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Orange announces the San Francisco II smartphone
MOBILE OPERATOR Orange has announced the San Francisco II smartphone, which will tip up later this month.
High end smartphones are being launched thick and fast before the Christmas shopping season but the San Francisco will favour those on a tight budget. It will sell for £99 on a pay as you go basis or free on a £10.50 per month contract.
Paul Jevons, director of products and devices at Orange said, "The Orange San Francisco II is a fitting successor to the award-winning first model, and offers the latest developments in data, voice and design. We are delighted to be following up on the success of the award winning original with such a full-featured product we expect it to be really popular with consumers in the run up to Christmas."
The handset is the follow-on to the popular San Francisco handset with some upgrades. The phone adds HS Voice for clearer phone calls and Signal Boost for better reception indoors.
The San Francisco II will come with an 800MHz processor, a 5MP camera and 512MB of internal storage which can be expanded with the microSD card slot. It has the same 3.5in WVGA screen and it will ship with the more up to date Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread operating system.
Compared to its predecessor the design is a bit sleeker than before with a more attractive look. The handset will be 10.6mm thick and weigh 120g.
Previous Orange handsets have been rebranded ZTE devices like the first San Francisco phone, which is the ZTE Blade. The San Francisco II is no different and is a ZTE Crescent in disguise. µ
Tags: Hardware
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The bezel around the screen appears to be quite a bit bigger on the new San Fran II - several millimetres each side, it could be the bevelled edge of the original San Fran, but doesn't look as nice from the video.
Technically it might be better, but will probably be locked down like the Monte Carlo - so won't be as useful as the original San Fran.
It looks like Orange have cut corners to keep the price at £100, I'd have preferred a better specified phone for slightly more, say £120.
Not enough reasons to upgrade to this, from the original.
Hi,
Thanks for the comment. We've updated the story now. Good spot on the kernel.
"At the moment we're not sure if the San Francisco II handset is also a ZTE in disguise."
Top investigative journalism here. If you search for "San Francisco II zte" the first result show that it is a ZTE Crescent.
From the kernel version in the demonstration video you can see its manufactured by ZTE.
all the best
Herb
"At the moment we're not sure if the San Francisco II handset is also a ZTE in disguise."
I suggest you look at your photo. The Kernel is tagged as a zte kernel, so I'm pretty sure this is a ZTE handset in disguise...