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The Orange San Francisco (SF) can only be obtained on a pre-pay basis; it is not available on contract. What sets the Orange SF apart from the norm is that this is a £99 phone which has specifications similar to those costing up to four times more. At the time of purchase it is necessary to buy a new SIM card with £10 credit, making the total cost £109. On the Dolphin tariff this gives unlimited SMS messages for one month plus 100MB of mobile Internet usage. Smartphonegurus found the implications of this to be great enough to purchase an example and see how it performs!
In the Box
The San Francisco is supplied in an efficient cardboard package to Orange's normal design, and the box includes:
- San Francisco phone
- Micro USB lead and power adapter
- 3.5mm headset
- 1250 mAh battery
- Quick start guide
- Comprehensive user guide book
- Orange Add-Ins book
The phone itself is manufactured by ZTE, and is essentially their Blade model with an Orange 'enhanced' operating system. Chinese company ZTE are little known for mobile devices in the West but they are one of the world's largest mobile network infrastructure manufacturers.
The device specifications are:
- Screen: 3.7" WVGA AMOLED capacitive display with multi-touch
- Processor: 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227
- Tri-Band GSM (900/1800/1900); UMTS 900/2100 with HSDPA/HSUPA
- Operating System: Android 2.1
- RAM 250 available after reset
- ROM:150MB available for storage
- Expansion: micro-SD card slot under battery cover (2GB card included)
- GPS receiver with A-GPS capability
- Camera: 3.2 mega-pixels. Autofocus. No flash
- Bluetooth 2.1
- WLAN 802.11g
- Size W:56mm; H:116mm; D:12mm; Weight:130g
- SIM Lock: Orange. Unlocking is available online for £5
First Impressions
The phone is finished in a dark grey colour with some chrome plating on the side band and volume buttons. It follows the general design of such devices with the screen taking up most of the front face with a relatively small surrounding bezel, making it quite compact. In the hand the SF feels lighter than its more expensive counterparts but feels well made nonetheless. The battery cover is a simple push fit, but appears secure enough. The phone has hardware rather than touch sensitive buttons below the screen for Home, Menu and Back. There is a top mounted power switch and right side mounted volume buttons. There is no dedicated camera button. In keeping with normal Android practice, a long press of the power switch opens a context menu for Silent, Vibrate, Power Off and Flight Mode and a long press of the Home button opens a 'recent programs' list. If the keyboard is displayed, a long press of the Menu button toggles it on and off.
I must admit that this is the first time I've used an Android device, so there was more of a learning curve for the first few days! Thankfully, Android is very accessible and the general operation is not too dissimilar to Windows Mobile 6.5.
My current WM phone is an HTC HD Mini - a good, compact device but with some compromises. Although sharing the 600MHz processor, the SF feels a lot more responsive. The extra height of the WVGA resolution and higher pixel count make it easier to view, and the touch sensitivity to both registration of presses and multi-touch actions is a lot better.
On first powering up the phone, you see a generic Android interface with a customised Orange colour scheme. This is thankfully subtle and I didn't have an immediate impulse to change it, unlike some previous Orange offerings. There is no 'shell' overlying the OS such as HTC, Motorola and Sony Ericsson offer, but that is no criticism. Coming from a WM device running Spb Mobile Shell as its front end it all looked and operated in a familiar manner.
Orange Programs
Orange have included a number of their own applications and utilities - for those planning to stay with Orange these could prove useful; others, like me, who have no Orange signal at home will unlock the SIM Lock and use a different operator so these extras would be redundant. There are also trial versions of two 'Glu' games - Guitar Hero and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Thankfully these can be deleted to gain extra storage space.
Orange Wednesdays
Orange customers can use their phone to search cinema listings, and buy two tickets for the price of one on Wednesdays.
Orange Apps
This is a customised App Store for Orange users including third party Apps and Orange specific items such as ringtones and wallpapers.
Orange Your Orange
Access to your Orange account details. The Backup program only backs up contact data.
