Great price for this phone to keep it as spare for calls/text and running few handful apps etc
Best Usage : Burner phone / Marketing Calls / Tinder / Spare for Official Calls / Gift to Kids etc etc ;-)
Features :
– 5” Display
– 5MP Camera
– 8GB Storage (Expandable up to 32GB)
Perfect for onsetting death by frustration.
didn't expect that coming from a TA King
Yes, none pucker tighter, my son
Where have you been? Feel like I haven't seen you in ages
What do you expect for 39 bucks?
More lol
Can you suggest a better value phone for $39 thanks.
It's ok for $39 so long as people have reasonable expectations
Yep, I think the OP does a good job of suggesting best usage (ie. limited) of this phone.
Running Android Go. Interesting. I'd love to give it a go. No pun intended. A shot. I'd like to give it a shot.
It's a good burner phone, go for it. Unlike other re-branded Alcatel 1 versions from Telstra and Optus, this one comes with near stock Android Go 8.1 (April 2019 security patch). I was lucky to have unlocked it for free, because the IMEI wasn't found in Vodafone automated system.
Interesting. So you went into a Voda shop and asked for it to be unlocked?
No I requested it online here. The IMEI wasn't found but I was given an option to fill in a manual request form, without any charge. 2 hours later they replied by email with an unlock code. A great customer service.
I did, and they gave me the code to unlock it.
Just out of interest, why would you need a burner phone?
Drug deals to pay for ozbargain addiction
Particularly, this one stays in the glove compartment of my car in the hotspot mode and provides Wi-Fi to the car's head unit. Whenever my wife forgets her phone home and we're out, I just give this one to her.
@uk3000: what kinda of phone plan do you have for that 'extra' phone? Just pay as you go? Thanks for all the info
@Jay-rad: I use a $10/m Belong SIM there with some ~100GB banked data. I'm yet to pay for it because of the data/credit stocked up via refferal/gifting/discounted start packs. When it's time to pay, I'll probably just go on with the automatic monthly charge as a "convenience" fee. If you're willing to hop the SIMs to save more, there're always deals like Kogan's $14.90 for 90 Days | 20GB Per 30 Days. Note if you use Kogan (or Lebara, I suppose), you won't have to unlock it.
I bought this a couple months ago for $49 from Kmart, good phone fairly responsive biggest let down is the camera
How bad is the camera? Any use as a dash or crash cam? I wasted money on a Nokia 3.1 that is virtually "blind"!
Any idea whether Hotstar application can be installed on this phone?
I have the phone. Is it listed as just Hotstar in the Play Store?
Ok, cool. Thanks. Just wanted to check whether it is compatible.
You might be able to download Hotstar, but ordinarily accessing the app won't work because of geoblocking.
Yeah, that is fine. I have NordVPN to bypass that. But they started blocking iOS +NordVPN unfortunately. Thanks.
It has 700 (B28), 850 (B5), 1800 (B3), 2100 (B1), 2600 (B7) and LTE is Cat 4.
Thinking of getting one to use as an occasional WiFi hotspot.
Can confirm works well for that
what speeds are you getting?
I'm getting ~30Mbps on Fast.com when tethering with Belong.
It has 900 (B8), too. For 3G/UMTS, it has 2100/850/900 (and even 1900, for some reason).
im on optus but can i use this?
No it would be locked to Vodafone. Would have to get vfone live chat to unlock for possible fee or might be able to pick up unlock code on ebay for a few bucks
Thanks :)
Is there a good chance Vodafone will provide an unlock key for free or is there a comparable phone that is with Optus? Looking for cheap phone for kids that can use Line (app) which leaves Nokia out of the question.
Will this work with Kogan sim which uses the Vodafone network ?
Yes
Those who wish to unlock for 0.99 cents :D
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vodafone-Smart-E9-4G-UNLOCK-CODE-/1…
OoStock
:(
Could someone confirm if this may be unlocked by Vodafone for free, or are there any charges? If so, what are the charges?
They charge $50 to unlock if its within 6 months of owning it…
Ah. So need to wait 6 months? Is it free after that? Contemplating using Kogan / Lebara until then.
Still $25 after 6 months
@Postal Dude: Egh. $25 unlocking fee for a $39 phone. Doesnt seem to be a deal. Food only if you plan to use Kogan / Lebara.
Miss those $0.99 Kogan deals (40GB). And Lebara is now out of the competition, when compared with Boost and Telstra.
@djoz: I bought one and it was old stock so only $25 to unlock straight away, you can check the imei on the side of the boxes online to see the price. First I'm going to see if I can find a super friendly support staff who doesn't mind doing it for free though :)
@Postal Dude: I tried this but it says "IMEI Not Found. The handset serial number you entered was not found on the system."
Are there any limits as to how many you can buy?
3 per customer
Oh Ok, Thanks.
Link says its out of stock.
Anyone know how to obtain root privileges on this phone?
Well at least buy it dinner first…
User name checks out.
I have the Telstra Essential Plus (Alcatel 1), which is same model to this Vodafone one.
Telstra Essential Plus Android 8.1 Go MT6739 1GB RAM 480*960 215 ppi , antutu 35000
I also have Alcatel OneTouch Fierce from several years ago, Android 4.4 MT6589 1GB RAM 540*960 245 ppi, antutu 13774
The display on the Alcatel 1 is bad, blurred, won't give you a nice feeling.
The OneTouch's 245 ppi does look a lot better.
On the performance, the Alcatel 1 is slow, use able, system response is ok, but any app will take some time to load, to respond to a touch.
The touch screen is low quality one. This phone would cost a lot less than $39 of BOM to manufacture.
The OneTouch is very snappy.
So by the look of it, MTK only incrased the performance on the GPU side, the cpu performance is even worse after 5 years for the entry level chip
A friend has a Telstra Essential Plus laying in his drawer. I looked at it and it has a heavily bloated Android Go version. Lots of crappy packages with no meaningful purposes (try adb shell pm list packages), customized skins, dialer etc. Perhaps, that's what makes it sluggish for a 1GB phone. The Vodafone version is quite opposite to that, it kinda reminds me Nexus 5 experience. Agreed about the screen though.
Refer Page 24 and Page 25 on Woolies catalog. While the fine print mentions that Optus and Telstra phones are network locked, for Vodafone Smart E9, it is just mentioned that it is not for commercial use or resale. Does it mean this handset is not network-locked?
1GB of RAM
5MP camera
pretty av