So is it rooted/rootable? And is there a chance of FCC acceptance on this side of the pond?
Wileyfox smartphones: SD card, no bloatware, Cyanogen, big battery – yes to all!
New British mobe maker Wileyfox has launched a pair of Cyanogen smartphones. The £199 SIM-free Storm has an eight-core 64-bit ARMv8 Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 system-on-chip running at up to 1.5GHz, 32GB of storage and 3GB of RAM, a 20Mp Sony EXMOR main camera and an 8Mp front-facing cam, 1920 x 1080 5.5” touchscreen display, and …
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 17:25 GMT djstardust
Nice one .....
So, while Samsung are looking for over £800 for their latest and greatest we have a device with great specs for £200. You have to ask if Samsung et al are losing it, or just plainly ripping us off.
I can't see any reason it can't be rooted as it already supports CM. It will be sold in the UK by Clove and such.
SD slot, 3gb RAM, HD screen .... The specs are impressive. Only thing is the 2500Mah battery which is not removable. What not to like......
Very soon, people will just stop paying £50 a month for a mobile, as the operators are now in on the act and seriously overcharging for the 24 month deals.
I have the Galaxy note 4 which is a great device, but is it really £369 better than this one?
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 21:27 GMT James O'Shea
Re: Say it is true
"Still confused -- it says "32Gb RAM" which would be 8GB RAM... So which is it, 3GB or 8GB?
(Guessing 3GB since the cheaper model has 2GB RAM.)"
Errm... 32Gb is 4GB, not 8 GB. The possibility exists that it is really 32Gb, a.k.a 4GB, with up to 1 GB of it not being available to the user, and therefore leaving 3GB for use.
The possibility also exists that whoever wrote the advertising/press release/whatever made a typo. Or that s/he was clueless about phones. Or both. My money's on both.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 08:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Say it is true
given that they're a "new" company, I'd say they had no clue, didn't care, and were out of time to submit by the deadline. Who cares (they say), as long as people talk about it. The buzz is "it", as usual (and I'll wait for a year to see if a) they deliver b) others review c) still others use and rate. Remember similar buzz a few years back with a dream-tablet by Kupa (wonderful name that).Came to a stinky fizz, so to speak.
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 17:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
QI charging and NFC?
No mention of either on the spec sheet.
I know most people see NFC as a gimmick, but I do use it from time to time.
QI charging is wonderful, I just dump my Nexus 5 on the table (okay, a very specific part of the table) when I get home and it is charging.
The OnePlus Two doesn't have these features either, maybe they are too expensive to fit in a budget phone, but I would have thought it could be done at not much extra cost. My Nexus 5 was only £300 and it has QI and NFC.
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Thursday 27th August 2015 01:34 GMT DRendar
Re: QI charging and NFC?
Indeed. Much better if it had a USB Type-C port which included Display Port in alt mode. Then you could charge, output video and connect usb devices in host mode all at the same time.
http://www.displayport.org/what-is-displayport-over-usb-c/
Every time I see a new device come out that doesn't have a type-C port on it, a little tear forms in the corner of my eye.
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Wednesday 2nd September 2015 17:51 GMT Charles 9
Re: QI charging and NFC?
"Every time I see a new device come out that doesn't have a type-C port on it, a little tear forms in the corner of my eye."
Well, you have to wait. Type C only got approved recently, and it takes a while (at least six months in my book, usually closer to a year) for something like this to reach critical mass.
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 18:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Small, thick phone
Please, for the love of dog, won't someone make me a small, thick, quality phone ?
I keep my phone in my back jeans pocket, the new normal 5" phablets won't fit there and I don't care how £$%@ing thin my phone is - I don't look at it from the side, FFS.
Manufacturers, make a phone we want !
