Last edited: June 2016
Budget Smartphone's: Explained
Recently, we've been seeing a new trend in Smartphone's. Smartphone's have become cheaper and cheaper while becoming much more powerful. Now, so called ''Budget Smartphones'' have become ubiquitous and have become very, very common in emerging markets such as India and Africa. These inexpensive smartphones can sometimes contend with top end flagships that are two, three or even four times the price. Every budget smartphone isn't created equally. Almost every budget smartphone has a tradeoff or compromise compared to their much more expensive counterparts. Some have more compromises than others. The most common compromises include a poor camera, display or processor. The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 aims to limit these compromises and is finally the real deal.
Design: 6.9/10
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 is an elegant blend of of polycarbonate and shimmering glass. Polycarbonate wraps around the sleek side rails and creates the textured, smooth back plate. The removable back hides the non removable 2,540mAh battery. The back plate consists of a slight woven pattern that is unfortunately flimsy when removed and very slippery. The smooth, sleek sides create a seamless experience when holding the phone in your hand, unfortunately this increases the slipperiness making the phone almost impossible to hold without it falling at times.
Its not all bad though- The textured power and volume buttons sit closely together on the right side. The textured surface allows you to easily distinguish them part from the rest of the side rail and they are clicky unlike some phones. I wish they were seperated a bit more as I frequently mistaken the volume down button for the power button. Unlike most phone's these days, The Smart 7's camera is situated in the centre at the top of the phone and does not protrude. This is a welcome choice as the it makes the design feel more seamless and decreases your chance of damaging the camera.
My favourite aspect of the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 design is its light weight and thin construction. This makes for a very pocket friendly phone that feels smaller than it actually does. The bezels are moderately sized and house the home, back and multitasking button below the display. These are not capacitive buttons and so you just touch them like the display.
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 is an elegant blend of of polycarbonate and shimmering glass. Polycarbonate wraps around the sleek side rails and creates the textured, smooth back plate. The removable back hides the non removable 2,540mAh battery. The back plate consists of a slight woven pattern that is unfortunately flimsy when removed and very slippery. The smooth, sleek sides create a seamless experience when holding the phone in your hand, unfortunately this increases the slipperiness making the phone almost impossible to hold without it falling at times.
Its not all bad though- The textured power and volume buttons sit closely together on the right side. The textured surface allows you to easily distinguish them part from the rest of the side rail and they are clicky unlike some phones. I wish they were seperated a bit more as I frequently mistaken the volume down button for the power button. Unlike most phone's these days, The Smart 7's camera is situated in the centre at the top of the phone and does not protrude. This is a welcome choice as the it makes the design feel more seamless and decreases your chance of damaging the camera.
My favourite aspect of the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 design is its light weight and thin construction. This makes for a very pocket friendly phone that feels smaller than it actually does. The bezels are moderately sized and house the home, back and multitasking button below the display. These are not capacitive buttons and so you just touch them like the display.
Display: 7.5/10
Most phones these days have crystal clear, colourful and vivid displays but you pay for it. Most flagships have 2K displays now, only one or two don't (Apple). A display i crucial to consider when buying a phone as it is what you will interact and use most. Good displays are excellent for movies and reading but unfortunately budget phones have had to forget about the display to keep down the price. The Smart 7 aims to change this.
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 houses a 720p 5 inch LCD display. The colours can be slightly muted and washed out at times but it has surprisingly good viewing angles making good to share a movie with your friends. The display is also surprisingly bright also which makes it easier to use outdoors or in bright areas. I will even go as far as to say that the display on the Vodafone Smart 7 beats the shameful low resolution display on the iPhone 6S and iPhone SE in terms of clarity.
The one major downfall to its display is its responsiveness. Scrolling through twitter or playing exciting games such as Angry Birds feels slower than it should be. This is because there is a delay of the display recognizing my finger and acting on it. This problem is annoying but considering the display itself is good and at this price it doesn't matter that much.
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 houses a 720p 5 inch LCD display. The colours can be slightly muted and washed out at times but it has surprisingly good viewing angles making good to share a movie with your friends. The display is also surprisingly bright also which makes it easier to use outdoors or in bright areas. I will even go as far as to say that the display on the Vodafone Smart 7 beats the shameful low resolution display on the iPhone 6S and iPhone SE in terms of clarity.
