Monte Carlo - fail, ZTE Skate - it's all about the price

[Guest vulpy]

No point in explaining why Monte Carlo is not a success, ZTE made a choice and will measure (suffer) the consequences.

Now the unlocked Skate is not going to do any better with a higher than £200 price tag... I for one decided for an Optimus 2x, dual core Tegra proc at £270 unlocked, and I'm far from being the only one looking elsewhere.

If only ZTE woke up and relaxed a bit the unlocking wall on Monte Carlo (too late for me, others would appreciate)...

[Guest putbinoot]

Had a quick look and it looks nice and although I bought the MC as it was a step up from the wildfire in my opinion the MC as well as your Optimus has failed on a very easy and important level and I see some manufacturers are beginning to see this. The charge socket and the headphone socket both need to be on the bottom so when I get home, into my car, get to work or onto my motorbike I want to be able to plug it into a cradle that will charge it and allow me to get an audio and speech output from it. I don't want to be feckin around with cables in here and there I hope ZTE catch on to this, for me that's one of the reasons for the success of the apple products it's not so much the device but the peripherals and the ease of which you just plug it into things. I will most likely sell the wildfire and the MC to fund a phone which has good cradle support and has both outputs at the bottom.

[Guest Chris Banks]

No point in explaining why Monte Carlo is not a success, ZTE made a choice and will measure (suffer) the consequences.

Now the unlocked Skate is not going to do any better with a higher than £200 price tag... I for one decided for an Optimus 2x, dual core Tegra proc at £270 unlocked, and I'm far from being the only one looking elsewhere.

If only ZTE woke up and relaxed a bit the unlocking wall on Monte Carlo (too late for me, others would appreciate)...

You got to think, the majority of people who will buy any phone, including the skate, wont be like people on here wanting to install custom ROM's.

They will be people looking for a cheap mid-range android phone, and they probably won't even know, or care, that a faster, more expensive version will be released soon.

If a customer wants a reasonably cheap phone with average specs, and a huge screen, then thats what they will get.

It may not be a success in modders minds, but I think its a too early to assume that it will not be a success with the 'general public.'

[Guest tillaz]

suppose if you have near £300 for a phone you have much better options than the OMC..... but for some one new to android or on a budget its a good phone and not to bad price if your the people reportedly getting it for as low as £119.99. in my opinion the phone needed to be this price to everyone not just orange customers to be big success.

for the zte skate i think it has to be 1ghz msm8255 ARMv7 to even be thinking off going near £200+ if they had any seance they would take a good look at is competition before pricing.

Edited August 25, 2011 by tillaz

[Guest vulpy]

Had a quick look and it looks nice and although I bought the MC as it was a step up from the wildfire in my opinion the MC as well as your Optimus has failed on a very easy and important level and I see some manufacturers are beginning to see this. The charge socket and the headphone socket both need to be on the bottom so when I get home, into my car, get to work or onto my motorbike I want to be able to plug it into a cradle that will charge it and allow me to get an audio and speech output from it. I don't want to be feckin around with cables in here and there I hope ZTE catch on to this, for me that's one of the reasons for the success of the apple products it's not so much the device but the peripherals and the ease of which you just plug it into things. I will most likely sell the wildfire and the MC to fund a phone which has good cradle support and has both outputs at the bottom.

Fully agreed, usb must be on the bottom - full stop... btw, Optimus 2x is in this category (on of the reasons I went for it btw)...

[Guest putbinoot]

Fully agreed, usb must be on the bottom - full stop... btw, Optimus 2x is in this category (on of the reasons I went for it btw)...

yeah seen the usb port on the bottom but there audio is on the top, there was a review of a phone were the audio was on the bottom but i have forgotten what the phone was and the reviewer seen that as a negative.

[Guest avilella]

I think this is one of the successes of the Android platform: diversity. The definition of the perfect device changes from person to person, or even from day to day as more models come to fore. I for one would like to see a ZTE Blade successor, that is, as geek friendly for the modaco community as the Blade, but with a qwerty keyboard, even if that means smaller screen or compromises in other features. I am sure there are models in the making that will end up fitting into my definition of perfect.

You got to think, the majority of people who will buy any phone, including the skate, wont be like people on here wanting to install custom ROM's.

They will be people looking for a cheap mid-range android phone, and they probably won't even know, or care, that a faster, more expensive version will be released soon.

If a customer wants a reasonably cheap phone with average specs, and a huge screen, then thats what they will get.

It may not be a success in modders minds, but I think its a too early to assume that it will not be a success with the 'general public.'

[Guest gitf@ce]

I sincerely hope the Skate does not fail. Admittedly mine is back-up to my Streak, but after using the phone for a few days have to say I'm now impressed with it. I find the speed more than adequate, and do not miss arm7/flash in the slightest. Considering the price the build quality is good, and the battery life seems brill.

