Reviews Orange san Francisco II
For the Price you can't knock the Orange san francisco II just like its predecessor you get fantastic specifications
Being an Orange phone does mean that the default Android 2.3 OS is customised with an Orange overcoat in places. So several icons are modified and there are a handful of Orange pre-installed apps here. Thankfully Orange did supply a memory card out of the box which meant we could also install a number of our own apps from the Android market.
It was at this point - after installing Angry Birds that we first noticed some perfomrrance issues with the handset's multi-touch controls and loading times In fairness the loading times were also evident on the other handsets, and the maiority of games we installed - once up-and-rr.nnlng- dld perform better than ks to the800Mhz CPU. However, there seemed to be a touch of lagwhen zooming in and or.rt ofthe screen. lt was only when we disabled the Gesture Control app - which allows you to draw on the screen to launch programs — that perfonnance improved.
On a positive note there was atleast one standout Orange app that was certainly worth the time of day and this was Signal Boost. Once activated, the phone could tap into your wireless router to boost the signal strength indoors and remarkably it works! Also thanks to the larger screen the default web browser made it easier to view websites or when watching videos from either YouTube or the phone's internal memory.
We have tc admit the camera shots looked great on the handset itself, but not so hot on the computer with some noticeable noise and haze (some manual adjustment to settings may help with this). Battery life was identical to the Blaze with 41% remaining after our two-hour video test, but this was to be expected with a higher resolution screen.
Reviews Orange san Francisco II
head-to-head
Design
The phone does look like a premium hadset,rather than a budget model,but the all-in-one black plastic finish doesattract a lot of finger prints However,the handset still fells comfortable and solid in the palm of your hand
General performance
The Gestures app,in our opinion, affected the multi touch controls when manipulating games such as angry bird Some ofthe games also took a while to load, br.rt once runningthe 800Mhz CPU did help move things along nicely.
Features
The phone ls packed with a lot of software, including the handy Slgrral Boost app which boosted the phone’s signal strength indoors. Disappointinglythe camera was not as good as suggested and would need more manual intervention to improve.
Battery life
In some ways we were not that surprised to see the battery life as low as it was because the phone does have a larger screen and resolution. But heavy Wi-Fi usage would also result in daily charges.
» Verdict
This is a smartphone, despite issues with the Gestures app, that offers consumers a lot for their money
