Orange San Francisco - Review

“The £99 Orange San Francisco is perfect for Christmas and birthday presents. The phone has many of the features found on top-end smartphones, but most are much lower quality”

Google Android Eclair

The £99 pay-as-you-go smartphone

Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) customers are often overlooked by smartphone manufacturers and mobile networks. Either they receive a free smartphone in exchange for signing a monthly contract deal, or are charged over the odds for taking the phone on PAYG.

Orange (www.orange.co.uk) is attempting to redress the balance with San Francisco - its latest city-inspired smartphone available on PAYG for a mere £99.

The smartphone - actually made by the firm behind the ZTE Racer - is one of the cheapest smartphones on the market and, as I discovered, isn’t half bad.

San Francisco runs on Google’s Android operating system (OS) and so many of its features, like the web browser and music player, are standard Android fare.

But in an effort to keep manufacturing costs down, some of San Francisco’s other features ebb towards the lower end of the technological spectrum.

For example, it runs Android “Éclair” - an old version of the OS that misses out on features like wi-fi tethering and voice dialling available to phones running the new Android “Froyo” OS.

Touchscreens are normally one area where smartphone manufacturers cut costs when trying to make a cheap model.

PAYG Android smartphone

Shame about the plastic battery cover

San Francisco was a pleasant surprise, though, offering a large, responsive and reasonably crisp touchscreen display. But the three physical buttons sat along the bottom of the smartphone’s screen were a little too small and fiddly to use effectively.

San Francisco’s screen wouldn’t beat the resolution and clarity of the high-end HTC HD 7. But if sending texts, emails, surfing the web and watching the occasional YouTube video is all you need your smartphone for, you could do worse than San Francisco.

The 3.2Mp camera on Orange San Francisco was a sore point, however. While 3Mp is generally considered rubbish for a cameraphone these days, the pictures it produced swayed between bright and dark - my sample picture (below) is one of the brighter images.

I wasn’t too surprised by this because San Francisco doesn’t have a camera flash - another cost-cutting measure. So if you want a bright photograph you’d better make sure you’re standing somewhere bright.

Pictures were always crisp, however. And while I would have liked a few more photography tools to help improve my pictures, I had to keep in mind that this phone does only cost £99.

Small, light, portable

Most images weren't this good

Most high-end smartphones, like the iPhone 4 and HTC Desire HD, have 1GHz processors inside that ensure apps open quickly, videos play without ghosting and games run smoothly.

San Francisco has a significantly slower processor - just 600MHz. This should affect how quickly apps open and how smoothly videos and games run, but I was impressed by how little it affected overall performance.

The smartphone didn’t remind me of the real San Francisco’s sunny beaches, Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz. However, it’s still a good looking smartphone with a slim body, light weight and petite dimensions that ensure it slips easily into any jean pocket.

I wasn’t impressed by the phone’s cheap and nasty plastic battery cover, but you can’t expect an LG Optimus 7 style metal battery cover for £99.

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