Two smartphone manufacturers have recently released several new additions to their smartphone line up. These manufacturers are Star and Fly-ying, and their creations are now available from almost any online electronics shop.
We will be covering some of the basic features that have been incorporated into these new smartphones to help you decide which of these will fit your needs if you are ever in the market for a new smartphone. Today we will review the smartphones released by Star and will continue on to tackle those released by Fly-ying in the article following this one.
Amongst China phone enthusiasts, Star has the commendable reputation of using a customized box clearly indicating their brand name even though they don’t have their own website, clearly differing from most China phone manufacturers, especially cloners, who simply use a box copied from that of the original item which they cloned. Their latest entries into the smartphone market include an iPhone-like phone (although differing quite clearly), a phone that looks strikingly like the HD2 from the front but approximates an HD7 from the rear, and an obvious clone of the Sony Xperia X12 Arc, all three running on a solid installation of Android 2.2 Froyo.
The three smartphones released by Star are:
- Star A2000
- Star A3000
- Star Xperia X12
All three basically run on the same hardware. For processing power they all run on the older, but still venerable MTK6516 microprocessor at 416+280MHz with 256MB of RAM. This allows them to run the Android OS and all its associated apps with relative ease, although it will experience negligible slow downs on some of the more resource demanding applications. For normal everyday use, however, the MTK6516 still holds up effectively.
In terms of screen size, both the A2000 and the Xperia X12 have a screen resolution of 480 by 800 pixels. This allows them to display crisp video on their larger 4.3″ and 4.0″ resistive touch screens, respectively. The A3000, on the other hand, has a screen resolution of 320 by 480 for its 3.2″ resistive touch screen.
All three also support dual-SIM capabilities and can support SIM cards from all over the globe by being quad band capable. For additional connectivity, all three also support GPRS technology for wireless internet on-the-go, as well for Wi-Fi 802.11b/g standards for access to the internet via fixed wireless access points. They also support A-GPS connections for accurate GPS navigation, with support for voice navigation.
All three Star smartphones have rear facing cameras, but both the A2000 and the X12 also have forward facing cameras with a maximum resolution of 0.3 megapixels with a maximum output size of up to 640 by 480 pixels. For the rear facing cameras, again both the A2000 and X12 share similar CCDs capable of a maximum resolution of 2.0 megapixels with a maximum output size of 1600 by 1200 pixels. On the other hand, the A3000 only has a rear facing camera with a higher maximum output of 3.0 megapixels and a maximum output size of 2048 by 1536 pixels.
All three phones also include the ability for memory expansion via SD card. The largest capacity SD cards that they are capable of using are 32GB SD cards.
The battery life of all three phones is fair. They each use a 1500mAh battery that is interchangeable with all the models which gives all three Star smartphones standby times of roughly 200 to 300 hours, although the A3000 can extend that slightly to 400 hours. Because of the smaller mAh batteries, however, talk time is at a below average 3 to 4 hours max.
Overall, however, all three models have proven to be worthwhile investments and are a step ahead from some of Star’s earlier models. We’re hoping this manufacturing trend will continue with Star and hope to see even better smartphones coming from the company’s assembly lines in the future.
Star A3000
Star A2000
Star Xperia X12