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 01:41 GMT Tapeador
Re: Small, thick phone
agreed. i actually got a new sony xperia z1 compact (4.5 inch screen approx, 801 processor, 2g ram, 20mp camera with image stabilisation) for £170 new a few months ago, have a look, it still beats the 410 and 601 series processors. and it's waterproof. it and the z3c are afaik the only flagship phones in a compact size.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 08:22 GMT Drat
Re: Small, thick phone
The Moto E 2nd gen is close to that with a 4.5 screen and a 2390 mAh battery. Typically my battery drops to 50 to 40% by the end of the day (normal use for me is messaging, news, playing music to my BT headphones, selecting stuff for the chromecast, a bit of web browsing. NOT playing games however) Only downsides are just 1GB RAM (can be a bit sluggish switching apps), no Qi and a weak camera. Only cost £108 however, but would pay more to fix those three quibbles. Oh, I really want a USB-C port on my next phone too...
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 09:05 GMT John Sanders
Re: Small, thick phone
No, you insensitive clod, we the phone companies have decided you all want clones of the iphone.
Decent battery life you say?
How can you not understand that all you need is a hundred bundled social media apps and cloud backup.
And give us all your data (this is actually something we demand so we can start our own social something and be like farcebook or twatter and bundle even more social apps)
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 18:53 GMT msknight
Well...
I've signed. I'm up for the 8 core.
The Jolla isn't cutting it, and the Ubuntu phone is still a joke despite the recent updates. Now ... if only it was dial sim...
Ah! It is! It is dual SIM - I'm in heaven... here ... take my money... quick...
The only bad thing is the battery is fixed :-(
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 11:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Well...
And it's British!
For a specific definition of Britishness, yes. But all the components will be standard parts bin stuff made in the far east, and I'll wager that assembly is under contract in the same neck of the woods.
£200 sounds good against the list prices of the current top-of line phones, but those prices are reserved for idiots and those who can't work out when a contract deal is a rip off. If you shop around for last year's top model (say a SGS5) you'd be paying £250-£290 for the phone either on or off contract. Personally I'd go the extra £90, than take my chances on this. YMMV.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 08:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Well...
it seems that, at least in a few other dual sim phones, the "dual" is ALWAYS as an expense (stick 2nd sim in, lose the micro-sd. Which makes me shake my head in wonder, how buyers still fall for this trick. Well, obviously, when you look at the data sheet, it doesn't tell you in plain English, but I'd think reviews would pick it up. No? No? I see, they wouldn't.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 09:40 GMT msknight
Re: Well... What was wrong with the Jolla?
Here you go...
http://msknight.com/technilife/?cat=8
...and that's not all of the grief.
The more serious examples of the post change was when I asked for the date on the front of the lock screen, without having to unlock the phone.
Someone changed my post to make it demand much more on the lock screen - adjustable widgets. Of course my request was blown out of all proportion and obviously not fulfilled.
A few months later, someone posted the same question as I originally posted, and the feature was added after a fashion.
That sort of thing happened a few times. There is NO WAY that a community should be allowed to change someone elses post to be something other than what they said ... and still retain it as under their name. That was lay madness and law suits.
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 19:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
I will trade
the 5.5 screen for a 5 incher plus REMOVABLE battery. Oh, and if you can keep the better camera... I'd happily spend 200 quid. In fact, I'd trade the 5.5 inch screen for a 3.5 inch (do they still make them "tiny" screens AD 2015?).
Unfortunately, as it stands... no sale. But getting there...
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 19:34 GMT Isabello
Re: I will trade
As I understand it the Swift has both the smaller screen AND the removable battery. So you have to live with only a quad core! Phhh! Get's my money.
BTW Remember when we used to complain about tiny screens - anyone remember these: http://www.oldcomputers.net/compaqi.html 28 pounds, 9" monochrome screen, 4.77 Mhz (single core ;) ), $3.5K?
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 08:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I will trade
Sadly, offer rejected (I drowned my camera and my ex-Orange SF has more cracks in the screen than my wife's... er..., so I hoped to get a mobile with a good camera. Sure, ANY camera is better than my SF camera, but I thought something that would last me a good few years. Unfortunately all the top cameras are on the f... huge mobiles (5 - 6 inch screens), never mind the price (lg g3 is almost there too, given the price drop). Or on that dreadful nokia running Windows mobile with 40 bilion pixel camera. And some degree of waterproofness would help. And removable battery (where I go sometimes, plugs are rare, and solar panels are generally shite).
