Orange San Francisco 2 review

Can Orange replicate the success of its budget San Francisco?

Orange San Francisco 2
Can the Orange San Francisco 2 live up to its predecessor, the king of low-cost Android smartphones?

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Orange san francisco 2 review

The Wi-Fi and HSDPA 3G internet capability in the Orange San Francisco 2 are nothing special as far as Android smartphones go, but they do mean this is a handset you can use for web browsing.

Be warned, though, that the small screen can make this a bit of a chore, and if you're a fan of watching embedded video then forget it. The Orange San Francisco 2 doesn't have Flash support, although with Adobe planning to stop support for mobile Flash, this is soon to be a standard spec.

Orange san francisco 2 review

Web pages don't download all that fast. Working over Wi-Fi it took a full 39 seconds to load the complete TechRadar home page. The Orange San Francisco 2's small screen means you'll need to start zooming in to read most web pages, too.

A double tap zooms you in to the point where reading is usually possible, and text reflows nicely so that all you need to do is vertical scrolling.

Orange san francisco 2 review

However, if you zoom in further, using a pinching action, reflow goes out the window. You have to use the zoom bar that pops up on the phone's screen to retain text reflow, which you can do to a high level.

Orange san francisco 2 review

You can have multiple windows open at once, and switching between them is a simple matter of using the Menu button. But visually, the windows layout feels stale. No thumbnails here, just a boring old list of web pages.

Orange san francisco 2 review

The browser itself isn't the fastest thing under the fingers, and zooming action is more jerky than silky smooth.

But the high resolution screen, at 480 x 800 pixels, is the saving grace of the Orange San Francisco 2 in web browsing terms. Text and images are clear, crisp and sharp.