718 replies to this topic

[PaulOBrien]

I'll post my impressions of the Orange San Francisco here as I start using the device... if you have any questions feel free to post!

Official specs from the Orange site

• Talk Time: 4 hours
  
• Standby Time: 9 days
  
• Weight: 130g
  
• Dimensions: 116 x 56.5 x 11.8
  
• 3.5 inch touchscreen, 480x800
  
• 600MHz CPU
  
• Camera Features: 3 megapixel
  
• Connectivity: WiFi / Bluetooth / USB / SatNav
  
• Music: MP3 / FM Radio
  
• Network Band: Tri band
  
• Video: Messaging
  
• Memory: 150 MB internal / Up to 32gb Micro SD Card
  
• Email: POP3 / IMAP4
  
• Data Speed: 3G +
  
• Operating System: Android
  
• Version: Eclair v2.1
  
• Other: Orange WiFi, Your Orange
  
• Applications and Features: Orange Maps, Orange Messenger by Windows Live, Orange App Store, Email, Orange Wednesdays

Packaging

The device is in a pretty plain box, Orange branded of course, with a 'read me first' guide, a manual, some other random paper bits, a micro USB cable, a 3.5mm headset and a mains to USB adaptor.

Design

The device is grey plastic predmoninantly, with a shiny black front. It has hardware buttons for home, menu and back on the front, together with volume rockers on the right hand side. The power button is on the top, there is no dedicated camera button. The 3.5mm jack is on the top and the microUSB port is on the top left. The back houses the 3.2MP autofocus camera (no flash) and has an Orange logo at the bottom. The back comes off in it's entirety, behind which sites the 1250mAh battery, the included 2GB microSD and the SIM slot of course. The sides of the device have chrome inserts. The device obviously feels cheaper than my Nexus One, but more solid than the Pulse / Pulse Mini for example.

Specifications

I'm discovering these as I go, but we've definitely got 3.5mm up top, microUSB and microSD! THe screen does indeed appear to be a WVGA (800x480) OLED Capacitive unit, which alongside my Nexus One OLED looks equally great! The screen is slightly smaller than the Nexus One, so i'm assuming it's 3.5".

Price / Availability

At the time of writing the SF is yet to appear on the Orange online store. I paid £99 in store plus the obligatory £10 topup.

SIM Lock

Present, no solution available as yet

Software Build

The device is running Android 2.1 Eclair, in a pretty vanilla build. It's pretty 'Orangeified' (especially the Launcher), but for the most part this will be easily reversed (e.g. by installing a stock launcher or ADW Launcher). The input method is the standard Android IME AND TouchPal (which is great!). The Camera app is standard Android. Software additions over base Eclair include Orange App Shop, Orange Backup, Documents To Go (viewers only), Orange Games, Global Time, Guitar Hero 5 (not sure if this is demo or full), Orange Maps, Note pad, Orange Wednesdays, Photo, Ringtones, Orange TV, Weather, WWTBAM2010 (not sure if this is demo or full) and Your Orange.

Live Wallpapers etc. are all present.

Memory

Lots!



For The Techies

Partition layout:

/dev: 212440K total, 12K used, 212428K available (block size 4096)
/system: 212480K total, 142456K used, 70024K available (block size 4096)
/data: 213120K total, 46764K used, 166356K available (block size 4096)
/persist: 1536K total, 1156K used, 380K available (block size 4096)
/sqlite_stmt_journals: 4096K total, 0K used, 4096K available (block size 4096)
/cache: 42240K total, 1416K used, 40824K available (block size 4096)

Interesting points on partition layout: A lot of space on system, reasonable /data size, some potential for /cache use.

MTD partitions:

$ cat /proc/mtd
dev:	size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00480000 00020000 "recovery"
mtd1: 00480000 00020000 "boot"
mtd2: 00180000 00020000 "splash"
mtd3: 00060000 00020000 "misc"
mtd4: 02940000 00020000 "cache"
mtd5: 0cf80000 00020000 "system"
mtd6: 0d020000 00020000 "userdata"
mtd7: 00180000 00020000 "persist"

Kernel config: http://pastebin.com/KAn3tp6H

Interesting points: EXT2 enabled, EXT3/4 disabled, by all accounts the usual config.

Kernel version is 2.6.29.

P

P

[gumbald]

Does it feel reasonable quality, or like it's been made cheap as possible?

[joners]

Hi Paul,

Couple of quick questions that i doubt that you will be able to answer at the minute!

Since the Blade has potential to be the next best budget device, how does it compare to the tmobile pulse?

Whats it like for speed, is that 600Mhz CPU up to the job?

Hows the battery life, whats it capactiy and 'advised' talktime and standby? - Think you might need to have it for a week or two first! lol

Cheers,

Jon

[flibblesan]

How much RAM has this thing got please?

[flibblesan]

Just noticed ZTE are quite quick at releasing the kernel source.

http://support.zte.c...?newsId=1000322

[supertwisted]

Cheers Paul, so far no hands on info anywhere that I can see for this so looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Is the screen the same spec as the pre-release suggested, 800x480 AMOLED?  How does it compare to say the Desire or Galaxy S?

How much overlay have Orange added to the vanilla Android 2.1 base?  And is it as terrible as most Orange additions are?

Speed - obviously not going to keep up with the premium phones, but how does it compare to it's peer group (I'm thinking Pulse here)?

