Cheap (<NZ$200) Android phone through Pandawill (for Vodafone network), thoughts please

Forums › Android › Cheap (<NZ$200) Android phone through Pandawill (for Vodafone network), thoughts please

huxtable

114 posts

Master Geek
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#119164 22-May-2013 20:29

Hi,

After being a bit slow to get on the Smartphone bandwagon, and not wanting (or able) to drop much money on one, last year I got a cheap LG Optimus One P500. It has actually been really good for my needs (I'm not really a "power user"), but even after rooting the tiny ROM (around 160MB!) and RAM (similar) render it almost unusable, as I'm unable to install many apps at once, and running apps slow it to a crawl.

So I'm after a cheap Android phone, main purposes:
-Calling and texting (duh)
-Email.... reading and sending
-Web browsing... again fairly simple needs, doesn't need all the bells and whistles)
-E-books... quite important
-Very light gaming
-General apps, ie newsreading, facebook, sports updates, etc
- would like one with a semi-decent basic camera

After trawling around NZ stores and websites, and finding even phones around $200-$250 quite lacking in terms of my basic needs, I came across the Pandawill website, that seems to have a decent reputation.

My eyes lit up:
http://www.pandawill.com/jyg2-smart-phone-40-inch-ips-screen-android-40-mtk6575-10ghz-1g-ram-black-p65580.html
NZ$165 delivered?!?

Even...
http://www.pandawill.com/hero-v6888-smart-phone-android-40-mtk6577-dual-core-3g-gps-47-inch-ips-screen-black-p74583.html?p=3
NZ$109 delivered!

Now, I appreciate these aren't going to be S3 killers, but it would appear that I can get much, much better value for money, for less money, rather than buying locally!

Questions:
1) Has anyone here purchased from Pandawill before, or have any experiences with them from NZ worth sharing?

2) I have a fairly basic $45 monthly plan with Vodafone that I want to continue. I understand that the phones I linked above should work on Vodafone network - can this be confirmed?

3) As well as general phone network, I want to ensure I have access to wifi, Play store etc as well... are there limitations around this?

4) Any other particular recommendations as opposed to those I have linked to above?

PS I have a basic understanding of rooting phones etc - I have rooted my LG - but would prefer not to have to do too much tinkering if possible.

Any feedback is very much appreciated, thanks.

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753 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#823913 23-May-2013 06:18

Hi

I have bought a tablet from Pandawill - paid for upgraded shipping and received it in around a week. No problems at all and the tablet was a god buy for the price.

My understanding is that the phones you linked to should be fine on Vodafone but would not be suitable on Telecom (although somebody may correct me on that).

I purchased a chinese phone from aliexpress - they have the same one on Pandawill here - no problems with wifi, playstore etc. Running it on Telecom and fired straight up on the network as soon as the sim was inserted.

I would recommend spending a bit more and getting the one I linked to - this is an extremely good piece of kit and apart from having only 4GB Rom it is a Galaxy S3 killer in my eyes. Two of my sister in laws have the S3 and this phone is at least as good and at around a third the price. Ihave a 32GB card in this one and it is recognised fine. I bought it through this seller - excellent service.

Good luck.

sudo

409 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#824239 23-May-2013 17:39

Jiayu G3 has a very good reputation, a lot more powerful, and has Gorilla glass screen. But cost a bit more than $200

jeffnz

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#824276 23-May-2013 18:06

tukapa1: Hi

I have bought a tablet from Pandawill - paid for upgraded shipping and received it in around a week. No problems at all and the tablet was a god buy for the price.

My understanding is that the phones you linked to should be fine on Vodafone but would not be suitable on Telecom (although somebody may correct me on that).

I purchased a chinese phone from aliexpress - they have the same one on Pandawill here - no problems with wifi, playstore etc. Running it on Telecom and fired straight up on the network as soon as the sim was inserted.

I would recommend spending a bit more and getting the one I linked to - this is an extremely good piece of kit and apart from having only 4GB Rom it is a Galaxy S3 killer in my eyes. Two of my sister in laws have the S3 and this phone is at least as good and at around a third the price. Ihave a 32GB card in this one and it is recognised fine. I bought it through this seller - excellent service.