I do think however that upping the cpu to 1gz and shoving the price up will be a big mistake... they should make another model, and let sleeping dogs lie.

Hopefully we will all get an unlock soon, which fingers crossed will stir up a bit more interest from modders etc..

[Guest den169]

Can't wait for an unlock then this phone will take off,Its far better than the san fran (i have both) just for the screen alone but the camera is far better crap inside decent outside the san fran camera was not worth using,Battery does seem better all in all i love this phone and an unlock can't come soon enough.

[Guest PedroVader]

I've had my eye on the Skate now since it was announced, finally decided to get one from the local shop as I didn't want to order from Orange and have to wait (no patience).

Considering that "it won't be as popular" all my local branches have sold out, unsure how soon it'll be back in stock, so somebody's buying them!

Ordered it through Orange in the end, will have it Wednesday!

[Guest sane?]

I have to say, I'm also looking at the LG Optimus 2X.

For £250-£270 you get a dual core, 1 Ghz Tegra 2 chip, with 4 inch screen smartphone. That's much cheaper than the other dual-core alternatives - mainly because of the battery life and reboot bugs issues associated with the 2X. However with the development of the CM7 port there is a chance that these can be addressed sufficiently to make it a player. Just needs more time, and an A2DP fix.

So at present I'm probably going to wait till Sept and the Skate & Vision launches. If the Skate is north of £200 its too expensive, given the above. The 3D interface of the Vision is also a question mark, in addition to the price. The Monte Carlo is out of the running for my purposes - even at the relatively cheaper price, its not good value.

Once the fog has cleared, I'll make my decision as to which way to jump.

[Guest super san francisco]

you know, i thought about getting the 2x too, but then went for the Nexus S, which ist a very nice piece of kit.

the optimus 2x will suffer from two very important things:

1. being the first:

as i understood a lot of people, the tegra 2 seems a little rushed, to be on the market as firstly as possible, leaving to be desired, in comparison to other dual-core chipsets.

apart from that, hell, it's dual core and will start to shine with ice cream sandwich, when it comes. it has those annoying bugs, reboots and stuff, which can be fixed with a custom rom,

but how many owners will really install a rom themselves?

for us tech-nerds: root that thing ---> CWM ---> Custom Rom --> :D

for everyone else: "damn, why does it reboot all the time, why does this not work? that thing sucks!!" ---> :(

2. the terrible screen:

it's not technically bad, but rather the build quality is, again, rushed. don't know whether you noticed, but i almost died of eye-cancer on the behalf of this.

the screen bleed in the corners of the screen. try it with a very black background and watch the light flow onto the screen from the holes in the corners of the display.

you won't notice in bright pics, but when there is black, you will see.

this is not about the 2x though, rather about it's price, which is so cheap, because it can't really keep up with the up and coming dual-core phones and they very well know the problems

want to sell those off, before the start rotting on the shelves... tegra2 was just an intermediate step on the way of the phone.

that's where the OMC enters the story, as i has to compete with such a phone about your money. you think, that it's not much of a deal, i agree perfectly.

ZTE are upcoming, which means, they try to come UP. in doing so, of course, they try to maximize their profit, to invest furthermore into more products, build quality, software, whatever. as mentioned before, they try to get you into buying that thing for the huge screen and an adequate working speed. if it works, let them have their piece of the cake, maybe they can succeed.

after some research and consideration, i went with nexus s for google software reasons and for the top notch hardware build by samsung, i can be sure, there won't be much chance for miss here. in their respect they both know best.(and that this black beauty just looks dead-sexy :D )

imagine it as it is with bands: the first album is to win the fans for you, the second is to keep the fans, the third is to show, that you are really good :)

the second album hasn't got to be better compared to the first, but has to hit the demand of many.

p.s.: the Nexus has both the USB and the Audio Plug at the bottom of the chassis

Edited August 27, 2011 by super san francisco

[Guest putbinoot]

you know, i thought about getting the 2x too, but then went for the Nexus S, which ist a very nice piece of kit.

the optimus 2x will suffer from two very important things:

1. being the first:

as i understood a lot of people, the tegra 2 seems a little rushed, to be on the market as firstly as possible, leaving to be desired, in comparison to other dual-core chipsets.

apart from that, hell, it's dual core and will start to shine with ice cream sandwich, when it comes. it has those annoying bugs, reboots and stuff, which can be fixed with a custom rom,

but how many owners will really install a rom themselves?

for us tech-nerds: root that thing ---> CWM ---> Custom Rom --> :D

for everyone else: "damn, why does it reboot all the time, why does this not work? that thing sucks!!" ---> :(

2. the terrible screen:

it's not technically bad, but rather the build quality is, again, rushed. don't know whether you noticed, but i almost died of eye-cancer on the behalf of this.

the screen bleed in the corners of the screen. try it with a very black background and watch the light flow onto the screen from the holes in the corners of the display.

you won't notice in bright pics, but when there is black, you will see.

this is not about the 2x though, rather about it's price, which is so cheap, because it can't really keep up with the up and coming dual-core phones and they very well know the problems

want to sell those off, before the start rotting on the shelves... tegra2 was just an intermediate step on the way of the phone.

that's where the OMC enters the story, as i has to compete with such a phone about your money. you think, that it's not much of a deal, i agree perfectly.

