Smartphone for $ 100
I usually write about more or less flagship devices, but today I have an ultrabudget smartphone in my hands. And, you know, there is life on Mars in this segment. I think many people have ever had a situation where the blood from the nose is needed (or really want) a smartphone, but there is no money, or almost no money. The choice is small - either look for something on the market for used devices, or take a regular phone, or look towards China. Actually, in the direction of China today and see. What we are ready to offer the brothers from heaven for $ 100, can we use it, and what are the pitfalls?
So, as a guinea pig, the Chinese smartphone is Haier W716. A small white box hides a completely normal type of phone, something in the style of smartphones based on Android since version 2.3 of the system - rounded corners, sloping shapes, to call it thin - the language does not turn, but to the thickness of smartphones like the Nokia 5800 or its contemporaries he is far away: in general, a typical smartphone, which we all used several years ago and didn’t really show off.
The manufacturer did not particularly bother with the packaging - neat white cardboard, brief characteristics on the side faces, a more or less complete list of features and iron on the back side - in general, everything for buyers who want to know what they give their money for.
')
As for the telephone itself, everything is like everyone else: there is a lock-unlock button (right), a volume swing (left), MicroUSB and 3.5mm MiniJack connectors for headphones - on top, three touch buttons (menu, back and home) - under the display. Behind - only the eye of the camera and the mesh of the external speaker.
There are, alas, no outbreaks, although on a budget device, in my opinion, having a flashlight would be a great plus - I don’t think that a hole in the back panel and one LED would have made the smartphone at least slightly more expensive, but the benefits of this addition were would be very, very much.
So what's inside? Four-inch TFT-TN display with a resolution of 800x480 pixels, two SIM card slots (radio module, of course, one, but with HSPA + support), 512 megabytes of RAM, 4096 megabytes of internal memory, a slot for memory cards up to 32 GB inclusive, yes battery for 1400 milliamp-hours. And, of course, GPS / Wi-Fi / Bluetooth / FM and other standard technologies that any modern smartphone based on MTK technology has - two 1.2 GHz cores, MT6572 is built on ARM A7 architecture and is generally quite enough popular solution in budget smartphones.
Display…. the display ... it's hard to expect a miracle from the display on the phone for three and a half thousand rubles. Yes, the picture is more or less clear, yes, the colors are similar to colors. The problem is that the manufacturer has confused the direction of the polarizer and when the smartphone is deflected vertically, colors are noticeably distorted, while when deflected horizontally, this effect is much less. In the rest - the screen is like a screen, moderately bright, the touchscreen perfectly understands two fingers at the same time, but no more. In general, in order to get into the budget I had to save, and there was nothing to save more than that.
We have more or less talked about iron, but what is it capable of?
In Antutu Banchmark the device is typed modest 10-11 thousand parrots. Approximately the same dial up Galaxy S II or Nexus of those times. Only in the secondary market, these devices are in good condition and a half to two times more expensive, and in poor condition ... in general, the competition here is very conditional.
The device itself works well: the animation in the applications and the system smartly and smoothly works out all the lists, switches, swipes and other adversities of everyday life. The single-core Mali 400MP is responsible for the graphics (again, we could see this solution in the Galaxy S II three years ago).
All more or less modern games are going: I even managed to run Asphalt 8 Airborn and go through several races: on “medium” the game “stutters” a little in difficult places (changing locations, say, entry / exit from the tunnel), but is quite playable. At the "low" (without unnecessary special effects in the form of glare on the camera and pseudo-HDRi) and in general the game goes on adequately.
All sorts of subway surfers and other cut the rope, of course, work without any problems. So I would describe the performance as “sufficient” for this kind of device. Fortunately, they ask for ridiculous money.
As the camera uses the usual five-megapixel module without autofocus. Is he…. eemm ... how to say. It allows you to capture some images, but no more. Take a photo for your contact list, take a picture of some text or a sign, remove the accident from the category “you can see where everyone is” - this is please. Highly artistic shots - not about him. One thing pleases, with this size of the matrix and focal length, the hyperfocal influenza starts from half a meter — this is enough to more or less correctly convey the text on A4 sheet.
The sound in the headphones can hardly be called outstanding, it is there, the signal is more or less clear, there are no obvious interferences or unnecessary sounds, but you don’t have to expect miracles. In the appropriate smartphone smartphone for 100-200-300 rubles, everything will be more or less tolerable. In decent ones, unfortunately, nothing decent can be heard, and the situation when the phone and the headphones are about the same (and even the headphones are more expensive than the phone) is ridiculous and of little relevance. The external speaker produces quite a loud and high-frequency sound - you can hear the smartphone quite adequately from a jacket, bag or jeans pocket, do not miss the call.
