Lenovo A820, A800, A660

[dks]

Anybody using a Lanovo A820, A800, A660?

Any comments regarding them? I am looking into buying one of them so all opinions will be appreciated.

[Whoey]

I'm also looking at phone options, I'd like to replace my Motorola Defy as it's now quite obvious there will be no official software updates for it, and it's beginning to be a bit sluggish.

I had thought Nexus 4 is the way to go... but there are so many similar options including the Galaxy S3 which is due to get a (software) update shortly with S4 features... 

[Outback in Idaho]

  Wanted one, or a Toshiba. More options for expandability, memory, storage, an have heard there was firmware supporting pen & mouse input devices & normal USB drives. Not many tablets have those options.

  Lenovo has been in business a long time, and a lot of companies used their brands on the same computers, most notably IBM. Don't think you can go wrong with one, but from being both an HP webOS & Kindle Fire v1.0 the larger 9+ inch screens are far easier to read and use compared to the slim screens (half of a tablet).
  Compact tablets have their place, but am not a fan of them. I rarely use the Kindle Fire v1.0, have a few book installed there and a couple of networking apps. However I did like the tapping keyboard on the Kindle Fire/Android.

  Knew webOS was not going to last long, even though Samsung recently purchased the software. Many HP webOS tablets have ported over to a near gold Android version. The HP fire sale was a good price for a starter tablet, but a lot of features the newer tablets have just are not there. yet it has way more features than a Kindle Fire v1.0 has.

[dks]

I am looking for a phone, rather than a tablet, and Lenovo seems to offer Samsung specifications for a much lower price. They are not widely available outside of china though, so not many people use them.
The good news is that they are actually (according to the internet) built by Lenovo, rather than just being a rebranded product.
My 4 year old Blackberry style phone is having some issues now and I want to move into  something more  branded.

I like their advertising too..

[Outback in Idaho]

  A submersible smartphone ...  ... needs an Otter box me thinks.

  Attractive phone holder though. How much is that accessory, and does she eat much? 

[dks]

The A660 is waterproof to 1m 

[dks]

Well, I ordered the A820. It seemed to be worth the extra 34 Euro compared to the A800.

Now we wait for the DHL...

[Whoey]

how much and where from? I see a couple on fleabay for ~180eur

[dks]

how much and where from? I see a couple on fleabay for ~180eur

http://www.etotalk.com/lenovo-a820-android-41-jelly-bean-quad-core-12ghz-dual-sim-45-inch-qhd_p3758.html 
143dollars (cost) + memory + Etotalk MOD ROM modifications + DHL = 200 US dollars, 160 euros

Without DHL (slow, 1 month shipping) and memory it is about  167 Us Dollars.

Dealextreme has it for 180 I think, but it is without memory and with the slow shipping. With the same added it should be abit more expensive.

I have never bought anything from etotalk before so I have no idea how good they are. The a800 is at a lower price (99US dollars for the bare boned version, 124 with shipping) but I thought that the A820 justified the higher price.

You only really need the Etotalk MOD ROM modification if you have enough TF memory anyway. DHL is only 10 dollars more than the standard slow shipping so it is worth it.

[Whoey]

looking at the specs, the A800/A660 are basically my Defy with a dualcore CPU, I was hoping for at least 1gb ram, if not 2 just to be future friendly.

http://www.gsmarena.com/lenovo_a800-5245.php

http://www.gsmarena.com/lenovo_a660-4985.php

Guess I have to be willing to spend for that...

[dks]

You, being a lot more into software/hardware than I am may want to look into some of the lesser known Android machines, that are cheaper but require a lot more user experience.
Have a look at chinavasion for exmple, or DX. They do have some more options by unknown makers.
For my needs internet and a decent camera are all I need, or think I need...

The A820 and a830 have: RAM : 1GB / ROM : 4GB eMMC, if that helps.

[Whoey]

I really am leaning towards the Nexus 4... if it's anything like my Nexus 7, but smaller, and a phone, it should be amazing... plus Google doesn't hold back on updates to it's devices, unlike the rest of the Android universe. I realize the price is pretty much double (~300Eur) but it's pretty hard to beat... the only part I don't like is lack of SDcard

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yes, the lack of updates was frustrating for me too.  In fact, I would have bet dollars to doughnuts that if Google was going to upgrade any handset, it would be the Motorola branded ones since Google now owns Motorola.

