Orange San Francisco review

The San Francisco is a handset exclusive to Orange, but it’s built by ZTE, the same company that makes the budget ZTE Racer. The San Francisco is a far better phone than the Racer, however: it has a larger screen with a massive 480×800 resolution, as well as all the usual features you’d expect to find in an Android smartphone: Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. Android 2.1 may be two generations old now, but it’s still very capable.

After our experience with the Racer, we were expecting a poor screen, but we needn’t have worried: the San Francisco’s display is a vast improvement. Although it’s only 0.7in larger, it has more than twice the resolution, making images pin-sharp. Colours are vibrant and the capacitive touchscreen is responsive. The phone has a relatively slow 600MHz processor, compared to many current Android handsets’ 800MHz or 1GHz chips, but we didn’t notice any lag in the interface or when opening apps.

Although it sits in the same budget category as the Racer, the San Francisco is well designed and feels fairly sturdy. The plastic case is light and has a rubberised finish which makes it easy to grip, while angular chrome-effect stripes along the sides add a touch of style. The fascia is fairly plain, with only a small strip below the screen with the Home, Menu and Back buttons. In our light usage battery test, the San Francisco managed just under 23 hours, which is fairly standard for a smartphone. If you use WiFi, GPS and 3G data regularly, you’ll most likely need to charge every night.

The 3.2-megapixel camera has no flash, so it’s not suitable for low-light shots, but otherwise we found its pictures to be surprisingly good; images were far less smudgy than on other smartphones. There’s no physical shutter button, and there’s a long pause between tapping the on-screen button and the shot being taken, so it’s a pain trying to shoot moving subjects. Videos are captured at a maximum resolution of 352×288, hardly even good enough for YouTube.

While we’re fans of Google’s Android operating system, we’re not so keen on the customisations Orange has made to the San Francisco’s software. The handset is loaded with Orange’s software, most of which either duplicates functions that Android provides, or it turns out not to be software at all, but merely a web link.

For example, there are icons for Games and Ringtones that turn out to be links to the relevant sections of Orange’s App Store, which has a much more limited selection than the full Android Market. There’s a Backup app for contacts, which you shouldn’t need as your contacts are held on Google’s servers; an Orange Maps app, which isn’t as good as Google’s own Maps, Navigation and Places combination; and a Photo app that’s put to shame by Android’s own Gallery.

Although you can switch to the Android launcher for the home screen, you can’t uninstall Orange’s largely redundant software. It’s not all bad: the Documents To Go app lets you view Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF documents, with the option to add editing for £9.60, and film buffs will like the Orange Wednesdays app. You also have access to the Android Market, so you can make the most of Android, but the included software still pales in comparison to the sophisticated social media service aggregation software installed on phones from HTC or Motorola.

At £99 on Pay As You Go, the San Francisco’s large, detailed screen still makes it great value. However, the LG Optimus GT540 may have been out for a while but it’s been upgraded to Android 2.1, has better pre-installed software and is available from O2 for just over £100 on prepay.