Android 4.2.2 is spinning on the smartphone. The version is quite relevant, and I have not yet seen Kit-Kat-Chinese, especially in the public sector. There is no garbage in the face of incomprehensible Chinese software in the firmware, the design is like that of the “naked” Android, only the color accents are changed from bright blue to moderate green (+ pink or yellow are available for choice). The dialer, settings, all applications and everything is quite adequately Russified, though it is a merit, rather, the guys from Google, not the manufacturer. Although there are interesting features in the phone, for example, switching on and off according to the schedule:
After replacing the standard launcher with Yandex with a smartphone, it became much more pleasant to work: a convenient dialer, a good desktop manager and widgets relevant for Russian reality with news, weather, photos and hours out of the box and one click away.
In addition, there was a neat remote "curtain" with switches that, again, plus, because in the budget device, the light sensor and automatic brightness adjustment either.
In general, with desktops from Yandex, the phone turns into a more or less pleasant “workhorse” by installing just one single application. The second Masthev is swype, since it now flies even on budget devices, and the processor is still quite smart.
What of smartphones can be taken for ~ 3.5 thousand rubles in the current market?
Nokia devices on the Asha or Symbian Belle platform (of course, they will be more interesting to look at and have a slightly better camera, but the applications are there - the cat cried, and their quality is questionable). For example, Asha 501 dualsim , with a smaller screen (and a dull resolution of 240x320), or devices on WP 7.5 (previous generations), which have the same problems with the presence of interesting and crawled software in the app store (many of them require WP8, and on the HTC Radar that I have, it’s almost impossible to find anything interesting and / or useful, although the device itself is very dignified and smartly still running, despite its old age and extremely careless operation).
The second alternative to China is state employees from A-brands on the Android OS. As an example, you can take the LG L4 dualsim : it has one hard-to- find advantage - an IPS-screen with decent viewing angles, resolution, however, again 480x320 against 800x480 from the “Chinese” in question. The advantages still include a good set of software out of the box. Otherwise, everything is about the same or slightly worse, so here, one might say, parity. LG's smartphone looks a bit more interesting and has a better display, and Haier impresses with its performance and higher display resolution.
Well, the third alternative is, in fact, other devices from China, but it is either ordered at auctions / shops in the producing country and enjoy communicating with PR, or choose from what our sellers have, read reviews and google reviews.
So what is the result we are offered for a modest $ 100? Manufacturers as they can are trying to "shove un-pushed" and put the most productive and decent stuffing from the budget. Someone pays attention to the screen, someone focuses on higher performance (as in this case), sacrificing image quality. As for me, for three and a half thousand rubles, the result is quite decent: the games are pulling, the Internet is coming out, photos are at the very least, yes, all modern web technologies and a huge base of applications compatible with a fairly current version of the OS — there is need more? Is that a flashlight. Like a smartphone to a child (who really wants it simply because everyone has sensory devices), a comrade in the army (there is always a chance to lose the device permanently) or just yourself when you need access to the Internet from any place, calls and cards, and consider money which is not - great. And more from him and is not required.
$ 100 Smartphone
So, as a guinea pig, the Chinese smartphone is Haier W716. A small white box hides a completely normal type of phone, something in the style of smartphones based on Android since version 2.3 of the system - rounded corners, sloping shapes, to call it thin - the language does not turn, but to the thickness of smartphones like the Nokia 5800 or its contemporaries he is far away: in general, a typical smartphone, which we all used several years ago and didn’t really show off.
Unpacking
The manufacturer did not particularly bother with the packaging - neat white cardboard, brief characteristics on the side faces, a more or less complete list of features and iron on the back side - in general, everything for buyers who want to know what they give their money for.
')
Inspect
As for the telephone itself, everything is like everyone else: there is a lock-unlock button (right), a volume swing (left), MicroUSB and 3.5mm MiniJack connectors for headphones - on top, three touch buttons (menu, back and home) - under the display. Behind - only the eye of the camera and the mesh of the external speaker.
There are, alas, no outbreaks, although on a budget device, in my opinion, having a flashlight would be a great plus - I don’t think that a hole in the back panel and one LED would have made the smartphone at least slightly more expensive, but the benefits of this addition were would be very, very much.
We climb inside
So what's inside? Four-inch TFT-TN display with a resolution of 800x480 pixels, two SIM card slots (radio module, of course, one, but with HSPA + support), 512 megabytes of RAM, 4096 megabytes of internal memory, a slot for memory cards up to 32 GB inclusive, yes battery for 1400 milliamp-hours. And, of course, GPS / Wi-Fi / Bluetooth / FM and other standard technologies that any modern smartphone based on MTK technology has - two 1.2 GHz cores, MT6572 is built on ARM A7 architecture and is generally quite enough popular solution in budget smartphones.
Picture
Display…. the display ... it's hard to expect a miracle from the display on the phone for three and a half thousand rubles. Yes, the picture is more or less clear, yes, the colors are similar to colors. The problem is that the manufacturer has confused the direction of the polarizer and when the smartphone is deflected vertically, colors are noticeably distorted, while when deflected horizontally, this effect is much less. In the rest - the screen is like a screen, moderately bright, the touchscreen perfectly understands two fingers at the same time, but no more. In general, in order to get into the budget I had to save, and there was nothing to save more than that.
Performance
We have more or less talked about iron, but what is it capable of?
