core
Memory - 32GB storage / 3GB RAM
Dimensions - 155.6 x 77.3 x 9.2 mm
Weight - 155g
Display size - 5.5-inches
Display resolution - 1920 x 1080 (400 ppi)
Front camera - 8MP
Rear camera - 20MP
Connectivity - Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4
Expansion slot - microSD up to 128GB