The San Diego is the UK's first Intel-powered smartphone. It runs Android Gingerbread. Here's our Orange San Diego video review. Read more smartphone reviews.
This black slab feels sturdy, if a little plasticky. A matt, rubberised rear contrasts to the glossy front fascia, and aids grip. An 8 megapixel camera juts out at the rear; all other ports are housed within a silver plastic band that circles the chassis.
The 4 inch touchscreen has a ten twenty four by six hundred resolution, with a pixel density of 295 pixels per inch. This is higher than many phones, yet it looks rather dull. The screen runs short of the handset’s edge, with a raised rim interrupting its otherwise smooth surface. At the bottom are touch buttons for Back, Options, Home and Search.
The San Diego has a powerful processor and plenty of RAM. It’s the fastest budget handset we’ve seen.
Third-party apps not written for Intel’s x86 processor architecture must pass through an emulation layer to operate. Of the top 100 free and 100 paid apps in Google Play, only 19 are incompatible, however. Most notable of these is iPlayer, but you can still view content through the BBC’s mobile site. Other favourites, including social-media apps work fine.
The 16 gigabytes of storage is non-expandable, and only 10 gigabytes is available to the user.
Intel has left Orange to interpret Android how it sees fit, and it’s responded with a lick of orange paint in the software and more than a few branded features.
Unlike most budget phones, the San Diego has an 8 megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, 8-times digital zoom and a plethora of manual settings. There’s so much to play with that you may not even notice its dull, blurry and poorly lit pictures. Recorded video is also something of a let-down.
A 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera is provided.
In our tests, with normal usage, the battery was down to 41 percent after 10 hours.
The San Diego is faster than its similarly priced rivals, with a good screen, loads of camera settings and full-HD video recording. We give it four stars.
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