Orange San Diego review

Battery life

Intel has made a bit of a big deal about the battery life on the Orange San Diego, claiming its integration of the processor and other features has helped improved the longevity of the battery.

The San Diego packs a standard Li-Ion battery, which Intel reckons will offer eight hours of call time and up to 14 days of standby time.

Some may be disappointed to learn that the battery isn't removable, or even accessible, which means you won't be able to perform hard resets of the handset, although we didn't experience any freezing or crashing during our tests.

We found that the Orange San Diego could happily last all day with moderate to heavy usage, including web browsing, calls, texts, gaming, social networking and some navigation – with juice left over to get you through day two as well.

This puts the San Diego ahead of a lot of smartphones these days, which often to fail to make it to bedtime before they give up the ghost, so Intel should be applauded for the work it's put in to give this result.

Connectivity

All the usual suspects are present and correct on the Orange San Diego when it comes to connectivity, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microUSB and A-GPS all making an appearance.

It's also supports the 3G network for faster web browsing on the move, supporting speeds of up to 21.1Mbps if you're in an area of top-notch HSPA+ coverage.

A couple of added bonuses with the San Diego are the inclusion of a mini HDMI-out port and NFC technology.

There's no HDMI cable provided included in the box, so you'll need to pop off to the shops if you fancy hooking up to your TV.

The inclusion of NFC shows the continuing shift towards near field communication as a way of transfer data between handsets as well as using your phone to purchase items.

NFC hasn't fully caught on yet and we're still a bit unsure about how mainstream it's going to become, but it's good to see it included - with the likes of BlackBerry and Sony following suit in their handset ranges.