Orange Maps
This is Orange's full turn by turn navigation system. On planning a route, it will download all the required map segments, and will then download extra data while travelling as needed. This is a subscription service with the first month free of charge. Thereafter it costs £5 per month for the basic service, or £7.50 for the professional service which includes live traffic reports with automatic re-routing if required and safety cameras.
For the ultimate 'debranding' there is now a modified ROM available at MoDaCo which removes much of the redundant content, creating a more generic Android interface. After an initial week using the supplied Orange interface I installed this one and have to admit it suits me better.
Getting Started
The initial setup proceeded smoothly and after entering my Gmail and Exchange credentials, all the default 'online' applications were fully functional. The Android Marketplace and Google Maps both connected first time and have been reliable since.
One aspect of Android I had not appreciated is that there is no full Exchange Outlook support; my main uses of this are for email and calendar so I needed to search for an alternative. Like the Apple App Store, finding something in the Market for which you don't know the name is nigh-on impossible, but a quick Google suggested that Touchdown would do the job. Installing the trial proved this correct- Touchdown replaces the full function of all the elements of Outlook so you can remove your accounts from the default programs.
For the first few days, battery life was poor. I was getting well under one working day's use from the phone. Perhaps this was just a function of the initial battery conditioning, or maybe I was using it more! Tweaking other features has probably also helped - by default, the GPS is on constantly to support Google's location based services. I have little need for that every day so turning the GPS off until needed has probably assisted.
I also downloaded a battery indication program, and a task management app from the Android Market, but the net effect of both was to severely slow down the device and also drain the battery faster. Unfortunately I can't remember what these were, so am unable to ask if anyone else has the same issues, or if it was device specific. Anyway, I've now installed EZTask from Estrongs, which works very well. I have found though, that similar to Windows Mobile, even task managers cannot always recover used memory. The SF starts off with 250MB free after a reset, but today was down to 150MB even after closing all unused apps. This is probably adequate for most eventualities, but if not a quick soft reset does the trick.
Another culprit for excessive battery drain was a program I installed to obtain the screenshots. This is called ShootMe and is very good. However, once running it stays in memory and actively waits for the device to be shaken as a trigger to take a screen grab. This is obviously not an everyday occurrence and I now remember to terminate ShootMe once I have taken the shots I need.
My First Two Weeks
I have now been using the SF for two weeks, and in the past week it has become my primary device. I thought my HD Mini was very good in most areas, but the SF feels better in every respect apart from the feeling of solidity the Mini gives. The 'user experience' of Android is currently better then WM6.5 though I'm sure WP7 will move the goal posts significantly. For me it is probably a combination of the hardware and software that makes this a rewarding phone to use. The AMOLED screen is bright and responsive. Target finger presses seem to be much more accurate than on WM, especially the onscreen keyboard. With the Mini I was forever needing to correct mistypes, but this is rarely happening on the SF. This is probably assisted by the fact that my previous favourite keyboard, TouchPal, is included in this Android build. One thing I took a while to work out was how to switch between the Android keyboard and TouchPal - until I accidentally 'long pressed' a text input field and saw the keyboard selector pop up! The Orange user guide mentions how to configure the two keyboards but not how to switch between them.
Phone operation is very much what one would expect from a contemporary device. Call clarity is excellent and signal reception is very good. For me there is little difference in battery 'hit' between GSM and 3G so I've left the setting on Auto. The proximity sensor works well to blank the screen when talking. There are the expected buttons on the main screen to turn the speakerphone on and off, and to show or hide the keypad. For some reason, the call history does not show the time of a call, but I'm not sure if I have missed a user setting somewhere.
Regardless of the strengths of the operating system, there will always be a need to install extra programs based on the user's needs. The Android Market is an excellent source of content, but for every good program there are probably many other poor ones! At least the uninstall routines appear to work well. A note of caution also needs to be sounded regarding the recent revelations about Android apps' ability to derive and use some personal data such as IMEI, Gmail address and location etc. As Google pointed out, every program that is installed lists the services it will access and communicate, but most of us just accept this confirmation screen and move on. A careful read of the red text might be a useful exercise.
