SF is it really that good?

[Guest sedj]

Was considering buying this a few weeks ago when i first heard about it, tbh im glad i didnt as only 3 weeks in all the ugly details are spilling out:

Poor Battery life

Wifi disconnects

Poor video performance ie avi mp4

Poor build quality it is chinese after all

Poor mp3 playback pausing stuttering etc

MMS small picture problem

Camera is rubbish

As the saying goes you get what you pay for

In this case its a phone that needs treating with kid gloves and the ability to ring every last ounce out of the battery by turning everything OFF! :P

[Guest TonyLeMesmer]

Was considering buying this a few weeks ago when i first heard about it, tbh im glad i didnt as only 3 weeks in all the ugly details are spilling out:

Poor Battery life

Wifi disconnects

Poor video performance ie avi mp4

Poor build quality it is chinese after all

Poor mp3 playback pausing stuttering etc

MMS small picture problem

Camera is rubbish

As the saying goes you get what you pay for

In this case its a phone that needs treating with kid gloves and the ability to ring every last ounce out of the battery by turning everything OFF! :P

It definitely has it's issues, but for the price it's really very good.

[Guest GraviticVortex]

Consider this:

There are A LOT of Blade/SF users now.

Most of them dont we will never know of because their phones work fine and they dont want to use custom firmware.

that few % of users that have issues generate 90% of traffic and get most attention.

It is so with every other device too.

It is not a perfect phone - far from it. It is a budget phone made by Chinese manufacturer of cheap phones.

It cant be compared to Desire or Galaxy S.

BUT it is without doubt best bang for a buck, best Android phone for 99£ and actually would also be best Android phone for 199£.

Its all about price/feature ratio.

But you can never expect same build quality from 99£ phone as you can expect from 499£ phone.

In the end it boils down to money, and for its price its simply awesome.

Most of the issues described are software issues.

Given time Paul and other bright minds in community will iron out ROM issues and apply tweaks making Blade/SF even more incredible value.

So in short - yes, for 99£ its really THAT good.

Edited October 20, 2010 by GraviticVortex

[Guest Rem1x]

The battery life is pretty decent here.

Wifi Disconnects are fixed, I don't get them, at least.

Poor video performance, we're working on it, and it's Android, video is not it's thing

Poor build quality: Not really, also, that's a bit racist.

Poor mp3: Fine for me, some times stutters, will be fixed with 2.2

MMS: People still use that?

Camera: Really? Really? You expect a £99 to have a good camera? Come on.

[Guest dbeckett]

Consider this:

There are A LOT of Blade/SF users now.

Most of them dont we will never know of because their phones work fine and they dont want to use custom firmware.

that few % of users that have issues get 90% generate 90% of traffic and get most attention.

It is so with every other device too.

It is not a perfect phone -far from it. It is a budget phone made by Chinese manufscturer of cheap phones.

It cant be compared to desire or Galaxy S.

BUT it is without doubt best bang for a buck, best Android phone for 99£ and actually would also be best Android phone for 199£.

Its all about price/feature ratio.

But you can never expect same build quality from 99£ phone as you can expect from 499£ phone.

In the end it boils down to money, and for its price its simply awesome.

Mosst of the issues described are software issues.

Given time Paul and other bright minds in community will iron out ROM issues and apply tweaks making Blade/SF even more incredible value.

So in short - yes, for 99£ its really THAT good.

Working fine here, I'm more of a spectator as I don't have problems and so you don't hear much from me, but its a really good phone, had it for around 5days and no problems

Edited October 20, 2010 by dbeckett

[Guest finbaar]

The iPhone is made in China. What is wrong with China?

[Guest Rem1x]

The iPhone is made in China. What is wrong with China?

Yeah, I did have a post with a load of things made in china, but I felt I was wasting my time.

[Guest tabor56]

i've had none of those problems, i think it is a brilliant handset.

