Cubot S550 5.5" smartphone

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good budget smartphone

I was sent this phone for review and I like it.  There are now quite a few phones in this price range and their quality is often surprisingly good – as it is with the Cubot S550.

When reading this review, please bear in mind that I am in late middle age and that my use may not reflect yours. I don't game or tweet, for example, and I don't use data; I use the phone for calls and texts, music, checking email sometimes, some catch-up TV, occasional photos and occasional web browsing. This means that I cannot advise on detailed comparisons of technical specification and so on, but my  personal view of the Cubot S550 is this:

The packaging is very stylish.  In it you get:

the phone,

a mains charger,

a white micro-USB lead for charging and data transfer,

a decent manual

a basic, transparent case for the phone

a phone stand

a glass screen protector (a nice bonus).

I think the phone itself is very attractive: it's slim and stylish with a robust aluminium frame and sturdy plastic back. I find it very comfortable in the hand. The screen is excellent to my eyes; it's a generous 5.5" with rounded edges and a pleasure to use: bright, true colours and very tolerant of viewing angle. Video, TV catch-up and so on look great and everything works very nicely for me.  It runs Android version 5.1.  It has 2GB RAM (some competitors have 3GB) and the processor is quad-core not octa-core.  Frankly, this makes no difference for my use; everything I want to do seems very quick, smooth and pretty intuitive, but if you use apps with big memory or speed demands it may be something to consider.  The internal memory is 16GB and you can expand with a micro-SD card; I use a 32GB card and it works fine.

Set-up was very easy and so was access to SIM and micro-SD card slots.  These are in a tray with the good old paperclip-in-the-hole access (a "paperclip" tool is supplied).  This is a dual-SIM phone, which can be a very handy feature, but note:

1. it takes one micro-SIM and one nano-SIM, and

2. the memory card and second (nano-) SIM share a slot, so you can't have two SIM cards and a memory card installed at the same time. The phone is 4G enabled, but doesn't support all bands, so if 4G data is important to you, ensure that it's compatible with your network.  (It supports FDD-LTE: Band 1/3/7/20)

Security is OK.  It has fingerprint recognition unlocking, which I never have much success with and don't like, but this works as well as any other I have tried and I know a lot of users do like fingerprint unlocking.

Plenty of apps are pre-installed, including Google Play, and new apps install very quickly and simply. In use, everything I want works very well. Wi-fi connection was very straightforward as was syncing with my account. The battery lasts for several days with my use. (It's not replaceable, by the way, which may be a drawback). The speaker is pretty terrible (as on most phones) but through headphones or an external speaker - both wired and via Bluetooth 4.0 - the sound is excellent. There's no NFC, but normal Bluetooth pairing is very quick and simple, and stable up to about 4 metres.  The cameras aren't the greatest at 8mp and 5mp, but they're perfectly OK and other functions seem very good.

In summary, this is a good, slightly basic smartphone which seems robust and has good accessories supplied.  It works well and holds its own against others I have tried in this price range.  I can recommend it, certainly to fellow non-techies who want a decent smartphone which just does the job.