There's nothing like owning a high-end smart phone with all the
bells and whistles.
Ah, the sheer luxury of taking your phone swimming after charging
it wirelessly in under 10 minutes.
In saying that, perhaps $1400 is too much to spend on something
that can fall out of your pocket on a bus...
We’re at that point in history where technology has advanced
faster than we have. Sure we can now buy a phone that slots into a VR headset
so we can pretend we’re walking on Mars, but weirdly, not everybody wants to do
that.
Even more weirdly, lots of people just use their phones for
calling, texting, taking pictures and monitoring their social media feeds.
For these people, a $1400 fast-charging, underwater phone may be
overkill.
By the same token, you still want your phone to do that
talkie-texty-photo-emaily-social thing as well as you possibly can.
So Vodafone went straight to the Germans.
The German-designed 5” Smart N8 and 5.5” Smart V8 handsets are
both very attractive phones as phones go. The V8 is slim, comfortable to hold
and has a cool metal feel. As a matter of fact, it has a cool metal look too – it’s only available in a
colour called “Cool Metal.” It also appears to be constructed of some kind of
cool metal.
By contrast, the N8’s rear casing is plastic but is available in
both graphite and gold. Just because the casing is plastic, doesn’t mean it
feels cheap. It’s textured and the phone is still solid to the touch.
The other first-class feature you’ll find on both these phones is
a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, situated in my favourite position, right in
the centre, just below the rear camera lens. Other manufacturers keep changing
their mind on where to put the fingerprint sensor, but the centre-back position
makes most sense to me because that’s where your fingertip naturally goes when
you’re holding your phone with one hand. I found the sensors worked very
efficiently on both phones, unlocking them straight to the home screen.
Interestingly, both phones boast the latest version of Android
straight out of the box, with virtually no bloatware. This is good news for
people who’ve been frustrated by other phone-makers’ operating systems
installed over the top of the one that works perfectly well already.
As for how well these two phones actually run that operating
system, this is where the similarities start to end.
The Smart V8 is packed with a lot more processing power and
storage space than the N8. In fact, with 3GB of ram and 32GB built-in storage,
the V8 purrs along very reliably and smoothly, genuinely on a par with many other
high-end phones from other brands. It will run multiple apps simultaneously and
has excellent battery life.
When it came to multitasking, the less powerful Smart N8 came up
pretty short. Streaming to other displays, screen mirroring, running multiple
Bluetooth devices at once, all these activities tended to max out the N8’s
processing power, sometimes even requiring a reboot to carry on.
Meanwhile, the appropriately named V8 just kept on trucking.
My other big concern around the N8 is limited storage. 16GB just isn’t
enough these days. Yes, you can expand storage via a microSD slot on both
handsets. Trouble is, while the V8 features the (now standard) pop-out sim/SD
drawer on the side, on the N8 you have to remove the back entirely to access
the separate sim and SD slots. Let’s be honest, that’s a major pain.
Camera quality may also be a deciding factor between these two
phones. While both run the same camera app, the slightly more limited hardware
on the N8 resulted in quite a few blurry snaps. Again, the V8’s pics were much
more satisfactory.
None of this means you should write the Smart N8 off as an option
and here’s why; $199. If you’re only doing one thing at a time with your phone,
you’d struggle to find one this good-looking, with a fingerprint sensor, that works
this well for this price.
One "but" though…
Can’t you find another $150? Because the Smart V8 isn’t just $150
better than the N8. I’d say it’s at least $500 better. If you’ve ever regretted
buying a budget handset because you ran out of space after a month or it
couldn’t run the games your friends were playing on their phones, the Smart V8
is incredible value at just $349.
You can’t use it in the pool, but it really doesn’t have too many
other limitations.
Click here for more information and pricing on the Vodafone Smart V8
Or...
Click here for more information and pricing on the Vodafone Smart N8
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