Good luck.

ummm big statement to say its "at least as good" as an S3, just compare the spec's and you won't go too far to see that apart from it looks the same the similarities end so I think you are advising the op incorrectly. You get what you pay for.

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tukapa1

753 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#824323 23-May-2013 19:01

Well I must apologise - the CPU is not quite as powerful - probably overlooked that as in the real world (and yes I've used both) there is no difference in performance.

Some benchmarks put the Feiteng GPU as a better performer than the Mali.

And I had already mentioned the smaller ROM size of 4GB before making my outrageous statement.

In any case $240 delivered fro the Feiteng vs $579 for the S3 is a no brainer (to me at least). Have you tried the Feiteng?

Slight comparison of specs below;

The text in red is the actual specs (as confirmed with the phone I received) which differ (for the better) to those posted on the website I linked to.

The Feiteng is so good I've got another coming.

But then again it's personal choice - you're either happy buying chinese or you're happy spending excessive amounts on the brand name (I actually own the s2 but it will be replaced by chinese brand from now on).

huxtable

114 posts

Master Geek
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#824390 23-May-2013 20:28

Thanks heaps for responses so far. A big help.

tukapa1, thanks for your Pandawill experience, and also your experience with the Feiteng - it looks really neat. Probably a bit more powerful/featured than I really need, and more importantly, a wee bit more than tight ol' me can bother forking out. Tempting though!

sudo, I have read great things about the G3, although again probably slightly more than I would like to pay.

Cheers for the heads up jeffnz, have looked at comparisons between a lot of these phones.

Anyone else bought a decent-featured el-cheapo similar to those I linked to? Or, if anyone had a spare 10 minutes, care to have a wee look at Pandawill to see if any other similarly priced (sub NZ$160 or so) phones compare better?

Remember what we're comparing to - my current LG Optimus One P500 :D
http://www.trustedreviews.com/lg-optimus-one-p500_Mobile-Phone_review_specs_Page-3

tukapa1

753 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#824443 23-May-2013 21:57

Or, if anyone had a spare 10 minutes, care to have a wee look at Pandawill to see if any other similarly priced (sub NZ$160 or so) phones compare better?

Remember what we're comparing to - my current LG Optimus One P500 :D
http://www.trustedreviews.com/lg-optimus-one-p500_Mobile-Phone_review_specs_Page-3

I would look at this one for the money you are after - quad core, 1GB Ram, same resolution screen you are looking at (but a bit bigger), newer android, 2 higher capacity batteries included. Available in white as well here. There are some reviews on Youtube etc.

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oxnsox

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#824487 23-May-2013 23:37

How can a larger screen with the same resolution have a higher pixel count?
(sounds like apple marketing. ... laws of physics are just guidelines)

tanivula

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#824534 24-May-2013 08:19

I was quite excited about pandawill till you see that 3G/WCDMA frequencies are generally 850/2100 or just 2100.

Great for people on XT/Skinny but essentially limiting data usage for inner cities for Voda/2deg users. Might not be a huge problem for you as it will just drop back to 2g. You really want 3g/WCDMA 900/2100 if you're going to stick with Vodafone or splash out and get something which supports 3g/WCDMA 850/900/2100 which allows you to use any network in NZ (good luck finding something like that for that price point!)

Klipspringer

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#824539 24-May-2013 08:32

tukapa1: .

I would recommend spending a bit more and getting the one I linked to - this is an extremely good piece of kit and apart from having only 4GB Rom it is a Galaxy S3 killer in my eyes. Two of my sister in laws have the S3 and this phone is at least as good and at around a third the price. Ihave a 32GB card in this one and it is recognised fine. I bought it through this seller - excellent service.

Good luck.

That Feiteng phone is like looking at one of those Ferrari or Porsche kit cars. From a distance it looks pretty cool, on closer inspection it just looks odd. Under the hood is it also running a 1980's 1300cc pushrod Ford engine?

