Spectra Qwerty Smartphone

It’s taken just about a week to receive the Spectra smart phone from China to the UK si delivery was not too bad at all. Add on the cost of the delivery and the VAT etc and the end price of the phone came in at under £95.00 so it’s still very much a budget priced qwerty phone.

Robust and solid budget smartphone.

The phone feels reasonably robust and weighty, it certainly feels as though it will take a far bit of uses without too many problems. It is quite a stylish phone with it’s grey on black livery. 

Good dependable qwerty keyboard.

As it’s a qwerty phone the keys are key to the way that this phone works. They are well defined and while they are a little narrow there is plenty of space between each key to reduce the chances of hitting the wrong one. Once you’ve got used to the keyboard the two thumb quick texting method works quite well. The keys are not overly stiff but they also are not too responsive so you need to be confident if not firm when texting. Again this helps to reduce hitting the wrong key by brushing over it.

The screen is nice, obviously the keyboard means the screen is smaller than other smartphones but if you are a fan of QWERTY keyboards then this is not a problem.  The colour is bright and clear and the images are sharp. The touchscreen is pretty responsive and it’s easy to navigate your way through the menu.

Spectra smartphone connects quickly to wifi.

We connected up through the internet through the wifi and it was a breeze. It quickly found our network and typing in the password and connection was simple. The phone held a reasonably good connection while we walked around the room though it obviously did not have the same range as our notebooks. But the connection did hold very well and gave us some fast speeds when browsing.

Connecting and downloading from the Google Marketplace was straightforward and as the Spectra runs Android 2.2 there was plenty of apps to choose from. some of the very latest apps were not suitable because 2.2 is a little dated but there’s a good selection that can run on the older operating system so there’s not too many complaints about that considering the price we paid for the phone.

I ran one of the Google Maps apps to test out the GPS system and speed of pick up for the first contact took about a minute or so which is acceptable considering we’re based in the Brecon Beacons and surrounded by mountains. Once it had grabbed the satellites the spectra smartphone held on to the signals and gave a relatively good fix on the map. 

Dual SIM smartphone for extra flexibility.

The dual SIM ability of the phone was easy to use and I was soon flicking between Vodaphone and Orange to make and receive calls . Dual SIM is a facility that you soon get used to and within a short amount of time you will never go back to a single SIM phone again.

Browsing the internet was a breeze with the phone. Pages displayed clearly with the zoom option though obviously with the smaller screen you do scroll around a lot more. Logging in to my social media accounts such as twitter and facebook was not a problem and this is were a qwerty keyboard really comes into maximum effect. Updating statuses and send SMS was so much quicker and easier. Instant messaging was also easy and quick to do.

Only the camera dissapoints on the Spectra.

As with all Chinese imports regarding phones the biggest disappointment was with the camera function. While many of the other functions are catching up with brand name products the camera systems are still firmly in the past – though this does obviously help keep prices down. The Spectra has a 2 megapixel front facing camera and a 0.3 megapixel back facing camera.  The front facing camera is probably still just sufficient for twitter and facebook sharing etc but the 0.3 megapixel really is not out of date and barley acceptable even for the most basic of snap shots unless you are in ideal lighting conditions.

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