The one major downfall to its display is its responsiveness. Scrolling through twitter or playing exciting games such as Angry Birds feels slower than it should be. This is because there is a delay of the display recognizing my finger and acting on it. This problem is annoying but considering the display itself is good and at this price it doesn't matter that much.
Performance: 7.5/10
With Budget Phones, the main compromise is the performance. Smartphone manufacturers choose to use lower speed processors in order to keep costs down. However, this can become a major issue to the end user and only worsens over time as the phone is forced to run heavy new software features and more graphically intense apps, both of which the phone wasn't originally designed for. The sub-par performance creates a slow experience throughout the system which can make you very frustrated as well. Theses older and less powerful processors also tend to be less power efficient and run very hot when under a lot of pressure. This decreases the battery further and the phone may become loose battery rapidly when it is under pressure. Thankfully, the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 does not suffer majorly from these issues unlike most budget phones.
The Smart 7 packs a Quad Core Snapdragon 210 that runs at 1.1GHz. This processor is certainly not the most powerful on the market and it is also one of Qualcomm's older chips but it surprisingly gets the job done for most tasks. Performing through everyday tasks such as using Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feels smooth and the Smart 7 is well capable of handling these tasks. However, the phone is subject to slow-downs at times especially when downloading apps from the Play Store which is very annoying. Thankfully, theses slow downs are rare.
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 uses 1GB of RAM. This definitely an acceptable amount considering the price tag. Multitasking between apps runs smoothly and opening up apps in the background is always fast. The RAM is probably one of the better aspects of the Smart 7 as it never creates a slowdown when multitasking.
No Budget Phone is built for gaming. This is true with the Smart 7. However I was happily impressed by its capability to run games such as Plants vs Zombies 2, Angry Birds, Subway Surf, Clash of Clans, Temple Run 2 and Agar.io. The Adreno 304 powers the graphical performance and is surprisingly good. The phone is subject to minor stutters in gaming but thankfully theses don't hamper the gaming experience.
The Smart 7 packs a Quad Core Snapdragon 210 that runs at 1.1GHz. This processor is certainly not the most powerful on the market and it is also one of Qualcomm's older chips but it surprisingly gets the job done for most tasks. Performing through everyday tasks such as using Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feels smooth and the Smart 7 is well capable of handling these tasks. However, the phone is subject to slow-downs at times especially when downloading apps from the Play Store which is very annoying. Thankfully, theses slow downs are rare.
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 uses 1GB of RAM. This definitely an acceptable amount considering the price tag. Multitasking between apps runs smoothly and opening up apps in the background is always fast. The RAM is probably one of the better aspects of the Smart 7 as it never creates a slowdown when multitasking.
No Budget Phone is built for gaming. This is true with the Smart 7. However I was happily impressed by its capability to run games such as Plants vs Zombies 2, Angry Birds, Subway Surf, Clash of Clans, Temple Run 2 and Agar.io. The Adreno 304 powers the graphical performance and is surprisingly good. The phone is subject to minor stutters in gaming but thankfully theses don't hamper the gaming experience.
Camera: 7.8/10
A good camera has become essential on a smartphone as most people now use their phone for taking photos rather than a dedicated camera. Most budget phones suffer from a poor camera experience. Smartphone camera technology has come a long way over the last couple of year. Bigger sensors, More MegaPixels, Larger Aperture. All these have drastically improved camera technology. We now even see some Smartphone Cameras contending with professional DSLR camera gear.
Budget phones have repeatedly packed underwhelming camera technology in the hpe to cut down costs. Low Light performance is generally very poor and macro shots can become tricky. The lack of light is where most budget cameras suffer the most. The camera struggles to focus and the camera produces a dull, blurry and noisy image. The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 aims to change this.
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 packs an 8MP camera with LED flash. The camera fairs impressively in macro shots (as seen below) and produces clear, vibrant images, if you give it a chance. The autofocus is fast and always locks on to what I wanted to capture. Photos sometimes look slightly blurry and this is because the camera doesn't pack Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) , The digital image stabilization seems to do a bad job of stabilising the shot. I found that the camera frequently tends to overexpose which completely blows out the background, This can be corrected by HDR. The HDR does an excellent job of balancing the foreground and the background and is far more aggressive than that found on most other smartphones. Low light pictures are poor, at best. The colours become muted and the autofocus is unreliable. Thankfully, the LED Flash does a good job at brightening the shot, Id prefer not to use the flash but sometimes its necessary.