But I'm not obsessing, I'm not in a hurry. There's a bunch of phones which are "getting there". Some are waterproofish but shite camera, some have micro-sd slot but leak. Some have slot and camera, but lack removable battery, etc. Statistically, sooner or later somebody will come up with something to fit my pocket (in both senses).
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 19:46 GMT TheProf
Brilliant marketing blah!
Just watched the video on their webpage. They ask 'and what if your phone wasn't pre-loaded with battery draining apps?' Then they boast that 'what if your phone comes with Audio FX as standard?'
Well can I have a Cyanogen phone WITHOUT AFX? No? Bugger!
Still it looks worth a punt. I'm in.
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 20:49 GMT Camilla Smythe
Spangles...
Erm Black Jacks and Fruit Salads... Opal Fruits.. Lion Brand Midget Gems/Sports mixture and fuck Maynards. Did anyone notice that Liquorice Allsorts have gone down the pan?
Whatever. My Panasonic Wireless One says it is 'fully charged' so I guess I am not missing out on much unless you know otherwise...?
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 19:25 GMT Chronos
Re: Wileyfox phone looks nice but...
Jetpacks and rollerskates as options?
I think I may have that as my ringtone.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 08:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wileyfox phone looks nice but...
yes, imagine what a vulture phone would be like. Exclusive to vulture commentarie, packed with ALL the features a self-respecting vulturist would NEED. Cobbled together with love and devotion from the taughest amalgamites of earth in the smitheries of the Penis Island, as visualised in our groundbreaking 3D sim. Click here to sign up and reserve a right to be amongst those selected to be the recipients of our special offer on this fine piece of British engineering, etc.
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Tuesday 25th August 2015 23:04 GMT Len Goddard
ROM ??
The extended info on the website talks about 2GB RAM and 16GB ROM on the Swift (3 + 32 on the Storm). I assume the ROM is actually an internal SD card of some kind. If so, then adding the 32GB removable SD Card gives a reasonable amount of storage for the Swift and excellent storage on the Storm (adds 32GB and 128GB respectively).
Pity the swift is only 1280x720.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 04:47 GMT oneeye
pity the swift is only 1280 by 720
That's the screen I have now,and I think it is just fine. For the price,and a bump up in hardware from my Evo 4g lte,and running Cyanogen 12.1 with no bloatware, I WANT ONE ! I sure hope they hurry and make a US model available that will run on Sprints CDMA Network.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 09:31 GMT Unicornpiss
That is a nice phone!
And precisely what I would happily pay for, especially with those specs, Cyanogen, and especially no crapware installed. I really hope it makes it to the US and/or other makers take a page out of their book.
These are also exactly the reasons I am using Linux and my dual-boot desktop hasn't seen Windows started in over a month.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 10:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Oh where, oh where
can I download some usless trial games, some useless productivity aids, some useless lifestyle tools and access to some awful manufacturer-specific app stores.
I'm so LOST without all this.
How can I please make this phone like something from Samsung or Apple, especially one bought from EE, O2, Vodafone, Vermin, etc?
</sarcasm>
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 11:52 GMT Dave Bell
But how good is the vital radio tech?
I've just bought a second-hand Nexus 5.
Single SIM, no MicroSD, so these new phones could be a better deal.
But I get much stronger WiFi and Mobile signals, which means mobile internet is actually usable around where I live and work..
Reading between the lines, the phones aren't being reviewed, this is just a report of the initial announcement.
But I wonder if anyone even bothers to try to check the performance. If you can't get a reliable signal, and you don't tell people, you're not selling a mobile phone, you're selling a mobile brick.
I was at the Worldcon in London, a year ago, and the tech worked well, but here up North, still with good coverage according to the maps, about all you could do with the same hardware was get voice.
I don't plan on spending more money any time soon, but if these phones have badly designed radio tech in them, it doesn't matter how wonderful the other features are.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 16:09 GMT Sixtysix
Re: But how good is the vital radio tech?
Well said.
