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Vodafone Smart Ultra 6

Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 Review – With features normally seen on far more expensive models, this budget Pay As You Go handset continues the Vodafone trend of packing a serious punch at a price that won’t break the bank

Vodafone has created a reputation for producing well-designed and feature-packed devices that won’t massively drain your bank balance. Costing £125, or £17 per month, the Smart Ultra 6 follows this trend and offers a worthy alternative to EE’s £200 Harrier.

Design

That £125 price tag gets you a device with features normally seen on more expensive flagship handsets. The 5.5-inch screen is just as large as the LG G4 but the design is ruined slightly by a cheap plastic shell. Vodafone has dressed this up with a shiny trim around the edges, whilst light up buttons create an attractive glow. Its size does make it slightly awkward to hold and fit in your pocket.

There’s no removable back, which means the SIM and memory cards are housed in side drawers. The sealed back does make it feel like quite a tough and sturdy device, whilst we had no problem locating and using the volume and power buttons.

Camera

Amateur and dedicated photographers will both find something they like about the Smart Ultra 6. Head to the rear and you’ll find a very impressive 13 megapixel camera. This is one of the best cameras we’ve tested on a budget device, with all our photographs appearing crisp, colourful and full of detail.

You can take even better photographs by heading into Manual mode. This allows you to adjust white balance, ISO, exposure levels and other features normally found on a DSLR, the standalone camera used by professional photographers. HDR mode also does a decent job of dressing up your photos, which is perfect when you don’t have the time or energy to fiddle around with the various Manual mode settings. The 5 megapixel front camera is also good but is let down by the lack of flash.

The camera app is very simple to use and we had no trouble switching between the various modes or adjusting any of the settings. A variety of filters and shooting modes, including panoramic and multi-exposure, complete what is an excellent camera setup overall.

Performance

Performance is where you’ll get the most value for money here. An octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 610 processor and 2GB of RAM in a phone this cheap is seriously impressive and our tests proved that.

Web browsing was quick and stutter free, especially when we surfed through image and video heavy sites like BuzzFeed. Games like Hearthstone also ran smoothly, whilst there was no noticeable lag when we ran games like Real Racing 3.

There’s 16GB of storage, which provides plenty of space for apps, video, music and other media you have. If that isn’t enough memory for you, you can expand it up to an impressive 64GB with an external microSD memory card.

Software

The Smart Ultra 6 runs Android Lollipop 5.0 out of the box, which means you’ll experience Google’s latest slick operating system immediately. Vodafone hasn’t tampered with the operating system too much, so you’ll be getting Lollipop the way it was intended.

Screen

The 5.5-inch screen did a great job of making all the colours in games and and HD videos pop out. Everything on screen was full of detail and vibrancy, which you’d expect from a device boasting 1920 x 1080 resolution. The screen also suffered very few issues with glare when we used it outside. Physical buttons are absent, so there’s nothing to get in the way of your viewing experience.

You get android lollipop 5.0 operating system the way that google intended it

Battery

Battery life was just as impressive and we easily got a day’s use out of it without any struggle. That was through moderate usage of gaming, emailing, WhatsApp and YouTube. On other days where we constantly viewed videos, played games and put it through its paces, we got half a day’s battery life, which is still pretty good.

Verdict

The Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 packs plenty of excellent features you’d normally find on a phone that costs double its £125 Pay As You Go price tag. A brilliant processor, screen that displays everything in crisp full HD detail, fantastic camera and long-lasting battery life makes this handset seriously good value for money. If you’re after one of the best value handsets money can buy, the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 is highly recommended.