Star B92m Review-

Why i bought it.
The star B92m is a dual sim phone made in China by Chinese manufacture "Star". Yep, i had never heard of them too. They released this Dual sim phone about 2 weeks ago and so far it is one of the cheapest Dual core, dual sim phones out there. This phone is also known as the HDC Galaxy S3 i9300 EX Here is a run down of the specs-

4.7 inch ips screen 1280x720
Mediatek MT6577 1.2Ghz dual core processor
1GB ram and 4GB rom
12mp rear camera (8mp with software to take pics at 12)
2000mah battery
Sdcard up to 32gb
Android 4.0 ics
Dual Sim (3G + 2G)

And here is the price- £135 ($215/1360RMB) inc shipping and tax.

OS-
So the phone is running Android ICS out of the box. It's fast, fluid and everything works great. There are a few extra features you don't get on stock ICS such as the battery in percentage, a large number of toggles in the notification bar and a few others. One of the downsides for the OS is that it takes up a lot of storage and the phone only has 4GB onboard storage. But this has not proved to be a problem as you can put in a Micro SD card up to 32GB and there is actually a setting which allows you to save everything to the SD card to save space. Great! The OS is stable but i have experienced 2 crashes since i got the phone.

Hardware-
The phone is not as cheaply built as i thought it would be. I have compared it to a samsung galaxy S3 and would say it's not much different build quality. But it is by no means a premium build. It is plastic and low cost but like i said, not as bad as i thought it would be. The case is easy to take off and snap back on. All the physical buttons work great and the home button actually works better than the S3 home button IMO!

The processor is a mediatek 1.2GHz dual core processor. Now having used a One X, Sensation and Atrix 2. The processor is nowhere near as
good as the One X. However, compared to the similar dual cores from Nvidia and Qualcomm used in the atrix 2 and sensation there is not much difference at all. It is very fast, opens apps with ease and is quite speedy for intensive things. Now the one place where the phone completely falls over is in the graphics department. The phone uses an older graphics chip and even small animations such as entering and exiting the app tray can be choppy at times. With that being said though, it can easily play back 1080p video/games but like i said, at times you can see it's struggling to keep up. HD games are great as well.

1GB of RAM is great, on my old sensation i would have maybe 80mb of ram free if i was using a lot of apps. On the Star i have over 500mb free ram on boot and never less than 200mb free. Multitasking is a breeze and even beats the One X in some cases when it comes to this. Those of you with HTC phones will know that the volume is never loud. This phone is just like the Motorola and has a loud clear speaker which makes it easy to hear incoming calls. Sound quality can be improved a lot with an equaliser app from the market.

The Screen is 4.7inches with a resolution of 1280x720.Text is clear and sharp, colours are a bit unsaturated, and the viewing angles aren't amazing but it is good for an IPS display. But the screen is really bright, easy to see and a breeze to use because it is capicitative. I don't think it is gorilla glass but i haven't had any scratches so far (touch wood). The screen is better than the Sensation and Atrix 2 if you ignore the fact colours aren't amazing/100% accurate. But compared to the One X it is not as good. One X has much better colours and viewing angles and is gorilla glass. Plus the screen on the Star does pick up fingerprints quite easily. The screen is multi touch as well.

The camera is 12mp on the back and vga on the front. This means that you can take picture in 4000 x 3000 resolution. However the MT6577 only supports up to 8mp camera so my guess is that it is a 8mp camera with software to allow it to take 12mp. Camera is your stock android camera with all the settings including panorama etc... It's good enough. Flash is bright and makes low light pictures better but still pixellated. I compared it to the 8mp on the Sensation and i was getting similar shots, infact the Star seemed better quality in some. Not as good as the One x due to the fact you can't record/take pictures etc... plus the One X is a better camera in other ways.

Call quality is great, infact the speaker phone is amazing, just as good as the Atrix 2 and beats the HTC phones easily. In call volume is loud as well and no complaints here. Because the phone is dual sim i have my O2 and 3 sim inside. The dual sim works by something called dual standby. So if i make a call on the O2 sim my 3 sim won't work. But both work at the same time if i'm not on a call and i get incoming texts and calls on both. I can also asign contacts to different sims and set up which sim works for the internet etc... The dual sim capibilities are handled well.

You've got all your standard stuff, Wi-Fi GPS (i'll come back to this), 3G, bluetooth etc... No NFC. Everything works great on the phone and i'm able to get similar signal on all other phones, infact it's a bit better than the HTC phone when it comes to signal.

One of my worries was battery life. Thankfully i got 2x 2000mAh batteries in the box which are bigger than the Motorola and HTC's batteries. And i was shocked that they actually worked well... Got over 4 hours on screen time with heavy usage. Thats over 8 hours on screen time with two batteries. The stand by wasnt great (due to the fact two sims are working at the same time) but it is easily able to get me through a day, maybe two on low usage for me. I could probably just use 1 battery tbh, no need for battery swapping. The phone is not as thin as the S3, but i find that better as it is easier to hold in the hand.

So the phone is quite good, for the price it's amazing. Obviously it is no where near the S3, but it's not far and off. Would recommend it to people looking for a good cheap dual sim phone from china. (esp after the whole Jiayu fiasco)

Here are a few notes- GPS does not work, or maybe its because i haven't used it outside. I will update once i play around
I've rooted the phone and installed CWM. Now the phone is ready for roms etc...
The phone is not shipped with 1GB of ram. I think it is now 512mb of ram due to rising costs. Check with seller.
No word on jellybean update. ICS does seem to run fine, but not 100% stable like mentioned.

G00d- Fast, reponsive, large screen, high res, pure android, camera not terrible for 12mp, sound quality, great battery life.