[Guest GraviticVortex]

/off-topic:

Come to that HTC is also Taiwanese company with factorys in China.

Started up as unknown OEM manufacturer.

And look where they are/what they do now...

AS for ZTE:

Many people dont know this but ZTE is fast becoming a very big player in network infrastructrure market.

And taking more and more market share from big players such as Nokia-Siemens Networks and Ericsson.

They are specially strong in 3G/WCDMA/EV-DO and i expect they will invest lot to 4G/LTE too.

Actually virtually same case with Huawei

Edited October 20, 2010 by GraviticVortex

[Guest dadashi]

.....its a really good phone, had it for around 5days and no problems....

only five days, hahahaha....what happened to it?

[Guest Spaennis]

Was considering buying this a few weeks ago when i first heard about it, tbh im glad i didnt as only 3 weeks in all the ugly details are spilling out:

Poor Battery life

Wifi disconnects

Poor video performance ie avi mp4

Poor build quality it is chinese after all

Poor mp3 playback pausing stuttering etc

MMS small picture problem

Camera is rubbish

As the saying goes you get what you pay for

In this case its a phone that needs treating with kid gloves and the ability to ring every last ounce out of the battery by turning everything OFF! :P

Batterylife is just about the same as my wildfire

WiFi works great (have never seen my wifi disconnect??)

Video performance is OK. (The framerate of some files maybe makes some difference?)

Great build quality. Solid as a rock compared to my squeeky wildfire) And just a note, where do you think the majority of all other phones are made? hmm can it be china, taiwan and so on?

Never hade problems playing mp3s

MMS problems I´ve never even heard of? Except of people not getting the right APN settings outside UK.

And camera, What the F do you think? 99gpb...

Edited October 20, 2010 by Spaennis

[Guest speakeasy]

This is the best smartphone I have ever owned. My list of old devices goes something like:

Xda

XdaIIs

HTC Diamond

This phone beats all of these into a cocked hat. Battery life is poor, but so it was for *all* my previous devices.

Want 2 weeks battery life? Don't get a smartphone - of whatever make.

Want a superb multi-function device? Get one of these (plus a couple of USB charger cables - one for your laptop and one for your car). Oh, and install a widget that allows you to easily toggle the battery-eaters like WiFi / Bluetooth & GPS

Edited October 20, 2010 by speakeasy

[Guest StevenHarperUK]

Upon reading this initial post I thought some of the points were valid - if not exaggerated.

However if you take the tone into account - someone is basically trolling.

Suggest a Thread lock.

Edited October 20, 2010 by StevenHarperUK

[Guest Teasy]

sedj you sound like some kind of wierd fanboy, do phones have fanboys now?? :P

Edited October 20, 2010 by Teasy

[Guest StevenHarperUK]

sedj you sound like some kind of wierd fanboy, do phones have fanboys now?? :P

One word : iPhone

[Guest sedj]

Not a fan boy by any means

Just need to point out that this phone needs tlc to get the most out of it and may not be suitable for peeps not into hacking.

This phone has issues and its only 3 week old, imagine what is to come?

I dont own iphone or whatever, was looking at this as a perk for one up manship against kids at school but as it is some have ip4's.

I need a phone that will last and this will probably break at the first hint of tarmac, so the blackberry wins.

[Guest richardyates]

Not a fan boy by any means

Just need to point out that this phone needs tlc to get the most out of it and may not be suitable for peeps not into hacking.

This phone has issues and its only 3 week old, imagine what is to come?

I dont own iphone or whatever, was looking at this as a perk for one up manship against kids at school but as it is some have ip4's.

I need a phone that will last and this will probably break at the first hint of tarmac, so the blackberry wins.

Tell you what. I'm 50, and had my first mobile before 1990, I think I'm now over 300 mobiles (lost count).

