Burgeoning UK phone manufacturer Wileyfox impressed in 2015 with its reasonably price Swift and Storm handsets, and it’s now back with a duo of new devices.
The Wileyfox Swift 2 Plus is a slightly more premium offering, but affordability is still at its heart.
In fact the Swift 2 Plus will set you back just £189 SIM-free, available from Wileyfox and Amazon, and that’s an eye catching proposition when you take a gander at its features.
While it may be ‘Plus’ in name, the Swift 2 Plus is actually the same size as the Swift 2 with both handsets boasting a 143.7 x 71.9 x 8.64mm, 158g aluminium body and 5-inch 720p display.
The difference comes in memory with the Swift 2 Plus packing 32GB of storage and 3GB of RAM inside its body (versus 16GB and 2GB), and a 16MP rear facing Samsung ISOCELL camera – the Swift 2 makes do with a 13MP option.
There’s also a rear mounted fingerprint scanner, NFC, front facing 8MP snapper and a 2,700mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 technology giving you 50% of battery life in 30 minutes.
That’s an awful lot for the sub-£200 price tag, and it means the Wileyfox Swift 2 Plus is rubbing shoulders with top-notch budget royalty including the Moto G4 Plus, Honor 5X and Sony Xperia E5.
The design is a big step up from the original Swift series, with the full metal body of the Swift 2 Plus providing a surprisingly premium finish for such a low price handset.
The gently curving edges on the rear allow it to nestle comfortably in the hand, with the power/lock and volume keys on the right falling nicely under thumb or finger.
While we’re not the biggest fans of the placement of fingerprint scanners on the rear of devices, the good news is that the one of the Swift 2 Plus is at least responsive – and also quick to set up.
It works well, giving you a fast way to unlock the phone while also facilitating Android Pay.
That means you can use the phone to make payments in stores, like you would with a contactless bank card. Cue looks of amazement next time you’re at the checkout in Tesco.
On screen Android 6.0.1 greets you, although it’s Cyanogen Mod’s interpretation of Google’s platform. In short, that means you get a bunch of handy additional settings you can tweak (if you wish), while on the face still looking pretty much like stock Android.
The Snapdragon 430 processor won’t win any awards for superfast speeds, but couple with 3GB of RAM in the Swift 2 Plus it’s able to run Android smoothly, with apps loading promptly.
It could struggle with more strenuous tasks – such as graphically intensive games – but on the whole the general performance is pleasing.
There is a slight worry regarding future software updates as Cyanogen is looking to move away from its Android interface, but Wileyfox assured us the Swift 2 Plus will continue to be fully supported going forward.
Firing up the 16MP camera we found shutter speed and auto-focus were fast, and in general images looked pretty good. They lack the clarity of the snappers found on flagship phones, but for a handset costing about a third of price we couldn’t complain too much.
We’ll be sure to put it properly to the test in our full review though.
Early verdict
The Wileyfox Swift 2 Plus is another promising affordable smartphone from the UK firm, with a decent feature set and eye catching price tag.
We can't wait to put it through its paces in our in-depth review, we just hope the processor and battery don't let us down.
