Vodafone Smart Prime 6 – Battery Life

Battery life is where the Vodafone Smart Prime 6 really shines. It lasted two days with ease – that was under normal usage, with calls, texting, some video playback and light gaming, fitness tracking, and web browsing. By the end of most days, the Smart Prime 6’s battery life sat somewhere between 55 and 70%.

This is a good time to point out that while the back of the phone is removeable, you can’t actually take out the battery. That’s unfortunate, but we found no issues with battery life anyway, so it’s not a massive problem.

Vodafone Smart Prime 6 – Sound and Call Quality

Call quality on the Vodafone Smart Prime 6 is good; both incoming and outgoing audio is clear and sufficiently loud. We used a 4G Vodafone SIM in London and found we had good signal across the city. Don’t forget that this is one of the cheapest 4G handsets on the market, and it’s great to see budget phones shipping with LTE capability.

Related: iOS 9 vs Android M

The handset offers two built-in stereo speakers on the front and back of the device respectively. Audio is suitably clear for watching videos, although it’s in no way good enough for serious listening and music playback. The maximum volume is fine in a quiet room, but put it somewhere noisy and the speakers are quickly drowned out. The Moto G (2014) has slightly more impressive audio, but it shouldn’t matter at this price – the sound quality is good enough for calling and scrolling down Vine, and that’s what really matters.

Should I buy the Vodafone Smart Prime 6?

The Vodafone Smart Prime 6 is a handset that absolutely needs to be viewed in the context of price. This phone is for someone who has a very tight budget, and wants their handset to cover all the basics at a low price point.

And it does, mostly. The camera is fine for social media, the battery life will keep you juiced for ages, and the design is OK for a sub-£100 device.

Unfortunately, the major let-down is performance. Getting stuff done on the Smart Prime 6 is a real pain. And that’s a problem for people who just want a smartphone to use as their daily driver. When you want a handset that covers all bases reasonably well, you can’t afford to get the performance wrong. Using this handset every day will frustrate you, there’s no doubt.

If you really don’t want to splash out, the Smart Prime 6 is a decent device. But if you’re willing to head north of £100, you can get far better value from the Motorola Moto G (2014) or the EE Harrier.

Verdict

The Vodafone Smart Prime 6 is exceptionally cheap for what you get, although sluggish performance dampens the experience.

Trusted Score