Orange Monte Carlo - is there a shortage?

spaceboy

I looked at the Orange website last night and it said out of stock.

Anyone have one? My only reservation about getting one is it looks a bit big.

Cash-Strapped.T32

Monte Carlo, that's the one which is a ZTE Skate, right?

Far as I know it's a slightly higher-specced Blade (San Francisco), same screen but a larger working memory, more storage & a quicker processor, plus it comes with a 2.3 version of android (still a horrible Orange-branded rom though until rooted & re-flashed).

Compared to the blade I suppose the higher specs will be a little bit better for games, ram hungry gps mapping apps, but there is nothing the extra £50 will do that the OSF won't also do, if slightly less quick.

Same size as the OSF which I have & I can assure you it's not over-large by any means, so go for it I say; Just think of the thing as an OSF but with a beefier processor & memory & you won't go far wrong.

Debbiejack

I bought the Orange Monte Carlo three weeks ago on pay as you go.
I wouldn't recommend it,the battery life from fully charged to dead was about 4 hours,which i found ridiculous. I wasn't even using the apps,just texting.
Tried to get Orange to change it but as it had gone over 14 days i was stuffed!:eek:

grumbler

I think very few smartphones will last more than 4 hours with the screen on.

spaceboy

Cash-Strapped.T32 wrote: »

Monte Carlo, that's the one which is a ZTE Skate, right?

Far as I know it's a slightly higher-specced Blade (San Francisco), same screen but a larger working memory, more storage & a quicker processor, plus it comes with a 2.3 version of android (still a horrible Orange-branded rom though until rooted & re-flashed).

Compared to the blade I suppose the higher specs will be a little bit better for games, ram hungry gps mapping apps, but there is nothing the extra £50 will do that the OSF won't also do, if slightly less quick.

Same size as the OSF which I have & I can assure you it's not over-large by any means, so go for it I say; Just think of the thing as an OSF but with a beefier processor & memory & you won't go far wrong.

I think you'll find it's bigger than the San Francisco. I have to say you dont appear to know much about it at all in reality, most of what you have typed is pure conjecture.

A 30 second google reveils the San Fran has a 3.5 inch screen and the Monte Carlo has a 4.3 inch screen...

spaceboy

Debbiejack wrote: »

I bought the Orange Monte Carlo three weeks ago on pay as you go.
I wouldn't recommend it,the battery life from fully charged to dead was about 4 hours,which i found ridiculous. I wasn't even using the apps,just texting.
Tried to get Orange to change it but as it had gone over 14 days i was stuffed!:eek:

Apart from that what do you think of it?

Cash-Strapped.T32

spaceboy wrote: »

I think you'll find it's bigger than the San Francisco. I have to say you dont appear to know much about it at all in reality, most of what you have typed is pure conjecture.

A 30 second google reveils the San Fran has a 3.5 inch screen and the Monte Carlo has a 4.3 inch screen...

To be fair the phone's only a shade bigger (about 1cm) and while you're right the screen is bigger, they share the same res so I doubt the kind of increase (.8 of an inch) that makes the whole phone only 11mill taller will make a huge difference to the user - I would doubt £50's worth, this being mse.

When I broke my first OSF recently I looked into the monte carlo as a replacement so I'm aware of the differences, and of course my knowledge is limited to the kind of homework you do prior to buying a particular phone; In the end I went with another OSF, but that wasn't because the MC is a poor phone, if that's why you got upset.

spaceboy

No I just got irritated because you got a simple thing wrong.

Cash-Strapped.T32

Actually I got two details wrong; I went to look at the specs & apparently my recollection that the MC has more working ram was wrong; It's the same 512K as both phones share but nevermind I hope no-one's counting.

Otherwise I thought my comparison with the most similar phone & a known quantity on the forum was fair, given that I assumed you're looking into buying one.
If you decide to get one I would actually like to hear back because unless something big happens quite soon it'll probably be my next phone (only price put me off last time, I had a budget & had to stick to it).

Dreamnine

What puts me off the Skate/MC is the inability (thus far) of anyone to unlock it.

That, and the fact there are meant to be 1Ghz models of the same phone coming out soon.

Im_just_careful

For me as well the lack of an unlock is the killer. The Orange San Francisco is a good phone for the money but Orange PAYG is very unattractive for a smart phone.

Orange were excellent when the screen went on my first one (cause unknown as I keep it well wrapped up !) and sent a replacement on a bike after I had had the original for 6 months, but the network coverage for 3G wasn't as good as others where I wanted it and the data costs on PAYG were comparatively poor.