The Smart N8 does its job admirably. Here’s a phone that costs well under £100, but seems quite like some that are £150 or more. It’s also better-looking than most of the bargain bin phones Vodafone has stamped its name on to date. There are a few significant compromises, though, so you’ll need to bash your bargain hunter’s drive against the desire for hot hardware like a pair of toy trains to see which survives. This isn’t a terribly fast phone, and while that doesn’t manifest in ways that’ll make you miss your Nokia 3310, the pauses aren’t imaginary. The camera is slow, too. So this isn’t a perfect phone, but its sheer value is through the roof. It looks surprisingly good, the screen is decent for the money, there’s enough storage to live with and, with a bit of effort, you can even take some half-decent photos. For £85, that’s not a bad list of successes.
Excellent value; Finger scanner works, and works well; Plenty of storage; Inoffensive software;
Slow camera; Some lag and longer app load times;