The
smart home phone.
As
an increasing number of us are ditching home landline phones and
investing more time, effort, and cash in our smartphones, it can easy
to forget how useful a home telephone can be. To pull us back onboard
BT have launched a home phone that is packed with everything you'd
usually expect to find on your mobile. We test the BT Home SmartPhone
SII.
While
sleeping, the BT Home SmartPhone SII looks like any other modern, yet
decidedly not smart, home phone; curved black plastic, chunky
charging base, and wired antenna hub. However, fire this baby up and
you'll see something you might not have expected to; the Android
logo. Yep, this phone is powered by Google's mobile OS - 4.2 Jelly
Bean to be exact, - and that 3.5 inch screen is fully capacitive.
Setting
it up is just like setting up a regular Android phone; entering your
Google account credentials (if you have them) and setting up the WiFi
connection. Connecting the handset to the base unit happens
automatically, as you might expect, leaving you to fiddle with the
likes of app downloads, layouts, wallpapers and – appropriately –
ring tones.
Pre-installed
apps include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and a few of BT's own apps
like Sport and Cloud. Obviously you can download pretty much anything
else you need from the Google Play Store, including music and videos
as the BT Home SmartPhone SII will let you play both. Speaking of
which, we watched a few videos on the phone's YouTube, and although
the picture quality didn't blow us away (think cheaper Android with a
lower pixel density) the sound was fairly phenomenal – far better
than any 'proper' smartphone we've played with.
In
terms of use as a home phone, the handset is nice and light, yet big
enough so that it won't easily get lost. Answering incoming calls is
handled by the Android app, so older people who might not have used a
smartphone will have to get used to touchscreen buttons. That said,
the option, home, and back controls are actual physical buttons, as
is the volume rocker, and sleep/wake button on the side. Oh, and it's
also slim enough to be comfortably carried around the house in your
pocket, yet chunky enough to be handled safely by kids. Which they'll
definitely want to do once they realise they can download games on
it.
But
the eternal question about modern landline phones is... why bother?
Your phone does everything this can do, but also do it far, far, far
away from your house. Personally we think that although BT has
produced a solid product here, it won't be enough to sway younger
people, who might only have a mobile phone number to their name, back
to using home phones. However, those that already do have and
regularly use one, will certainly be interested in this.
We're
not saying that this could be older peoples' first foray into the
world of Android and smartphones, but for those of us who don't own a
smartphone and who don't constantly have a connection to the internet
in their pockets, this will be a great step up. Instead of switching
on the laptop to find out what that guy on the telly has also been
in, you can now just reach for the BT Home SmartPhone SII and surf
the web. It's little adjustments to established tech like that that
we really like, so although this isn't something that Millennials
will jump at, it might be something for their parents and
grandparents.
£149.98
Visit
www.shop.bt.com