Tag Archives: dual sim

Lenovo Vibe K5 Dual Sim Smartphone Review – The Phone with Noise

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Lenovo K5 pic 2

Welcome to my review of the Lenovo Vibe K5 Dual Sim smartphone. Thanks to Clove Technology .

The Key Specifications

– Android 5.1 (Lollipop)
– Octa-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 415
– 2GB RAM / 16 GB storage / up to 32GB micro SD external storage
– 5″ HD IPS LCD screen
– 13 MP main camera / 5 MP front facing camera
– Premium aluminium casing
– Dolby Atmos enabled speakers
– Dual SIM (2x micro)

Lenovo K5 pic 1

Review

Before watching my video review of the Lenovo Vibe K5 smartphone, it is worth highlighting that you can use 2 micro sims and add a 32gb micro SD card using the third slot. It features stereo dolby atmos stereo speakers.

Available from Clove Technology .

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Samsung Note 7 – First Impressions – Dual Sim – Duos – The Setup, Official Cases and More

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Samsung Note 7 LED CASE

I have now setup my new Samsung Note 7 Duos (Duos is the dual sim Note 7) a few nights ago. I decided to try Samsung’s Smart Switch application which worked fairly well. The Smart Switch application allows you to transfer pretty much everything from one phone to another including phone logs, text messages, images, music, docs, apps and application data and much more. This can be information from the micro SD card as well. You can select whatever information you like to be transferred. Instructions are shown showing how you transfer data from an iPhone, android phone, windows phone, Samsung phone and BlackBerry.

Being dual sim, the sim tray is a hybrid version meaning you can either have 2 nano sims or one nano sim and a micro SD card.

SIM

Within the connection settings there is a sim manager option as shown above with some extra options for controlling both sims. You can also limit the number of notifications on the status bar to 3 so as to not interfere with the signal information.

The Note 7 does not have Touchwiz. Samsung calls the new interface Grace UI and it really is very polished.

Settings

Main settings menu shown above. You can now have themes, wallpapers, and icons for the Grace UI. I have a material dark theme applied.

Home screen

I am so pleased I picked the Black Onyx finish. This is by far the best option. It looks bad-ass.The Note 7 is beautiful from all angles and the Samsung really have excelled from a hardware and software point of view. Everything is tightly integrated and improved from the Samsung Galaxy S7. For example, the calendar widget can now be white or black and has a transparency slider. Everywhere across the email app and more there are neat touches that I will cover off in future posts.

I have 5 cases for the Note 7. 3 official and 2 third party options. The Samsung LED cover is shown in the top photo. This is super cool but does take more time to setup as you can design you own LED app icons. I recommend doing this too. Its fun and makes your LED notifications more personalised. The S View Standing case is also excellent using the always on display to show data in the window. I will cover off more on the cases in future posts.

So the Note 7 has an iris scanner, S Pen, Edge screen and the kitchen sink. The fingerprint sensor on the Note 7 is perfect. Better than the one on the S7. The iris scanner is a PITA. It took me ages to get my eyes learnt. And I have loads of failures when trying to unlock. I need more practice clearly! However, I can unlock via the fingerprint or iris as both are activated at the moment.

I did receive a 230mb software update yesterday as well. One last point, my dual sim Note 7 has the Exynos processor.

On paper the Note 7 is clearly a S7 Edge with a S Pen (stylus) with a premium price over the S7 Edge too. In reality it feels like a totally different device. I will be amazed if any other manufacturer can beat the Samsung Note 7 in 2016.

Samsung Note 5 – Dual Sim – First Impressions

Android, Reviews, Tech News, , ,

image

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Jah is a regular reader of Gavin’s Gadgets and recently imported a dual sim Samsung Note 5. Below are Jah’s first impressions –

“Samsung Note 5 Dual SIM variety – Impressions

First of all, if you are in the UK or Europe, please do your homework before you import or buy an imported Note 5.  The one I have, the N9208, does not have Band 20 LTE which means you can’t use 4G on Three and on Vodafone the 4G is very patchy. The best option for Dual SIM for the UK is the model designated as N920CD. 

Now for impressions:

–         –  the music playback over headphones is mind blowing, when playing high definition music (24 bit / 96 khz).  I used my Sony MDR R1BT in both wired and Bluetooth (with APT-X) mode.  The head amp on the Note 5 is better than the Snapdragon Note 4 and Exynos Note Edge.  Over BT, the sound reproduction is the best I have heard from any smartphone (compared to HTC M9 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge as recent examples).  Therefore, it is a shame Samsung don’t have a 128GB version as you’ll fill-up the typically free 50GB (of the 64GB model once you’ve loaded your apps) very quickly with High Def music.

–         – the build quality of the Note 5 is top dollar.  You really need to spend time with it to appreciate the accuracy of build and beauty of the metal and glass body.  Even the SIM tray is beautifully constructed.  Again shame no tray for a micro SD card!

–        –  I was surprised that even though the screen resolution of the Note 5 and Note 4 are the same, the screen of the Note 5 is better (whiter whites and sharper text).  The screen on the Note 5 is a joy to use.

–        –  it is quick, appreciably quicker than the Galaxy S6 Edge even though it shares similar (but not the same) internals.

–         – the Note 5 has the slimmer, slicker and frankly much more user friendly Touchwiz interface than the Note 4.  Lots of nice touches make it a joy to use especially for business and productivity.  Also note that the S Pen accuracy and fluidity has also improved.  But I am not sure about the long term viability of the mechanical clicking mechanism on the top of the S Pen as the means to pop it out of the silo.   

–         – I use a Vodafone and EE SIMs and as the Vodafone LTE reception is patchy, I think my N9208 model was struggling with using Vodafone.  When I set my EE SIM to be the SIM to use for data, the battery life improved.  I can just about get through a day with a full charge but when there are signal issues (e.g. varying cell towers and signal types when travelling on a train) the battery takes a real battering. But when you have a good signal, the battery life is great (battery dropped 3-4% during a 1.5hr telephone call, which I think is good).  My typical daily use is two email accounts on 15 minute sync, 40 minutes of music over BT, about an 1 hour of general web use, 10-20 minutes of calls and 30 to 40 minutes of using the Note 5 as a hot spot (over an elapsed period of 13 hours). Please note, that unlike the OnePlus Two and other devices, the Note 5 cannot operate both SIMs on LTE; one SIM runs over 2G (GPRS and Edge) while the other (which you specify in settings) runs on LTE.

Overall, the Note 5 really is a very refined business and productivity tool.  Samsung should bring this to the UK (and Europe).  If are interested in the Note 5, really seek out the 64gb version.”

Many thanks to Jah for his contribution. If you would like to contribute a piece do get in touch.

Note – Photos from IFA 2015