Of course, I think it ended up being my carrier that blocked the upgrade rather than Google, but even so, the end result is that when giants fight in the playground, the little guys get stomped on.

I'd probably be more upset if my phone wasn't pretty well dying anyway.

Def

[dks]

Well, I wanted to spend around 80-100 euro and ended up spending 160, which is really too much for what I use my phones for..
I did see some people with their cool android devices a few days back so I thought that maybe an android one would be good for under 100. If i did not find the Lenovo I would have probably just bought a low priced nokia, with internet.

300 euro will be unjustified for my usage of the phone. I know many people will spend 2-3 times that but I assume they use the phone for a lot more than I do.

My phone usage is 95%phonecalls, 2% taking pictures and 3%internet.
Considering my average monthly phone bill,(when not abroad) is 1 to 2 euro I do not even make that many phonecalls either really.  (my phone battery, after 4 years, still lasts for a week)

I assume with the new one i will be alot more interested in the non-phoning functions.

[Whoey]

I use mine mainly for internet, some txt messages, and last place phone calls.

Grant: we should root and forcefeed your phone an update after you have a replacement... it might have some life in it yet! That's my plan for my Defy once I get something to take it's place.

Well, I wanted to spend around 80-100 euro and ended up spending 160, which is really too much for what I use my phones for..
I did see some people with their cool android devices a few days back so I thought that maybe an android one would be good for under 100. If i did not find the Lenovo I would have probably just bought a low priced nokia, with internet.

300 euro will be unjustified for my usage of the phone. I know many people will spend 2-3 times that but I assume they use the phone for a lot more than I do.

My phone usage is 95%phonecalls, 2% taking pictures and 3%internet.
Considering my average monthly phone bill,(when not abroad) is 1 to 2 euro I do not even make that many phonecalls either really.  (my phone battery, after 4 years, still lasts for a week)

I assume with the new one i will be alot more interested in the non-phoning functions.

I want to spend less, but have that feeling if I spend a little more now, it may last longer. The cheaper it is, the sooner it's obsolete/needs replacing

[Grant Lamontagne]

I have thought about that, but other than just an experiment I wonder what the point of that would be.  I'll have a new phone, I have my tablet....

I suppose just the experiment alone could be interesting though.

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

[Whoey]

well, if anything, it would be interesting to see the result, plus I bet it runs better without all the motobloat

[dks]

Whoey, based on my recent research there seems to be a new version of the android software and devices every couple of months. Even the newest one will be old soon. My main PC is from 2007 and still does most of what I need. On a semi-related matter I bought some cheap shoes, Karimmor that lasted for 1 month and did my back in too, so I now bought some Merrell and Lafuma that are mid-range and should be better, thus it is better to spend a bit more on a better product, if you use it a lot.

[Whoey]

My Motorola Defy is an October 2010 released phone, It came with Android 2.1, and shortly after I got it, was updated to 2.2

http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_defy-3514.php

It's been stuck on that version since, not restricted by my network provider, but Motorola who do not feel the need to provide updates for older hardware, nor do they honour their commitment to unlock all their terminals (only a few newer terminals were unlocked) so that we can easily update ourselves. Their solution is to buy a new phone. If you look at the phone stats, there are few affordable phones on the current market that can match the hardware in the Defy, however that is finally changing.

I had an older generic tablet that came with android 2.3 and later had an official update to 4.0 from the manufacturer. It ran significantly better for pretty much all the tasks I tried on it. I'd love to see that for my phone, I truly believe the optimized and tweaked code will run so much better than the currently bloated install. I have rooted my phone, but am rather hesitant to mess with the system until I at least have some sort of alternative phone to use should it all go pear shaped.

In any case, I'm still hoping to find a phone with more memory as I regularly have to task kill to have any more than 100/500mb available free...

[dks]

Update: The phone arrived a couple of days ago.

It looks and feels well made, with lenovo branding inside and out.
Battery life is good.
It is as specified, with a bright nice screen.
The camera, GPS, etc work well.
Works nicely with all the apps I installed.
Came with a good car navigation system too.
The menus etc seem genuine Lenovo and are prety smooth. The sellers mod app also works well.

Sizewise, it is big but it still fits in my pocket, even when driving. Anything bigger may have been too big for a phone, for me.

Regarding the seller, I had a couple of issues with the phone, regarding some adjustements I wanted to make and some things I could not locate on the phone, so I emailed them and they answered in 1 day with correct answers, in very good english, so it is obvious that they did think about how to solve my problems.