Bad- Graphics chip, GPS, Android crashes sometimes, screen sharpness/colour, build quality not amazing.

Sorry for the long read.

Hi guys, please check out the full version of by review over at gizchina

http://www.gizchina.com/2012/11/03/e...-s3-ex-review/

Great review thanks.
I have a HDC Note 2 5.4" screen, 1gb DDR3 RAM and dual core processor on order from FCT

Awesome, let me know how you get on.

I liked the look of this handset and would recommend it to a friend. One slight negative is that it does not seem to support 900MHz UMTS and that is now being delivered by two major networks in most major areas.

True, it doesn't. But bear in mind, all dual sim phones have a 3G/2G slot and a 2G only slot. So as long as the o2 and vodafone sim is not the main one for the data connection it would work perfect in the 2G slot.

However, both networks still use 2100mhz so its not a huge loss if it has to be used in the 3G slot

I wonder if there is a new model planned with 850/900/2100MHz UMTS. I notice they have reduced the RAM to 512MB system memory but there still appears to be some 1GB versions available at around $185.

Looking at this it seems worth a punt as it costs about the same as a Galaxy S 2 on a contract for 6 months (just the phone cost).

Wavejock, I recommend going to amazon, and then type in the search bar "dracotek mtk6577"

This company sells dual sim phones as well based in the uk. E.g they sell mine for £160. Its worth having a look there to see if any support 900mhz and see if the price is attractive enough. Although you can get it slightly cheaper like I did by importing

Wavejock, not sure if you're still interested but Mediatek have announced the MTK6589 quad core 1.2Ghz chip. Will be coming in January in phones and it is rumoured (note rumoured) to support 900mhz and also CDMA frequency.

Anyway, here is another article detailing how easy it is to manage both sims in a dual sim phone-

http://www.gizchina.com/2012/11/09/h...android-phone/

Id love a Dual Sim phone but the build quality of Chinese phones is my biggest concern, typically the micro USB charger port breaking, and costing about £30-£40 to repair!

After having this phone for over 1 month i can say that the USB port seems to still be very stable. This one is incased inside the phone so it's not exactly very easy to break (touch wood).

But one month is a short time so i haven't had enough time to see the build quality in its fullest. I can say that yes it does feel very cheap. But it's also quite sturdy at the same time. It feels better than the Galaxy S3 in terms of the buttons, but a bit cheaper when it comes to the back case or sides. I've dropped the phone about 3 times now and no issue with anything coming off/not working. (thankfully).

Lenovo and Huawei are much more reputable brands and sell dual sim phones as well so it's worth considering them as well. Not just the no name brands that sell most of them. For example the Huawei ascend G500 shine is the same spec as the Motorola Atrix 2, but dual sim and £160 with shipping. (roughly)

I'd be wary of the USB charge port. Had a chinese dual sim phone last year and after 3 or 4 months the USB port broke, had to send it back to Hong Kong to get fixed under warranty and it was gone 2 months!! Got it back fixed but I had another phone by then so passed it on to my Dad. Fast forward another 5 months or so and the charge port has broke again.

My HDC Note arrived yesterday almost 3 weeks after I placed the order with FCT

First impressions? Really really fast compared to my iPhone 4, download speeds incredible on wifi. Screen is large, jellybean is smooth, access to Playstore as standard. One SIM works on 3G the other only 2G.

Not sure how it compares to Samsung original as I've never seen one, but so far I'm impressed ... It's not perfect, but then it cost £122 even with case and DDR3 upgrade.

Thanks for the warning, I'll make sure to treat the phone with a bit more care when it comes to charging.

@Blackbird, my phone and your phone have the same GPS chip. Can you tell me on average how long it takes to get a fix. Mine works well but if i haven't used it for a while it can take around 3 minutes and i have to be outside.

Anyway Mediatek are holding a conference on Dec 11th i believe where they are unveiling the MTK6589 processor. It's a quad core processor clocked at 1.2Ghz (or more) i believe. Will be in dual sim phones by Jan/Feb so thats one thing to look out for. Especially if we can still get it sub £150 (excl shipping)

looks a great phone.the only worry i would have is where it was made.

If you are wary about a phone in China you would need to be wary of probably most phones available.

Very true, pretty much all phones and manufactured in China. Even iPhones which everyone seems to think apple make in their own labs.

Isnt everything we use made in China nowadays? I think the lack of brand is the only issue for me

Thanks, will look into this. Any more?

You can buy a dual sim version of the Htc One V but it is ridiculously overpriced. Nokia do a number of dual sim phones. Not smartphones though. Sony do the tipo dual sim quite cheap. Samsung have overpriced galaxy y and ace dual sim avaliable.

I'd recommend the huawei one. Cant go wrong for the price. Plus its dual core, 1gb ram and ics

Jabba, I have the network assisted GPS features running so a fix is pretty instant.

Only thing I've not figured is how to change the ringtone!

That's good. Yeh my phone has a gps software bug. There was a fix and its much better but still a bit slow.

To change ringtone go to settings, then audio profile, then click general and scroll down to incoming ringtone. Can change it from there

Oh FYI, the Nokia Asha and Sony Tipo dual sim series do not use two sims at the same time like the other. You have to disable one to use the other and vice versa. So you can't have calls come through on one sim at all times (unless you swap)

The other phones use dual standby so both are active at the same time.

Unsatisfied with the level of dual sim phones out there, I've just purchased a dual sim adapter from here:

http://www.magic-sim.com/

That way you can keep your favorite model if it's supported and you can change which SIM card is being used on the fly. Not helpful if you want both SIM cards simultaneously active though.

The dual sim phones allow you to connect to both networks at the same time though, these don't.