Wileyfox Spark + 5 Inch HD SIM-Free Smartphone with Android Nougat 7.0 (2 GB RAM, 13 MP Camera, Dual SIM 4G) - Black

I am really happy with this phone. I was coming from using a Blackberry Q10, having had pretty 'top of the range' phones before that. I was after a phone that did the basics well, lasted for more than 1 day on battery and didn't cost the Earth.I have had this for a couple of months now and, although I do miss the keys on my Blackberry, I like the phone very much. Good screen, good browser. Doesn't keep forever asking me to perform updates like some of my previous phones. The main things that I have noticed as not-so-good is the camera - it does the job, but it is a little noisy, a little slow and the pictures are not as good as my Q10.The battery life is pretty good - 2 days with pretty heavy use. The alarm has never let me down. The email, messaging and other pre-installed applications are very good at what they do. I have liked being able to fully customise the theme of the phone including the fonts, and find the touchscreen pretty good considering I was really dreading using one.It's a rather nice looking phone, the texture of the backing is hard to describe, quite matt, and the fox icon and little metallic touches work really well. It looks good quality, and a few people have commented that it's a nice looking phone. It's thin and light too.

Purchased a year ago but used the phone very little as it was my spare international phone using the dual SIM. I carry 3 phones. First time I tried to use it the supplied charging cable was problematic and the phone would not turn on. I had to plug it in and out before it would start charging. When it did take a charge and working the phone was very very good. Better quality than other budget phones and vey well made. I was that impressed I intended to switch to the most expensive model they did with dual SIM to replace 2 phones. I told my wife to try it instead of her Iphone 5S and she loved it and kept it. After about 6 weeks of full time use it started to get hot when charging and 9 days later shut down and died. Slight burning smell when I took the back cover off. Look, feel and usability exceeded expectations but reliability was poor.

OK – let’s start with the good points first. The Spark+ is well-specced for the price (especially on the deal I got, which priced it below the RRP of the lower-specced Spark), supports dual SIMs, has a removable battery (a rarity these days), and the most unique selling point is it runs the excellent Cyanogen operating system, which is basically a more customisable version of Android (so it runs all Android apps). This was my first Android-based phone (I was previously on Windows), so I can't comment on how it performs vs the competition, but from what I've read its performance is about what you'd expect from a mid-range phone. I've certainly had no cause for complaint in daily use - it's responsive, takes decent photos, and runs basic games absolutely fine. So far so good.Unfortunately now we have to move on to the elephant in the room. The phone's biggest selling point, the Cyanogen OS, has just been discontinued. That's right, as of the end of 2016, there will be no future updates whatsoever, as the company that maintains the OS is dropping it. Wileyfox have issued a statement that they will continue to support their phones by migrating them to standard Android, but they've not given any timescale for the migration, and in moving away from Cyanogen, the phone has lost a lot of what made it good. Plus if you buy a Wileyfox phone now, you're taking a gamble on future support.That's not the only issue either. One of the main selling points for me was the Spark’s replaceable battery. I normally keep my phones for 2-3 years, and tend to find that the performance of the original battery starts to degrade significantly after the first year. This means that a phone with a fixed battery won’t last the distance, which rules out most mid-range phones for me. Unfortunately, having foolishly assumed that because you could replace the battery, replacements were actually available, so far this has proved not to be the case. I queried this with Wileyfox, and their one-line response was to direct me to the pre-order page on Amazon, that gave no indication of the availability date. So that's another selling point scratched off the list, especially as battery life is not great to start with.The other annoyance I've come across so far is that because this is a relatively small company and a relatively low-volume product, accessories for it are hard to come by. Ignoring Wileyfox's own-brand cover (which as far as I can tell is next to useless because it provides barely any screen protection), I've found only one other company selling them, so unless one of their very limited selection suits you, you're stuck with generic covers that don't fit the phone properly and don't have a cut-out for the camera.Overall then, it's just an OK phone, not a great one, and with a number of issues that may or may not get better over time. If you get a good enough deal on it (I suspect there will be a few, given the OS issues), can live with a basic case, and are willing to take the risk that it might not get software updates, then it should be fine as long as you just want a phone for calls, odd photos, web browsing, and occasional gaming.However, if it’s priced closer to its RRP, and a replaceable battery (hopefully!) and dual SIMs aren’t high on your shopping list, then you may be better off going for a more mainstream phone like the Moto G4, which is a bit more expensive but appears to be better in all respects other than the above.I suspect I’ll update my rating after a few months, based on whether any of the reliability issues reported for Wileyfox products start emerging (nothing so far), if the manufacturer comes good on its promise to provide SW updates, and whether batteries and a better range of accessories become available.

I wouldn't recommend this phone unless you want an expensive pager with 4gI recently purchased this phone, unlike all the other comments here, I had no issues with the screen. I had a major issues with the ability of the phone itself to be a phone.The first one I received would text and use 4g/3g fine but calling was another story, it would call then hang up (by itself) after 1 minute or so.The replacement phone worked fine for the first day then day 2, the same issue happened again. It would work fine for some calls whereas others it refused to work at all. It was extremely frustrating.I really wanted to like this phone, I gave it so many chances I even tried factory resetting it, no use, evidently it wasn't an app causing it. And just to warn anyone who wants to buy a Wileyfox. The company has no customer service, I emailed them and an automated reply said we'll get back in 24 hours, 4 days have passed and no reply this is shocking from a company priding itself on selling phones built for the customers and is destroying the credibility of "buying British" items.To sum up:Good points:Good camera (front and back), decent screen quality, good microphone and fairly fast, uses cyanogen OS which is amazingBad points:Antenna in phone is rubbish (couldn't pick up a decent signal when my old Moto E 2015 could no problem), sometimes freeze because CPU over heated after about 20 minutes of use, and would drop callsI wouldn't recommend this phone