Orange San Francisco

I have had a hankering for a smart (or at least smarter than my Sony Ericsson k530) phone for a while.

I had been looking at the Nokia 5800 but that was persistantly sticking around the £200 mark on PAYG or unlocked.

I liked the iPhone but the cost was too high for something I might well loose.

Recently the cheap Android phone from ZTE (the blade) as sold as an own brand by Orange has been getting good recommendations so I went to have a look in a shop.

It isn't the swishest piece of consumer electronics I have ever held but it looked fine as a phone switched off.

When turned on the screen resolution and display quality is very good.

The touch screen operation is well up to the standard of my iPod Touch and it works well.

On WiFi (the fairest test) it is at least the equal of the iPod Touch in terms of browsing the internet.

Out and about on the mobile metwork performance is more variable.

I've experienced various strange "hangs" in appplications but I think this is lack of connection.

I'm considering getting the unit unlocked from Orange and trying a "3" SIM in it as from the experience of other phones "3" seem to be a bit better round my way.

The other factor is the cost of PAYG data on the network.

"3" used to be the best for this but others now seem as good or better. See another post for more details.