ZTE V790 Review: The Orange Uganda Dual SIM Android phone

ZTE V790

In Summary:
In the ZTE V790 review we find that it’s the S3 of entry level smartphones. With 1GHz processor, 256MB internal memory , this phone feels a lot faster than all other phones in it’s league(like the Google Ideos, Samsung Galaxy mini), but terribly disappoints with a Li-Ion 1200 mAh battery. In the market where an average phone user owns more than two simcards, it’s dual simcard capability is definitely a bonus as it allows you to comfortably use both of your simcards almost seamlessly.

Unboxing

Unboxing the ZTE V790

The ZTE V790 comes with a standard charger, a Micro USB cable for USB charging and connecting to the PC, Ear-buds for making calls and listening to music. The audio port is the standard 3.5mm audio port jack which is awesome for compatibility.The a simple manual that nobody usually reads which we found it useful.

Dual SIM Card functionality

The ZTE V790 will bounce calls and text messages from one network to another quite easily. For instance if you are sending a text or making an outgoing call, the phone will ask you which network you want to use before performing the requested action — the same way that feature phones have been doing it. When it comes to data, however, the phone will allow you to use 3G/WCDMA only one network(the default which is orange) while maintaining the other network on GSM-only mode.

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For those of you who can’t do without both of your SIM Cards, yet still want to have the power of smartphone at your disposal, this capability is simply priceless.

Battery life

ZTE V790 Micro USB Port

The ZTE V790 is powered by a Li-Ion 1200 mAh battery which is the same for other feature phones like the Google Ideos or Galaxy Mini. As you might already know, you simply can’t expect much from this. When we gave it a spin, we got three days of battery life on standard GSM(that’s without using 3G and not much browsing), 6 hours on Wi-Fi and about 5-4 hours on 3G. You need to move with the charge or micro USB cable with you so that you can always juice it up.

Storage

The ZTE V790 comes with 2GB of external removable Micro SD card and 256MB internal memory. With this memory, we were able to install up to 15 different Apps including Skype, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter before we got “you don’t have enough disk space”. However, with 2GB of external memory(which is up-gradable upto 32GB), you can have enough songs, documents, photos on your phone.

Performance

We were really impressed with how fast we could bounce from one App to another with the ZTE V790. It comes with 1GHz processor and 256MB of RAM which made the phone feel a lot more faster than its counterparts. I could for instance bounce back and forth from a processor-intensive App like Viber when making a call over Wi-Fi to Facebook on Chrome without breaking the ongoing call. Its performance felt like that one Samsung Galaxy S.

ZTE V790 comes with 3.2MP camera

Multi-media

We didn’t get blown away by the inbuilt speakers of the phone. The audio quality also wasn’t that great. So if you’re the kind that enjoys loud music, fortunately, the phone comes with a standard  3.5mm audio port jack that you can use to connect to an external speaker or music system .However, the phone is impressive for video playback because of its TFT 3.5″ HVGA screen.

We usually forgot FM radio when it comes to smartphones. However, this phone also comes with an FM radio that you need headsets to use.  So if you don’t have a rich media library or your simply a radio fan, then this phone got you covered.

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Operating System and Apps

The ZTE V790 is served with Android 2.3.6 or Gingerbread which means you get the standard Android features that you will get on any Android 2.3 smartphone irrespective of the underlying hardware specifications. Now the catch here is that unlike the other feature phones we’ve tested, this one is up-gradable to Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich which is another plus. When we first used it, we didn’t enjoy some pre-installed Apps we expected to be included(as it is with other feature phones) like Twitter, Facebook, Opera. We didn’t see why ZTE/Orange didn’t install these Apps because those are some of the first Apps the average smartphone user will install.

Operator support and price

The Phone is supported by Orange Uganda and comes with 150MB of data for one week. If you’ve been a data user, then you agree that this sufficient data to enable you check your tweets, Facebook, check email and watch a few YouTube video clips. For the one week review period we had, we couldn’t finish all this data ordinarily until we got watching movie trailers on IMDB and YouTube videos. Obviously all this couldn’t be possible without Orange’s super fast and reliable 3G network.

It also comes with UGShs 15,000 super combo package which is 600 Orange minutes, 35 minutes to local networks, 80 SMS texts to all networks. The phone goes for UGShs 299,000 from any Orange Uganda outlet.

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10 thoughts on “ZTE V790 Review: The Orange Uganda Dual SIM Android phone

      • @oquidave:disqus where did you buy that one? The one I bought from Orange Uganda brand new had an internal memory of 121 after the pre installed apps that came with it. I am so disappointed. With that, I cannot install ICS as advertised. I only installed 4 apps and it told me memory full. The user Experience isnt smooth at all, it keeps freezing and force closing my Huawei Ideos was way better than this one. Iam so disappointed in ZTE and Orange

  1. i have same cell phone but having android 2.3 how can i upgrade it to 4.0 please help and tell any link?

  2. The Uganda version of the V790 (as the Vietnamese one) has only half the RAM (256 MB). I believe that is the reason we cannot update to Android 4.0, which seems to be available to Russian users with 512MB. The Orange salesrep and the ZTE representative for Uganda, Sybil Nakabiito promised to get back to me within weeks about updates for the Ugandan market, but do not respond to my emails at all. So much for customer service. Have a try yourself, this is where she can be reached: [email protected]

    For now it seems we are stuck with a long outdated OS on a brandnew phone.

  3. I have the same phone but it keeps on freezing, why? pliz help, someone calls me and i cant hear

  4. i just fried my huawei ascend y100,i hate it freeezing,not taking typing commands,so guys what to u recomend

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