Why would anybody want to buy a copycat phone?

jeffnz

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#824544 24-May-2013 08:51

tukapa1: Well I must apologise - the CPU is not quite as powerful - probably overlooked that as in the real world (and yes I've used both) there is no difference in performance.

Some benchmarks put the Feiteng GPU as a better performer than the Mali.

And I had already mentioned the smaller ROM size of 4GB before making my outrageous statement.

In any case $240 delivered fro the Feiteng vs $579 for the S3 is a no brainer (to me at least). Have you tried the Feiteng?

Slight comparison of specs below;

The text in red is the actual specs (as confirmed with the phone I received) which differ (for the better) to those posted on the website I linked to.

The Feiteng is so good I've got another coming.

But then again it's personal choice - you're either happy buying chinese or you're happy spending excessive amounts on the brand name (I actually own the s2 but it will be replaced by Chinese brand from now on).

so you just confirmed I am right it isn't " at least as good" the specs speak for themselves and " some benchmarks" is stretching things a bit.

Feel free to buy what you like but frankly I'm not supporting a copied device that piggy backs the marketing of a successful device. You call the S3 price excessive but Samsung did all the R&D Feitung did nothing more than copy which doesn't cost much to do, nor do they have the global support network that also costs money but I'm sure those small things haven't slipped your mind when you post your opinions.

Galaxy S10

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nzgeek

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Ultimate Geek
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#824915 24-May-2013 18:19

A7 vs A9? Ouch! Sure, you'll be able to run the same software, but changes in the underlying architecture allow the A9 to do more work with less power than the A7, and that's at the same clock speed. The Feiteng phone will only have about half the processing power, so has a good a chance of running a bit sluggish.

If you want a to put it in terms of PC processors, it's like comparing a Pentium 3 with an i7.

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tanivula

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#826790 28-May-2013 08:51

Stumbled upon this android authority review of a no name Chinese MTK6589 equipped phone.

Seems to go well! But as mentioned before, most of these phones will only work to their full capability on XT/Skinny unless you're only going to be in an area with 2100MHz 3G coverage

huxtable

114 posts

Master Geek
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#855401 14-Jul-2013 17:50

Soooo, I still haven't bought a phone, but keen to very soon.

This is what I'm looking at getting, through DX.com, NZ$225 delivered:
http://dx.com/p/q9000-mtk6589-quad-core-android-4-2-1-wcdma-bar-phone-w-5-0-hd-wi-fi-fm-and-gps-black-221087

The best advertised feature about this is 3G: WCDMA 850/900/2100 MHz.

This would appear to make it fully usable on all NZ networks?

Is this unusual to support all these networks? I have seen some q9000's, and other mtk6589s that only support 850/2100 etc. I'd hate to purchase it and find it's falsely advertised in this respect.

Any other potential issues with the phone as advertised? Thanks.

nzgeek

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Ultimate Geek
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#855774 15-Jul-2013 12:24

I've just done a quick search and it's not looking great. There are a huge number of sites listing a Q9000 phone with the MTK6589 processor. Almost all of these list the WCDMA frequencies as either 850/2100 or just 2100. Only a handful of search results listed the 900MHz band for 3G. There were a few related to DX.com, a couple being sold on Alibaba, and one other site that listed 900/2100 or 850/2100 in the specs and said 850/2100 only in the comments.

If I were you, I wouldn't risk it.

I'm quite surprised that they chose 850/2100 over 900/2100, as there aren't that many countries using the 850 band. The vast majority of the Asian networks are using 2100 only, and the only country that has more than one network using 850 is Thailand. Europe is almost completely 900/2100, and the US is largely 850/1900. Being dual-SIM pretty much indicates an Asian audience, but I'm not sure who their target market is.

huxtable

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Master Geek
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#856024 15-Jul-2013 17:52

Thanks NZgeek, sounds like your search efforts were very similar to mine!

I did email them to ask, however wouldn't be surprised to not get an answer.

Of course importing like this, just isn't worth the risk unless I'm 100% certain. I need a phone to work on Vodafone until at least May next year (when contract expires, then would like the flexibility to be able to choose the most appropriate pre-pay package.

I shall continue looking for now - thanks for your help!

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