There is one window in my house that sometimes allows mobiles to rope in 1 bar and make intermittent calls... IF one has a reasonably quality mobile from a "big name" that is. My China clone 2SIM with baked in Malware struggled to see the Wi-Fi router in the next room.
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Wednesday 26th August 2015 17:09 GMT hamsterXjam
Wileywho?
So it's a British company that's selling the phones. Yes, fine, but the obvious question then is "who is making the hardware?". Presumably not Wileyfox themselves, or else the cost would be higher to recoup the R&D.
Best guess is it's someone in China.
That's not necessarily a problem though, I can live with that. Ultimately everything in the phone world is tainted either with ethical, security or privacy concerns. And in some cases exploding battery concerns. I suspect this one will turn out to be averagely tainted.
My main concerns about this outfit are:
- Can they actually deliver what they're promising?
- Will it be any good? (Reviews asap please El Reg).
- Will the support be up to scratch?
- Will they be able to make enough money to keep going, and not fold leaving me with an unsupported paperweight one day?
Only time will tell, but I for one am interested.
FYI I've kept my HTC Desire going for over 5 years now, but the camera's just died so a replacement is finally on the cards.
My requirements for my next smartphone purchase are that it:
- Isn't sh*t
- Will last me for at least the next couple of years
- Has a torch app (the most used feature on any phone I have owned in the last 10 years)
- Hasn't been priced at 4x (or more) the bill of materials because of the huge marketing outlay involved, or the alleged 'lifestyle experience' it brings me (Cost ideally < £200)
- Is slightly less likely to contain the next stagefright-level security flaw to be discovered than the phones of my co-workers (so I can laugh at them)
Faced with a plethora of similarities in a stale market, this is the first phone for a while that's made me go "hang on a minute..." Assuming we aren't all being taken in by a massive email harvesting & phishing scam, that is.
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Thursday 27th August 2015 10:38 GMT Brenda McViking
close, so close...
But it is not there, and I'm not jumping up and down.
Swift, finally a removable battery. Screen resolution is just about acceptable (would prefer 1080p but the 720p @ 294ppi is probably okay) ....BUT uSD slot maxes out at 32GB (which means I have to buy more to replace the 64GB ones I have). and the crux of the matter is that it's not an upgrade from, my current, 2.5 year old Galaxy S4. Very reasonable price and a good phone, but I if I'm buying a new phone, it needs to be better than the one I have. The swift isn't.
The Storm fixes all the above and would be a perfect sale for me (even has GLONASS, nice) but is completely and utterly useless due to it's non removable battery, unless they do some magic and can get 3 solid days of moderate use out of a single charge. In fact even that is not enough as it still becomes landfill after 2 years. No removable battery = no sale. Hell, I'd pay double for this if it had a removable battery with no qualms.
But let me spell it out because absolutely no manufacturer right now is listening: NO REMOVABLE BATTERY = NO SALE. Just because apple do it doesn't make it acceptable in the civilised world. The charging packs are not good enough. they're clunky, airlines ban them, and they don't solve the utterly preventable problem of landfilling a perfectly good piece of hardware just because the glued in lithium in it wore out as expected after 2 years.
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Friday 28th August 2015 12:21 GMT Brenda McViking
Re: close, so close...
Okay, I'll clarify my statement - airlines ban the USE of battery chargers onboard aircraft (at least for the last 8 airlines I've flown with). I accept you can take them with you in the cabin, but seeing as you cannot use it until you're out, it's dead weight = massively inferior to a pre-charged removable battery, particularly when your phone is your In Flight Entertainment.
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Sunday 27th September 2015 17:56 GMT Zed Zee
Motorola on steroids.
This and OnePlus products is like Motorola's Moto G on steroids!
Motorola Mobility started this whole new segment of affordable phones (which still none of the big players seem to get), with impressive enough specifications to make some buyers forego their dreams and aspirations of owning a £600 phone (with a stupid contract to boot, no doubt) and opt for a more affordable product, with a decent specification (minus all the bloatware) and a great price tag to boot.
Wiley Fox are following suit, like OnePlus before them, which is fantastic to see and being British too, they get my seal of approval...where do I sign?!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