In Antutu Banchmark the device is typed modest 10-11 thousand parrots. Approximately the same dial up Galaxy S II or Nexus of those times. Only in the secondary market, these devices are in good condition and a half to two times more expensive, and in poor condition ... in general, the competition here is very conditional.
The device itself works well: the animation in the applications and the system smartly and smoothly works out all the lists, switches, swipes and other adversities of everyday life. The single-core Mali 400MP is responsible for the graphics (again, we could see this solution in the Galaxy S II three years ago).
All more or less modern games are going: I even managed to run Asphalt 8 Airborn and go through several races: on “medium” the game “stutters” a little in difficult places (changing locations, say, entry / exit from the tunnel), but is quite playable. At the "low" (without unnecessary special effects in the form of glare on the camera and pseudo-HDRi) and in general the game goes on adequately.
All sorts of subway surfers and other cut the rope, of course, work without any problems. So I would describe the performance as “sufficient” for this kind of device. Fortunately, they ask for ridiculous money.
Camera sound
As the camera uses the usual five-megapixel module without autofocus. Is he…. eemm ... how to say. It allows you to capture some images, but no more. Take a photo for your contact list, take a picture of some text or a sign, remove the accident from the category “you can see where everyone is” - this is please. Highly artistic shots - not about him. One thing pleases, with this size of the matrix and focal length, the hyperfocal influenza starts from half a meter — this is enough to more or less correctly convey the text on A4 sheet.
The sound in the headphones can hardly be called outstanding, it is there, the signal is more or less clear, there are no obvious interferences or unnecessary sounds, but you don’t have to expect miracles. In the appropriate smartphone smartphone for 100-200-300 rubles, everything will be more or less tolerable. In decent ones, unfortunately, nothing decent can be heard, and the situation when the phone and the headphones are about the same (and even the headphones are more expensive than the phone) is ridiculous and of little relevance. The external speaker produces quite a loud and high-frequency sound - you can hear the smartphone quite adequately from a jacket, bag or jeans pocket, do not miss the call.
Software and System
Android 4.2.2 is spinning on the smartphone. The version is quite relevant, and I have not yet seen Kit-Kat-Chinese, especially in the public sector. There is no garbage in the face of incomprehensible Chinese software in the firmware, the design is like that of the “naked” Android, only the color accents are changed from bright blue to moderate green (+ pink or yellow are available for choice). The dialer, settings, all applications and everything is quite adequately Russified, though it is a merit, rather, the guys from Google, not the manufacturer. Although there are interesting features in the phone, for example, switching on and off according to the schedule:
After replacing the standard launcher with Yandex with a smartphone, it became much more pleasant to work: a convenient dialer, a good desktop manager and widgets relevant for Russian reality with news, weather, photos and hours out of the box and one click away.
In addition, there was a neat remote "curtain" with switches that, again, plus, because in the budget device, the light sensor and automatic brightness adjustment either.
In general, with desktops from Yandex, the phone turns into a more or less pleasant “workhorse” by installing just one single application. The second Masthev is swype, since it now flies even on budget devices, and the processor is still quite smart.
Alternatives
What of smartphones can be taken for ~ 3.5 thousand rubles in the current market?
Nokia devices on the Asha or Symbian Belle platform (of course, they will be more interesting to look at and have a slightly better camera, but the applications are there - the cat cried, and their quality is questionable). For example, Asha 501 dualsim , with a smaller screen (and a dull resolution of 240x320), or devices on WP 7.5 (previous generations), which have the same problems with the presence of interesting and crawled software in the app store (many of them require WP8, and on the HTC Radar that I have, it’s almost impossible to find anything interesting and / or useful, although the device itself is very dignified and smartly still running, despite its old age and extremely careless operation).
The second alternative to China is state employees from A-brands on the Android OS. As an example, you can take the LG L4 dualsim : it has one hard-to- find advantage - an IPS-screen with decent viewing angles, resolution, however, again 480x320 against 800x480 from the “Chinese” in question. The advantages still include a good set of software out of the box. Otherwise, everything is about the same or slightly worse, so here, one might say, parity. LG's smartphone looks a bit more interesting and has a better display, and Haier impresses with its performance and higher display resolution.
Well, the third alternative is, in fact, other devices from China, but it is either ordered at auctions / shops in the producing country and enjoy communicating with PR, or choose from what our sellers have, read reviews and google reviews.
$ 100 Smartphone
So what is the result we are offered for a modest $ 100? Manufacturers as they can are trying to "shove un-pushed" and put the most productive and decent stuffing from the budget. Someone pays attention to the screen, someone focuses on higher performance (as in this case), sacrificing image quality. As for me, for three and a half thousand rubles, the result is quite decent: the games are pulling, the Internet is coming out, photos are at the very least, yes, all modern web technologies and a huge base of applications compatible with a fairly current version of the OS — there is need more? Is that a flashlight. Like a smartphone to a child (who really wants it simply because everyone has sensory devices), a comrade in the army (there is always a chance to lose the device permanently) or just yourself when you need access to the Internet from any place, calls and cards, and consider money which is not - great. And more from him and is not required.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/215089/
All Articles