Bestest Christmas Gift Guide – a great smartphone for luddites (and teens), theVodafone 858 Smart. *sigh*
The biggest boy of mine – 12 now – has been *yearning* for an iPhone since he started High School. *YEARNS* for one, he does.
Dream on, kiddo.
But Christmas approaches, and his list looks something like this:
iPhone
iPhone
iPhone
iPhone
iPod
iPhone
I sensed that something must be done. Which is where those nice people at Vodafone stepped in, and sent him one of these babies to try out (not to keep, mind. they’re not THAT daft). The Vodafone 858 Smart. Cute huh?
What did the iPhone-aholic think of it? Well, I’m not sure, actually, because apart form a quick breathy “ohhh, COOL phone!” it was whisked off behind a bedroom door, not to reappear for ages.
By which time it was all App-ed up, personalised, filled with music, and tucked into the back pocket of a saggy pair of jeans *eyeroll*.
So – he’s been using it for a couple of weeks. Would he recommend you wrap this and pop it under the tree for your own adolescent?
Erm… YES! (cue bored teen eyeroll with that ‘duh! inflection guaranteed to get him thwacked by the nearest adult)
So – whaddaya get?
Well, you pretty much get everything they want.
It’s a pay-as-you-go smartphone with apps, navigation, social-networking and multimedia.
And look carefully for yourself while you’re at it – this is a brilliant starter smartphone for anyone – not just the pre-pubescents; the Vodafone Smart holds your hand and walks you through it all in a rather stylish fashion. It’s Android operating system, so there’s over 250,000 apps available in Android Market™ – and many are free. Plus Android works seamlessly with everything Google, and the phone has the all-essential Facebook and Twitter built in.
The camera’s good, and there’s a microSD card slot so you can add up 32GB of extra space for your music, videos, photos.
So that’s the dull bit – want to see the bestie best bit? For £11 you can design your own COVER! Oh YES!
You just go here http://www.vodafonesmart-mydesign.com/designstudio and start fiddling.
Here’s mine (I SO did not spend 20 minutes playing with the addictive options before I created this. Nu-uh.)…
Battery life seemed good, the touch screen was responsive and instinctively simple to use, too.
Win win win. Thank you Vodafone – top phone!
The Vodafone Smart 858 comes in white or black, and is available from the Vodafone store for £70, but do shop around as better prices may be had elsewhere (*taps nose knowingly*).
