Design and Looks
The Fly DS 150 X-Life isn't anything extraordinary looking. So we're not going to spend much time describing the design. The phone sports a generic mono-block bar phone form factor. On the front it sports a 1.8” TFT display that produces a decent 2,62,000 colours. Sadly the screen's resolution is QQVGA so it is grainy and looks bad. The viewing angles are narrow so that too is a disappointment. The only good thing we can say about the display is that it has nice sunlight legibility.
Just below the display is the D-pad cluster. It is comfortable to use and is also very durable. The alphanumeric keypad below this is terraced- this offers nice touch orientation but we are sad to say that the keypad is hard to use- typing fast is likely to cause a lot of typos on account of the small keys. In a dark environment, users will note that the keypad lighting is not even. Especially among those keys that are in the left most column.
The sides of the phones are bare except for a dedicated torch light button. At the top of the phone we see the LED light that is activated by this button and at the bottom we see the universal USB port. The back of the phone is plain much like the front but looks good in a simple way. It also houses the CIF camera unit. Talking about the phone's build- it feels good in the hand and is very pocket friendly. The plastics employed are nice and the build quality is good as the handset does not produce any squeaks.
The phone's user-interface is much more advanced than the other basic phones from Fly. Like most Fly phones, the Fly DS 150 is dual SIM. It has only one radio module so only one SIM can become active during a call. In such a case, the other one is switched off. But thanks to the unique chipset employed in the phone, both SIMs are passive and hence online. Unlike other dual SIM phones, in the case of the Fly DS 150 there is no master or slave SIM slots just SIM 1 and 2 slots. To make management of communications easy, emails, contacts and call lists are separate for both SIMs.
The user interface does not feature Java support, so users will have to get by with the native apps. They are interesting enough and include a music player, and FM radio. Sound quality is not that great but the volume levels are good. The music player can play digital music in the mp3 format and features all basic functions. There is however no equalizer presets. The FM radio is capable of auto scan of channels and can save up to nine channels. The FM radio also has a broadcast record feature which is a nice and cheap way to record songs off the radio.
The other media feature is the camera. It is the most basic unit available on any phone today. It snaps pictures at a maximum resolution of 0.1MP. This is the most pathetic camera that we have seen lately and is quite frankly antiquated. To give you an idea, the most basic camera phones today have nothing less than a 2MP camera. But let's not get carried away- this is a basic phone and calling and texting are its most important functions. Telephony in the case of this Fly is on par with acceptable standards and call volume is nice and loud. Unfortunately vibration is a little weak.
So, in conclusion, the DS 150 is a bad start to the new X-Life line of phones. Its poor camera and bad battery life will create more harm than good to the upcoming X-Life phones that could be much more promising than this one. But as a phone (with no references to its position in the new Fly portfolio) we feel it is an average handset that does not bring anything special to the table.
Features
- Dual SIM phone
- 1.8” 262K TFT screen
- CIF camera
- FM radio functionality with radio record feature
- Mp3 music player
