Optus has expanded its mobile business with its own brand of budget-friendly smartphones, compare your options to decide which Optus phone is right for you.
As a network provider, Optus teams up with a number of smartphone manufacturers to offer their handsets on contract, but it also sells a small range of Optus-branded smartphones for use with a prepaid phone service.
These handsets are not manufactured by Optus itself but by TCL Communication, the Chinese electronics company that also produces current Alcatel and Blackberry smartphones.
What to consider when choosing an Optus phone
As with all phones, there are many factors to consider when sizing up what Optus has to offer. First and foremost, Optus phones are aimed at those with relatively modest needs looking for a handset that won't break the bank. You won't get the latest features or the most powerful hardware, but in turn you won't have to shell out $1,000 for a new device.
To help you determine whether an Optus phone is right for you, we've highlighted the key issues to weigh up below.
Budget smartphones tend to feature only the bare minimum of internal storage, and Optus phones are no different. At the lowest end, the Optus X Lite includes a tiny 128MB of built-in storage, most of which is reserved for the phone's operating system. Even the more capable Optus X Smart only packs 16GB of internal storage. Fortunately, all Optus phones include a microSD card slot for adding extra storage a la carte. Just be aware that microSD support varies between handsets, with some only accepting sizes of 32GB or less.
Larger screens attract steeper price tags, so it's no surprise that Optus handsets are generally smaller than your average smartphone. On touch-screen models, the display ranges from 4 inches up to 5.5 inches, while the old-school Optus X Lite packs a tiny 2.4-inch screen above its physical numpad.
Coupled with lower resolutions, the screens on Optus phones aren't ideal for streaming movies or playing games. On the flip side, the handsets themselves are smaller and easier to lug around than many modern smartphones. They're also easier to operate with one hand, since your fingers have better coverage over all corners of the screen.
Affordability is core to the appeal of Optus phones. Not only are all handsets priced under $150, you can purchase them from handy locations like Woolworths, Kmart and Big W. They're often cheaper at physical retail locations, too, with the $39 Optus X Lite going for $29 or less in-store.
The one caveat to the low cost of Optus phones is that you can't buy them on contract, even through Optus itself. Purchasing them outright is your only option, though Optus does support payment via Afterpay if you're unable to front the full cost in one go.
Where premium smartphone manufacturers are starting to phase out the 3.5mm headphone jack, the familiar audio port is still a common feature among budget handsets. All Optus phones include one along with Bluetooth support, so you can connect both wired and wireless headphones when making calls or listening to music.
Cheaping out on security can be a disaster, so it's critical that you consider the compromises Optus phones make in order to hit their budget price points. First up, you won't find any fingerprint sensors or voice recognition software for keeping other people out of your phone. Most handsets are running older versions of Android, too, which means they often lack the latest security updates for protection against newer digital threats.
While these shortcomings can't be overlooked, they needn't be a deal-breaker for those considering an Optus handset. So long as you practise safe Internet habits and carefully manage your passwords and personal data, you can minimise the chances of a security breach on almost any relatively modern phone.
Camera technology might be cheaper than ever these days, but you still need to pay a pretty penny if you want a high-quality, fully-featured set-up in your smartphone. Unsurprisingly, this is not what you get from an Optus phone. The higher-end Optus X Smart packs an 8MP, single-lens rear-facing camera capable of decent but not great photography, and cheaper handsets pare that back even further. In short, don't expect an Optus phone to replace your dedicated digital camera just yet.
Surprisingly, most Optus phones include a front-facing selfie camera, though like their standard rear-facing cameras the quality leaves a lot to be desired. If you're looking to adorn your social feeds with glamorous self-portraits, an Optus phone is probably not going to do it for you.
Network support is a far greater concern for Optus phones than most other handsets. Where the vast majority of modern smartphones support 4G as a given, some Optus handsets are only capable of connecting to slower 3G networks. Buy one of these handsets and you'll be limited to a fraction of the Internet speeds possible on modern mobile networks.
Wireless charging and quick charging are both becoming standard features in high-end smartphones, but they're far from the norm in the budget space. Optus eschews both with its handsets, offering only traditional wired charging that typically requires a couple of hours to replenish a phone from dead to full.
In theory, a smaller, less-powerful phone should have no trouble outlasting a feature-packed premium handset in a head-to-head endurance test. However, this is often not the case. As phones get smaller, so too do their batteries, leading to battery life much the same as their larger brethren.
Optus phones follow this trend, with battery capacity dropping in parallel with handset size. How long a single charge will last depends on how heavily you use your phone, but Optus claims that most of its handsets are capable of more than 12 hours of 3G talk time and over 400 hours when left in 3G standby mode.
More and more smartphones boast water-resistant designs these days, securing their seams against spilled drinks, rain and unintended dives into the sink. Sadly, Optus has yet to follow suit. Its handsets lack any sort of official water resistance, so there's no guarantee that a light drizzle won't fry their insides like a science experiment gone wrong.
"You get what you pay for" might be a tired adage, but it's an apt one when comparing Optus phones. Budget pricing means budget performance: laggy apps, delayed responsiveness and occasional crashes are to be expected with handsets at this price range. You need to go in accepting that you won't be able to play all the latest mobile games or zip seamlessly between apps and websites; if you don't, you're just going to be disappointed.
Looking for an Optus phone on a plan?
Optus may have its own mobile network and a wide range of devices available on to purchase on contract, but its own name-brand devices aren't on that list. Instead, it markets Optus-branded devices to the low cost, affordable prepaid device market. As such, you can't split the cost of an Optus branded phone over the life of a contract. However, if you are deciding to purchase an Optus-branded phone, you'll probably want an Optus prepaid plan to go with it, which you can compare below:
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Matt Sayer is a technology writer and editorial engineer for Finder, combining industry expertise with data-driven solutions to help people make better decisions. His extensive portfolio spans investigate reporting on the roll-out of 5G, statistical analysis on the legacy of E3 and guides for popular products like mobile phones and smart speakers. Matt has a Bachelor of Computer Science from RMIT University and is passionate about finding ways that technology can better our lives. See full bio
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