This is without doubt the best £99 phone there has ever been. As for battery life, my SF was taken off charge at 9am this morning and went back on charge at 11:15 tonight - showing 84% left. OK camera not up to much but everything else is stunningly good value - in case you're wondering, current crop of phones includes an iPhone 4 which has been little used since I got this and applied the Modaco ROM

[Guest gwenhwyfaer]

Not a fan boy by any means... I need a phone that will last and this will probably break at the first hint of tarmac, so the blackberry wins.

Ah, so you're a Blackberry fanboy. Thanks for clarifying.

*sigh* Trolls. Don't feed them...

Edited October 20, 2010 by gwenhwyfaer

[Guest Teasy]

sedj

You don't even own the phone yet you're making silly assertions and generalisations about it, that's the kind of thing fanboys do, if you're not one then I'm confused as to why you'd make such a post. I own a SF, I've done no tweaking and have no problems, the build quality is brilliant. Battery isn't the longest lasting but as others have said, its a smartphone..

Edited October 20, 2010 by Teasy

[Guest kissofjudas]

in absolute terms it's pretty good

in relative terms it's fantastic

[Guest sedj]

sedj

You don't even own the phone yet you're making silly assertions and generalisations about it, that's the kind of thing fanboys do, if you're not one then I'm confused as to why you'd make such a post. I own a SF, I've done no tweaking and have no problems, the build quality is brilliant. Battery isn't the longest lasting but as others have said, its a smartphone..

I dont need to own the phone to see the shortcomings, just view the posts here?

The geezer with 300 phones at 50 yrs will probably know that the average teen makes 50+ texts a day and never has the phone turned off, so this one may be a bit useless?

This phone is for those that are willing to sacrifice battery power to exude that feeling of i got a smartphone for 99£ or wave there willies at the iphone boys?

I dont care either way, was just pointing out the shortfalls of the device as it stands.

[Guest tabor56]

i think at £99 you have to compare it to whats at a similar price. the only thing close to it is wildfire, lg optimus or pulse mini. it beats them all hands down. otherwise just one of the many dumbphones with resistive screen.

if you compare it to an iphone 4 then its obviously not gonna be as good, also with all these problems you have to think for a newly launched product theres always some problems and due to the postings on ukhd and other sites most blade owners know of this site and post on here. if someone has a problem they will post but the rest whos phone is fine will not.

Edited October 21, 2010 by tabor56

[Guest Spaennis]

I dont need to own the phone to see the shortcomings, just view the posts here?

The geezer with 300 phones at 50 yrs will probably know that the average teen makes 50+ texts a day and never has the phone turned off, so this one may be a bit useless?

This phone is for those that are willing to sacrifice battery power to exude that feeling of i got a smartphone for 99£ or wave there willies at the iphone boys?

I dont care either way, was just pointing out the shortfalls of the device as it stands.

Seriously, what´s your problem? if you don't find this phone fancy enough for you why even bother reading posts? You may consider that ALL new phones that hits the market may have some problems... It has always been that way and will forever be so... And by the way, I had mine for a couple of weeks, uses it daily, texting, gaming, videos, music etc. and it´s just keeps going. Best buy I´ve ever done.

[Guest mELIANTE]

Do I smell a new troll? Seems today they all come out :P

Keep in mind people:

:D

[Guest sedj]

i think at £99 you have to compare it to whats at a similar price. the only thing close to it is wildfire, lg optimus or pulse mini. it beats them all hands down. otherwise just one of the many dumbphones with resistive screen.

if you compare it to an iphone 4 then its obviously not gonna be as good, also with all these problems you have to think for a newly launched product theres always some problems and due to the postings on ukhd and other sites most blade owners know of this site and post on here. if someone has a problem they will post but the rest whos phone is fine will not.

Point taken m8

Just having dealings with chinese tat, i would take the htc or lg over this due to the build quality and product support given that the sf cant do 800x400 video playback. Why have a nice big screen without video support?

I dare say this is a compromise build vs cost and you takes your choice, it is cheap and looks nice but as for support in the future ?