Utano Barrier T180 Rugged Dual SIM Android Smartphone

Recommend to a friend? No

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I bought this handset back in July 2012. I was initially impressed with the specifications, particularly the ruggedness aspects.

Once I got the phone I was quite disappointed with its performance. I encountered several issues that weren’t actual faults but bad software programming. These issues are:

1 – Orange short codes: when I try to send an sms to orange short code numbers such as 453 or 241; the phone doesn’t allow and gives the following message: “Cannot send message. You message invalid number”. I have put the sim card in another android handset and it sent the sms without any problems. I received the code within seconds. If you are an orange customer, then you can forget about using this handset.

2 – Phone re-starts itself for no apparent reason: I have noticed that my phone sometimes, for no evident reason restarts itself. This has happened several times and the last time it occurred I was in a middle of a telephone conversation. In my experience, the increased frequency of an error is an indication of an impending fault.

3 – Loss of signal: Occasionally, the phone loses signal and I get a ‘no service’ on one or both of the sim cards. This happens haphazardly without warning. I’ve lost calls because of this. This has happened while I was outdoors where the signal strength is at maximum.

There are only two good things about the handset: Ruggedness and long battery life. Aside from that I strongly recommend that no one buys this phone. It is utterly useless.

Recommend to a friend? Yes

"Very pleased with this phone. Dual sim is an ace feature and is very flexible. Always prompting you to select either for call or text, even if recieved on opposite sim. Well made. Ace features. Given a 4 and not 5 due to camera not being that good and the charger is a mini usb and you need to use the utano one due to deep socket. Android is slick and a mile better than my old Nokia N8."

Recommend to a friend? No

"I am writing this review to help prospective buyers of this phone who, like me, are unable to to find any meaningful information prior to purchase. I bought the phone from Avides in Germany, through the Amazon UK website. I chose Avides because they offered a one month no questions return policy and free delivery. I lost only the carriage sending it back, which I don't mind - It's not their fault that the phone's specifications were lacking. Anyway, trying to keep it as brief as possible, but also detailed, here goes:-
The phone seems to be identical to the JCB rugged Android phone, but with orange plastic instead of yellow, and dual active SIM. I did not try the phone with a SIM, I only tested it on WiFi (WLAN), which was enough to find out what I needed to know. The phone shows up on the Android Market (sorry, I mean Google Play) website as a "Brighter HW-T18". Despite what you may read, out-of-the-box, when you first switch it on, it shows 41MB of storage used and 117MB free - that's it and immediately, Google Play will update itself and steal another 10MB of that. With no apps running, it shows 44MB of RAM used and 91MB free; in this state the GUI is very snappy and responsive and really nice to use, the screen is good quality, both visually and to the touch. However, open a few apps and that RAM soon disappears and the thing slows down quite considerably. About the camera: If any of you have seen the YouTube unboxing videos, there are a few things you should know. The LED torch on the back is NOT a camera flash doubling as a torch, it's JUST a torch. It's great that you can switch it on by pressing a button and it goes off when you let go of the button, it also works when the phone is off - but it's just a torch, the camera has no flash. The button that is described as a Capture Button in the manual is not; it just opens the camera app but you have to hold it for quite a long time - it doesn't save any time and you still have to touch the screen to take the photo. There is no touch-to-focus, the autofocus is dodgy and the picture quality is quite poor. There are lots of settings in the camera, but they all just make things worse. If anyone watched the German-language review on YouTube, you may have seen Raw capture come up as an option in the camera menu - this would have been fantastic but, alas, it was not to be - well mine didn't have it. I don't speak German so I don't know if the video was a hoax, a prototype, or what. I'm an engineer and do outdoor pursuits when I'm not working, so a rugged, waterproof Android phone with a long battery life is what I'm looking for, I also want call receive and end buttons. This has the potential to be a great phone. The build quality was pretty good, it feels nice in the hand, the screen is low resolution, but I knew that and it helps with battery life (it has a 2Ah battery). The screen is bright, with no auto-brighness facility and small enough to hold in one hand and operate with your thumb, this part I really like (I think the screen is advertised as some sort of Gorilla glass - I'm not so sure sure, it felt like plastic but not bad). However, the manufacturer has skimped so much on the storage and RAM that it makes the phone useless unless you don't want to install any apps (why have a smartphone?). Even when moving apps to SD, not everything goes to the SD and some apps can't be moved to SD so with a few essential apps it will quickly get full. Choosing which of your favourite apps to delete is like deciding which of your children to give away. As for the camera - make it a decent one, or don't bother. This phone was not a bad price but I would happily have paid more for more storage and RAM and a decent camera - these were deal breakers for me. I hope that someone finds this useful."