The supplied headphones are no more than adequate, but as the SF has a standard 3.5mm socket, a better set can be employed if you wish. I don't have any Bluetooth headphones so cannot comment on the quality of the A2DP implementation, but I did manage to pair it with my Parrot Boombox with which it played very well indeed - better in fact that my iPad which seems to have quite a few momentary Bluetooth dropouts.
Mobile phone cameras are not something I have ever really used. Even the better ones leave a lot to be desired, and as I have always got a compact, or DSLR camera with me, I tend to use those whenever possible. In the interests of completeness I have taken a few shots with the SF's 3.2Mp camera. My somewhat low expectations were fully realised! Good for the occasional snapshot or 'emergency' photo but no more than that. The lag between pressing the shutter button and the process of auto-focussing then taking the shot is about three to four seconds, so any moving targets will either be missed, or will be out of focus. The resulting images lack definition and clarity. There may be ways to tweak the settings to acheive better results, but I have not investigated this. Click the small picture to see a full size copy of the actual image file.
Additional Programs
One thing at pleased me greatly was my attempt at migrating the HD Mini's use as a Satellite Navigation device to the SF. This is a combination of software (CoPilot Live 8 ) and hardware (a Brodit powered cradle). Luckily, the SF is a perfect fit in the cradle, being exactly the same width as the Mini. The power plug of the Brodit unscrews leaving the microUSB plug as a flying lead, which can be fitted into the side mounted power socket of the SF.
Now came the process of installing CoPilot. Luckily, the data files are exactly the same between WM and Android versions, and ALK provide a download for the device program itself. From there it is simply a matter of deregistering CoPilot on the previous device, copying the data files to the new device, then running CoPilot on the new device, which takes you through the automatic license acquisition and registration. From there, the operation is pretty much as before.
I found the GPS Time to First Fix to be very good - within two minutes outside. Signal lock was stable and position accurate. Warm starts have all fixed within seconds. I have not had any incoming calls while navigating so cannot tell how these are handled, but I have received SMS and Email messages; neither caused any noticeable stutter or slowdown of CoPilot.
An unexpected bonus for me has been ebook reading. Previously with WM, I used Mobipocket to read books downloaded from Fictionwise. As we have discussed in a previous post, UK users are being squeezed for content from all the established US based ebook stores due to licensing restrictions, and most of the UK based stores have ridiculously limited choice. When I bought the iPad, I found Amazon Kindle to have the best content so settled on that as my 'standard' . Kindle is also available on Android, and the screen on the SF is large and clear enough to make ebook reading a possibility. The unexpected element for me is that not only do all my books sync to the SF, but my position in each book is updated dynamically. So whichever device I use, I can resume my books where I left off regardless of which device I was using previously.
Pros
Price AMOLED Screen General performance Available RAM and ROM Orange add-ons for those that need them Active ROM development progressingCons
Poor camera Slightly light build quality Initially poor battery (but improving)Conclusion
This brief review, as I have already mentioned, is as much my orientation with Android as with the San Francisco. I have been using Windows Mobile since 2001 and although I use an iPad on a daily basis I don't find the iPhone experience particularly inspiring, nor do I think Windows Phone 7 will be my cup of tea. Android would seem to be the natural successor to the Windows Mobile series and thus far I have been very impressed.
Much of that positive impression must be attributed to the Orange San Francisco. It is not simply a good budget Smartphone, it is an excellent device by any measure. Orange are to be congratulated for moving the goalposts with this release. There are obviously compromises to achieve the price - materials, battery, camera and processor speed for instance, but the AMOLED screen, available memory and general performance with Android 2.1 make this a very positive experience. If you are looking for a capable Android phone, or are considering trying Android as an alternative to Windows Mobile, the San Francisco certainly warrants a look!