ZTE are upcoming, which means, they try to come UP. in doing so, of course, they try to maximize their profit, to invest furthermore into more products, build quality, software, whatever. as mentioned before, they try to get you into buying that thing for the huge screen and an adequate working speed. if it works, let them have their piece of the cake, maybe they can succeed.

after some research and consideration, i went with nexus s for google software reasons and for the top notch hardware build by samsung, i can be sure, there won't be much chance for miss here. in their respect they both know best.(and that this black beauty just looks dead-sexy :D )

imagine it as it is with bands: the first album is to win the fans for you, the second is to keep the fans, the third is to show, that you are really good :)

the second album hasn't got to be better compared to the first, but has to hit the demand of many.

p.s.: the Nexus has both the USB and the Audio Plug at the bottom of the chassis

audio and usb at bottom is good to know, cheers.

[Guest sane?]

you know, i thought about getting the 2x too, but then went for the Nexus S, which ist a very nice piece of kit.

the optimus 2x will suffer from two very important things:

1. being the first:

as i understood a lot of people, the tegra 2 seems a little rushed, to be on the market as firstly as possible, leaving to be desired, in comparison to other dual-core chipsets.apart from that, hell, it's dual core and will start to shine with ice cream sandwich, when it comes. it has those annoying bugs, reboots and stuff, which can be fixed with a custom rom,

2. the terrible screen:

it's not technically bad, but rather the build quality is, again, rushed. don't know whether you noticed, but i almost died of eye-cancer on the behalf of this. the screen bleed in the corners of the screen. try it with a very black background and watch the light flow onto the screen from the holes in the corners of the display.

you won't notice in bright pics, but when there is black, you will see.

Thing is, anyone here should be conversant with changing the ROM (hell, its virtually a requirement of membership that your phone ISN'T running its original firmware). As such the fact that the original ROM was buggy is a good thing, it depresses the price for those of us happy to hack it.

As for the backlight, I'm more interested in its performance in daylight and seeing it in strong sunlight. Black screens are less interesting because I'm not interested in looking at screens with nothing on them!

I'd love to blow the money on a Galaxy S2, but its nearly twice as expensive (£450++) as the Optimus 2X (£250) and even with the nicer screen, its not nearly twice as good. The LG seems to tick the boxes, dual core, overclockable, enough grunt for usages for the next few years, a size that meeting the 'pocket' test. More memory would be nice, but its not a killer.

At the moment its only the A2DP that's stopping me - it would be nice to have bluetooth working properly. Mind that's an issue with all Tegra phones and custom ROMs, since its an issue with NVidia.

Comparing the £250 2X to the £220+ Skate, even at 1GHz , is not good for the Skate. Half the cores, too big for the pocket - at the moment its looking like a no brainer unless Huawei come along with a killer phone at the right price.

Anything else that should be considered?

[Guest super san francisco]

Thing is, anyone here should be conversant with changing the ROM (hell, its virtually a requirement of membership that your phone ISN'T running its original firmware). As such the fact that the original ROM was buggy is a good thing, it depresses the price for those of us happy to hack it.

As for the backlight, I'm more interested in its performance in daylight and seeing it in strong sunlight. Black screens are less interesting because I'm not interested in looking at screens with nothing on them!

I'd love to blow the money on a Galaxy S2, but its nearly twice as expensive (£450++) as the Optimus 2X (£250) and even with the nicer screen, its not nearly twice as good. The LG seems to tick the boxes, dual core, overclockable, enough grunt for usages for the next few years, a size that meeting the 'pocket' test. More memory would be nice, but its not a killer.

At the moment its only the A2DP that's stopping me - it would be nice to have bluetooth working properly. Mind that's an issue with all Tegra phones and custom ROMs, since its an issue with NVidia.

Comparing the £250 2X to the £220+ Skate, even at 1GHz , is not good for the Skate. Half the cores, too big for the pocket - at the moment its looking like a no brainer unless Huawei come along with a killer phone at the right price.

Anything else that should be considered?

it suffices to see some black on the screen when watching a youtubevideo or having a dark wallpaper, as i prefer those, so i quit my thoughts on buying it.

however, i wish you to be happy with the 2x, no problem :)