Kazam Tornado 348 review

Screen

I found the screen on the Kazam Tornado 348 was one of its best qualities. It's a 4.8-inch display with a 1,280 x 720p resolution and a detailed 306 pixel-per-inch density.

Furthermore, the AMOLED panel means that colours and contrast are very well represented and the phone does a really good job when playing videos or displaying photos.

The vibrancy doesn't compete with the likes of the Super AMOLED screen found on the Samsung Galaxy Alpha, but that's understandable given this phone is over £200 cheaper.

Sizing is also an important issue to take into account. Many smartphones are getting larger and I feel the 4.8-inch sizing hits the sweet spot. It's a fraction larger than the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 but not as big as the 5-inch HTC One M8.

In practical terms this means you can stretch your thumb across the display without needing giant hands but at the same time media isn't hampered by a tiny screen.

After-sales service

Talk of the Tornado's screen nicely segways into another key feature of this handset which is Kazam's after sales service. It offers a free screen replacement service whereby the company will replace a broken screen free of charge for a up to a year after your purchase.

As I said earlier, the Tornado's chassis isn't the most grippable and I can foresee occasions when it would slip out of your hand and potentially crack the Gorilla Glass display. Knowing you can get it replaced for free at any time is a big plus point for the Tornado 348.

Kazam offers other such services, including a remote access Kazam Rescue app that operates on a PIN number that lets a software engineer access the handset and attempt to fix whatever the problem is remotely.

The company also offers an extra year of warranty with the phone that they will activiate if you register your phone and download five partner apps from a selection that includes the likes of Amazon, McAfee and Opera.

Stock Android

The Kazam Tornado 348 arrives with absolutely no bloatware pre-installed, so you get a completely clean Android experience. This is a good thing because there's minimal ROM space to begin with and extra apps would only leave you with less space to install your own.

Customisation is one of the appealing parts of the Android OS and having complete freedom without any other processes getting in the way is a key feature for me.

Occasionally an Android overlay can be great – like with HTC's Sense but sometimes it doesn't feel as intuitive as it should – like with Emotion UI on the Huawei Ascend P7.

It means the phone runs as fast as possible because the number of background processes is kept to a minimum. The Tornado 348 was pleasingly fast during general usage and I'll discuss this in more depth in the next section.