[PaulOBrien]

gumbald, on Sep 23 2010, 11:34, said:

Does it feel reasonable quality, or like it's been made cheap as possible?

Updating first post as I go.

The device obviously feels cheaper than my Nexus One, but more solid than the Pulse / Pulse Mini for example.

P

[PaulOBrien]

joners, on Sep 23 2010, 11:37, said:

Hi Paul,

Couple of quick questions that i doubt that you will be able to answer at the minute!

Since the Blade has potential to be the next best budget device, how does it compare to the tmobile pulse?

Whats it like for speed, is that 600Mhz CPU up to the job?

Hows the battery life, whats it capactiy and 'advised' talktime and standby? - Think you might need to have it for a week or two first! lol

Cheers,

Jon

I'll let you know on these!

P

[PaulOBrien]

flibblesan, on Sep 23 2010, 11:37, said:

How much RAM has this thing got please?

Not sure, will post when i've found out.

P

[PaulOBrien]

flibblesan, on Sep 23 2010, 11:40, said:

Just noticed ZTE are quite quick at releasing the kernel source.

http://support.zte.c...?newsId=1000322

Oh that's SWEET!

P

[flibblesan]

Paul, on Sep 23 2010, 10:43, said:

Oh that's SWEET!

P

It is very sweet and it's seriously making me consider selling my Pulse and getting one of these instead.

[PaulOBrien]

supertwisted, on Sep 23 2010, 11:40, said:

Cheers Paul, so far no hands on info anywhere that I can see for this so looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Is the screen the same spec as the pre-release suggested, 800x480 AMOLED?  How does it compare to say the Desire or Galaxy S?

How much overlay have Orange added to the vanilla Android 2.1 base?  And is it as terrible as most Orange additions are?

Speed - obviously not going to keep up with the premium phones, but how does it compare to it's peer group (I'm thinking Pulse here)?

Yes, it's 800x480 AMOLED AFAICT and is comparable to my N1 / Desire (it's 3.5" tho)

For software, see post 1 (I added details).

Speed wise, a bit early to say, but you can feel it's not as snappy as the Snapdragon devices. That's to be expected tho. Will comment as I play more!

P

[PaulOBrien]

flibblesan, on Sep 23 2010, 11:44, said:

It is very sweet and it's seriously making me consider selling my Pulse and getting one of these instead.

It feels to me like this could be the 'new Pulse' (that is the new favourite entry level device), punching about it's price in the specs department (particularly the screen) like the Pulse did.

P

[PaulOBrien]

Live Wallpapers are present in the software build btw. Not something we always see on 'lower end' devices.

P

[PaulOBrien]

Partition layout:

/dev: 212440K total, 12K used, 212428K available (block size 4096)
/system: 212480K total, 142456K used, 70024K available (block size 4096)
/data: 213120K total, 46764K used, 166356K available (block size 4096)
/persist: 1536K total, 1156K used, 380K available (block size 4096)
/sqlite_stmt_journals: 4096K total, 0K used, 4096K available (block size 4096)
/cache: 42240K total, 1416K used, 40824K available (block size 4096)

Interesting points on partition layout: A lot of space on system, reasonable /data size, some potential for /cache use.

[tinytom21]

Paul, on Sep 23 2010, 10:44, said:

Yes, it's 800x480 AMOLED AFAICT and is comparable to my N1 / Desire (it's 3.5" tho)

For software, see post 1 (I added details).

Speed wise, a bit early to say, but you can feel it's not as snappy as the Snapdragon devices. That's to be expected tho. Will comment as I play more!

P

The specs are on the Orange website .... no mention of RAM though.

http://newsroom.oran...-san-francisco/

[joners]

Any chance of some pictures at all?

[flibblesan]

Paul, on Sep 23 2010, 10:48, said:

Partition layout:

/dev: 212440K total, 12K used, 212428K available (block size 4096)
/system: 212480K total, 142456K used, 70024K available (block size 4096)
/data: 213120K total, 46764K used, 166356K available (block size 4096)
/persist: 1536K total, 1156K used, 380K available (block size 4096)
/sqlite_stmt_journals: 4096K total, 0K used, 4096K available (block size 4096)
/cache: 42240K total, 1416K used, 40824K available (block size 4096)

Interesting points on partition layout: A lot of space on system, reasonable /data size, some potential for /cache use.

I like this. 200MB system, 200MB data, 40MB cache. No real need for Apps2SD.

[flibblesan]

tinytom21, on Sep 23 2010, 10:50, said:

The specs are on the Orange website .... no mention of RAM though.

http://newsroom.oran...-san-francisco/

Orange have given the figure of 150MB but no indication if this is internal storage space or RAM.

edit: Ah Paul has updated. it's internal (makes sense. 200MB Data partition, 50MB used leaving about 150MB free)

Edited by flibblesan, 23 September 2010 - 10:54 AM.

[PaulOBrien]

MTD partitions:

$ cat /proc/mtd
dev:	size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00480000 00020000 "recovery"
mtd1: 00480000 00020000 "boot"
mtd2: 00180000 00020000 "splash"
mtd3: 00060000 00020000 "misc"
mtd4: 02940000 00020000 "cache"
mtd5: 0cf80000 00020000 "system"
mtd6: 0d020000 00020000 "userdata"
mtd7: 00180000 00020000 "persist"