Video output from the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 is average. The video produced is usually clear and contains vibrant colours but unfortunately the video suffers from the same problem as the photos, that is stabilisation. Video footage tends to be very shaky which dramatically takes away from the experience. The camera also takes a while to refocus during videos after changing subject.
The best part of the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 is the 'selfie' camera. 5MP allow you to capture clear, fun selfies. The selfie camera has good skin reproduction. My favourite part of this camera is its wide angle lens. This allows you to capture selfies with many people and get everyone into the shot without having to move back the camera further.
The Camera Software is also one of the Smart 7's strong points. The camera launches fast and the app is very responsive. There are plenty of modes to chose from. My favourite was manual mode which allows you to change multiple settings of the camera from ISO, Aperture, Focal length and grid lines. The auto mode is probably the mode most people will use and it does all the work for you. The camera allows you to capture photos very fast the app design feels modern and intuitive.
Full Resolution Camera samples are available below. These photos were captured in the auto-mode and have not been edited.
Budget phones have repeatedly packed underwhelming camera technology in the hpe to cut down costs. Low Light performance is generally very poor and macro shots can become tricky. The lack of light is where most budget cameras suffer the most. The camera struggles to focus and the camera produces a dull, blurry and noisy image. The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 aims to change this.
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 packs an 8MP camera with LED flash. The camera fairs impressively in macro shots (as seen below) and produces clear, vibrant images, if you give it a chance. The autofocus is fast and always locks on to what I wanted to capture. Photos sometimes look slightly blurry and this is because the camera doesn't pack Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) , The digital image stabilization seems to do a bad job of stabilising the shot. I found that the camera frequently tends to overexpose which completely blows out the background, This can be corrected by HDR. The HDR does an excellent job of balancing the foreground and the background and is far more aggressive than that found on most other smartphones. Low light pictures are poor, at best. The colours become muted and the autofocus is unreliable. Thankfully, the LED Flash does a good job at brightening the shot, Id prefer not to use the flash but sometimes its necessary.
Video output from the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 is average. The video produced is usually clear and contains vibrant colours but unfortunately the video suffers from the same problem as the photos, that is stabilisation. Video footage tends to be very shaky which dramatically takes away from the experience. The camera also takes a while to refocus during videos after changing subject.
The best part of the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 is the 'selfie' camera. 5MP allow you to capture clear, fun selfies. The selfie camera has good skin reproduction. My favourite part of this camera is its wide angle lens. This allows you to capture selfies with many people and get everyone into the shot without having to move back the camera further.
The Camera Software is also one of the Smart 7's strong points. The camera launches fast and the app is very responsive. There are plenty of modes to chose from. My favourite was manual mode which allows you to change multiple settings of the camera from ISO, Aperture, Focal length and grid lines. The auto mode is probably the mode most people will use and it does all the work for you. The camera allows you to capture photos very fast the app design feels modern and intuitive.
Full Resolution Camera samples are available below. These photos were captured in the auto-mode and have not been edited.
Software: 10/10
Software is a very subjective topic on every smartphone as everyone has different preferences. Some people want clean, simplistic software with little features while others want productive, powerful and reliable software. Budget Smartphones have been known to include heavily skinned versions of Android that are poorly designed and slow. The software is tricky to use and unwanted services are pre-installed on the devices eating up memory and slowing the phone down. Features are usually poorly integrated into the OS and software updates are very seldom. The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 completely changes this with an excellent take on Android.
The Vodafone Smart 7 runs the latest version of Android, 6.0.1 Marshmallow. Vodafone has managed to make Android better rather than worse. The OS is very close to stock Android with only a few added perks such as handy quick launch toggles on the lock screen and Vodafones own Message and Phone app. Everything from the Settings, Notifications and app grid borrow the simple, elegant design from Googles Nexus devices. There are no ugly skins or poorly integrated features just Android as Google intended it to be.
The software is also very fast, I had no problem switching between apps and downloading content. Everything is smooth and sleek. The Pre-installed Vodafone Message and Phone app do what you would expect them to do and the message apps contains powerful features and settings missing from other SMS messaging apps. Even if you don't like these apps you can easily use Googles own Phone and Hangouts app.
The software is simply excellent, Vodafone have improved Android and if they continue to provide software updates when Google releases more software, the software will only improve.
