The Vodafone Smart ultra 6 is Vodafone’s latest flagship smartphone.
Design
Starting off with design, the design of the Smart ultra 6 is very simple and clean, looking at the back of the device, we have a matte silver plastic finish with a glossy Vodafone logo in the centre and additional branding at the bottom. On the back of the device we also find the camera, which I will talk about later, with its flash and the rear facing speaker in the bottom right.
On the left hand side we have the SIM card tray, this is on the side as the back of the device is non-removable, and the Micro-SD card slot on the right which will allow you to upgrade the built in 16GB of storage, along with volume rockers and the power button.
On the front of the device sits the 5.5” 1080p screen and front facing camera, Vodafone has gone for a choice of capacitive buttons on this device instead of physical or on screen buttons which illuminate blue when used, which is a useful feature to have if the device is being used in the dark. Around the whole front is a glossy trim which makes the device look more premium.
The device is very large, coming in at 15.4cm tall and 8.5cm wide and 7.7mm thick. This gives the phone around the same dimensions as the iPhone 6s plus, which I think makes it come under the phablet category of devices. One thing that I do wish would change with the design is that I have found myself knocking the volume buttons instead of the power button, and vice versa, as the buttons are very close together. If this issue could be fixed that would be great.
Software
The device ships with a stock Android experience, with a few Vodafone apps added to your device, the stock experience is very nice but when I was initially setting up the device I found the tutorial messages quite annoying as they could not be skipped completely. I haven’t had any issues with the experience on Android apart from the tutorial messages, which could be useful for new smartphone users but I wish there was an option for experienced users, like myself to bypass them.
Display
The Smart ultra 6 features a sharp and vivid 1080p display which is very pleasant to look at for a phone of this price range (£17 a month in October 2015), and another bonus is that it doesn’t show fingerprints on the screen too badly either!
Camera
The camera features a 13 megapixel sensor which captures sharp photos, the camera also supports 1080p video at 30 frames per second. The camera app features a manual mode, so you can set your ISO, White Balance and Exposure Levels. The manual mode also allows you to have a grid and level to make sure your horizons are correct in photographs. The photo quality is good in good lit situations, but in low light photography the shutter speed dropped down and it was difficult to get a high quality photo.
The device also sports a 5 megapixel front facing camera that also takes good quality photos and can do 720p video.
Performance
Performance is good on the Smart ultra 6, apps open quickly and multitasking is smooth, the device features a quad core processor and 2GB of RAM. One thing that I have noticed with the performance of the device is that it seems to become extremely slow when applying filters and using the pen tool in Snapchat, which is very strange. Performance with mobile games is smooth and I was able to play games such as Leo’s Fortune, which I test on every phone I review, successfully.
Battery Life
Battery life is excellent, I can easily make it through a day with the battery life being over 50%, and this is thanks to the 3000mAh battery built into the device,
Conclusion
If you’re on a budget but want a decent phone running a clean Android experience then the Smart ultra 6 is for you, coming in at only £17 a month or £125 on pay as you go in grey or silver variations.