The Vodafone Smart 7 runs the latest version of Android, 6.0.1 Marshmallow. Vodafone has managed to make Android better rather than worse. The OS is very close to stock Android with only a few added perks such as handy quick launch toggles on the lock screen and Vodafones own Message and Phone app. Everything from the Settings, Notifications and app grid borrow the simple, elegant design from Googles Nexus devices. There are no ugly skins or poorly integrated features just Android as Google intended it to be.
The software is also very fast, I had no problem switching between apps and downloading content. Everything is smooth and sleek. The Pre-installed Vodafone Message and Phone app do what you would expect them to do and the message apps contains powerful features and settings missing from other SMS messaging apps. Even if you don't like these apps you can easily use Googles own Phone and Hangouts app.
The software is simply excellent, Vodafone have improved Android and if they continue to provide software updates when Google releases more software, the software will only improve.
Call and Data Speeds: 10/10
Vodafone is known to be Ireland's best network and is the biggest in Ireland. The Vodafone network is by far the best network in Ireland with 4G LTE available virtually everywhere and a new 4G+ network currently rolling. Vodafone also support HD Voice creating an unparalleled network experience not found on any other Mobile network in Ireland.
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 manages to obtain excellent data speeds and call quality on the Vodafone Network. I received 4G LTE everywhere I went, From major towns and cities to mountainous countryside. I received 4G LTE speeds of above 50Mbps down and consistently received upload speeds of over 20Mbps.
Call quality has also been excellent. Vodafones HD Voice technology allows for crystal clear calls even in crowded areas and the microphones on the Smart 7 do an excellent job in muting the background noise.
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 manages to obtain excellent data speeds and call quality on the Vodafone Network. I received 4G LTE everywhere I went, From major towns and cities to mountainous countryside. I received 4G LTE speeds of above 50Mbps down and consistently received upload speeds of over 20Mbps.
Call quality has also been excellent. Vodafones HD Voice technology allows for crystal clear calls even in crowded areas and the microphones on the Smart 7 do an excellent job in muting the background noise.
4G LTE data speed test in suburban area.
4G LTE data speed test in rural area.
Speaker Quality: 7/10
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 features a down facing mono speaker that is relatively loud and clear.
The speaker is capable of producing loud audio. The main downside to the speaker is the lack of base. This makes listening to songs less enjoyable.
The speaker placement is also something of concern as it is very easily covered when watching a movie or playing a game. The audio also does not face towards you which can be annoying at times.
The speaker is capable of producing loud audio. The main downside to the speaker is the lack of base. This makes listening to songs less enjoyable.
The speaker placement is also something of concern as it is very easily covered when watching a movie or playing a game. The audio also does not face towards you which can be annoying at times.
Battery Life: 7/10
The Vodafone Smart Prime 7 is powered by a non removable 2540 mAh battery. The battery is charged via micro-USB and charges fully in under 2 hours. The Smart 7 has an average screen on time of 3 hours. The phones battery drains much faster while playing graphic intensive games and watching movies.
Stand-by time became a major issue for me while using the Smart 7 as I could go to bed with 100% and wake up with 60%. Even with no apps or programs running in the background the phone still managed to drain battery during stand-by mode.
A battery saver mode is availiable if you are running out of juice and can give you some extra time by limiting CPU performance and freezing apps in the background.
Stand-by time became a major issue for me while using the Smart 7 as I could go to bed with 100% and wake up with 60%. Even with no apps or programs running in the background the phone still managed to drain battery during stand-by mode.
A battery saver mode is availiable if you are running out of juice and can give you some extra time by limiting CPU performance and freezing apps in the background.
Conclusion:
With an excellent price tag of only €129.99 the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 is for someone who wants a smartphone that does the basics good. Its Display is bright, clear and vibrant. It has one of the best software experiences available on any smartphone today that is clean and fast and running on the Vodafone network, you can expect to get access to super fast 4G LTE almost everywhere and and watch movies for hours with the long lasting battery.
Yes, its pretty slow at times and the camera shots produced are probably best used only on social media but for only €129.99 Vodafone has created a serious smartphone that deserves attention.
We give the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 an excellent 8.2/10
Yes, its pretty slow at times and the camera shots produced are probably best used only on social media but for only €129.99 Vodafone has created a serious smartphone that deserves attention.
We give the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 an excellent 8.2/10
Pro'sGreat Price
Excellent Software. FM Radio Excellent Call/Data experience Good Battery Life Good Display |
Con'sSlow Processor
Display could be more responsive Design is cheap/Slippery Power/Volume buttons too close together |
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Thanks to Vodafone for making this review possible
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