ZTE F102 Review – ZTE’s New Skype Phone
The ZTE F102 is a phone that is a new entrant into the mobile phone market. The F102 offers Skype calls for free which is why it has become a popular handset very quickly. With people finding money tight, the option of free calls is one that cannot be missed. This latest ZTE phone itself is a pay as you go budget handset which is available on the Three network.
The 3 ZTE F102 is a GSM tri band phone which accesses the Skype network to provide its owner with the opportunity of making and receiving phone calls at no cost. The handset offers limited functionality which is to be expected with the price tag it comes with. The phone comes with a 2 mega pixel camera which is ideal for taking snap shots. The quality of the images provided ensures they are suitable to be printed out and kept.
ZTE F102
The phone also comes with an MP3 player, which as with most handsets will play a huge variety of audio file types. The ZTE F102 comes with a variety of alert types which includes the ability to use polyphonic ringtones as the ringtone for a variety of services as well as vibration.
This new ZTE phone also comes with a colour display screen which is vibrant and shows colours effectively. For connectivity the phone comes with Blue tooth and USB, which offers the ability to transfer a variety of files whilst also retaining the ability to connect and synchronise the phone with a PC through its USB connection.
The F102 comes with customisable covers to give it the ability to be individualised by its owner. The phone is a useful addition to the mobile phone market. It is a well designed phone with a range of functions that are consummate with a PAYG mobile phone.
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September 29th, 2009 at 11:05 am
“The {ZTE} F102 comes with an FM stereo radio”
There is no indication of this in the manual of an FM radio and http://www..three.co.uk (See [mobiles] [payg] ) has a dash against this feature.
It would be nice if it did include a radio. Let us know if you find a hidden radio menu
Regards
October 21st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
This is a great LIL phone and only 29.99 atm, I really like it and the screen is nice and clear too very good phone for the little money you pay for it
October 28th, 2009 at 2:47 am
Yes a nice phone for the price but no radio that I can find.
November 4th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
need to unlock my zte f102 nokia, please help
November 4th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Excellent Phone.
I just bought one today and found its just awesome. Spectacular. I would say this is an excellent set. very good quality picture, camera, reception, skype, msn messenger, messages, alarm, sound, bluetooth.
Really unbelievable, i was not expecting that it would be a cool phone. i was thinking it would be an average phone but it is above average.
It has long battery life as well. and its shape is very good as well. I have black colour which looks good as well. very slim.
Very good value of money. Recommended from my side for 30£.
Cheers
November 15th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I bought one of these phones early in october. Mine lasted only 24 hours on standby, then required recharging! I returned the phone to 3 and they sent me a new phone. I charged it, and once again it lasted 24 hours, then needed recharging again! On checking the serial number on the battery, it turns out to be the same battery that I returned to 3 in the first place! So new phone, same battery, can you believe it? Since then I have contacted 3 by telephone on several occasions. I have now been given the run around by them so much, I wish I could gt my money back. I was promised a new battery would be sent to me on the 29th of october and still no battery over 2 weeks later. Everytime you ring 3, you get to speak to some idiot in India who begins by giving you a lecture on how to charge your phone battery. I was even told to buy a new battery myself and they would put £10 credit on my phone as a good will gesture. Good will gesture? The battery is over £20!!!
I am now very tired of 3 and their attitude to customer service. After now spending around £10 on phone calls to them, I wish I’d never heard of them at all.
So if you buy one of 3′s phones, just hope and pray that you don’t have a problem with it. If you do, you’ll probably get messed around too!
November 18th, 2009 at 11:20 am
I was once again promised last wednesday, that a new a new battery would be sent to me and I would receive it within 3 to 5 days. Well it is now 7 days and once again no battery has arrived! This is now the second promise of a new battery which has been broken!
I now no longer wish to communicate with 3 on the telephone, as I may as well talk to the wall about the problem I’m having! So does anyone have an address for 3 please? I am now intend to post this phone and battery back to where it came from and demand a full refund! The address of the MD for 3 would be great. I can then tell him about the terrible customer service that his company provides.
Thanks in advance.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Panic over, I’ve found the address for 3. So for anyone else who is as frustrated as I am, here it is..
Star House
20 Grenfell Road
Maidenhead
Berkshire
SL6 1EH
November 29th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Wrong Information given in this site. This ZTE F102 Mobile has no inbuilt FM radio
November 30th, 2009 at 11:16 am
i think it’s an excellent phone and how would i get skype in my phone it always says not connected
December 1st, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I sent my phone back to 3 for a refund. they then sent it back to me untouched with a letter saying I need to speak to them on the phone! I then received a new battery in the post. The phone still only lasts about 24 hours on standby and not the specified 150 hours! I am now sick and tired of 3 and this piece of shit phone. I give up!!!!
December 5th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
good phone but the earphones that come with it are not very good, so i want to use my own MP3 (3.5mm) earphones but the slot is only 2.5. I hv already bought one adaptor and doesnt work, any suggestions for a gd adaptor?
December 5th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I heard somewhere that you have to have exact date and time for it to work. also make sure that u hv correct skype login
.
December 5th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
One of the only problems is that the phone takes about one hour to transfer 10 songs (about 50MB) onto it (even onto a flash card in it), which is far too long, especially as an iPod takes about 30sec max to transfer that much. The program PC suite is probably the problem, so please make a better program!!!
December 9th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
@ Ken Harvey, I’ve got exactly the same problems though i’d love to get 24 hours out of mine! It’s been back to the service centre and came back with a nice wee letter basically saying I was talking rubbish and that the phone and battery are perfect fine. I too wish I had never bought this heap of rubbish. I was only taken in because it offered Skype but even that doesn’t work properly…I can only ever see a few of my contacts listed, the rest don’t show up on the contacts page at all. So to anyone reading this considering buying one of these ZTE phones …..DONT.
December 10th, 2009 at 1:26 am
I have two of the ZTE 102′s and battery life is about four days plus on standby. I think you ned to see what you have switched on but in my opinion the problem is with you and not the phone. Comments about needing to make sure that the date and time are correct to log into Skype are right but you would get errors if the clock in your computer were set wrong. Three customer service is pretty crap but my main phone is on O2 and they are no great shakes either although they do at least talk a better version of Engllish which those of us not on the Indian sub-continent can understand. Overall the phone is pretty amazing for the price.
December 17th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
robert leitch take note.
I’ve found a solution to the short battery life when running skype. Don’t leave the skype application on the screen, get skype running, then press the “hide” button. Skype is still running and the phone will still ring if someone calls you. My phone is still showing that the battery is 2/3′s full after two days of use simply by leaving skype hidden. I had to find this solution myself, my phone had been returned to 3 on two seperate occasions with no joy. So in the end, there was not a problem with the phone at all! It appears that 3 do not know their own products and how they work.
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 am
dont be pervert and get some love man …
I have a woman for love, this one have to be for bed!
…
December 29th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Ha i love the thing, and ye i jsut leave skype hiden, i left it on for 10 hours with skype on and only 1/4 – 1/3 of the battery had gone
for £30 i really like it….the headsets a bit nasty but you get over that
my only problem ive had is at set up where the intrusions fail to tell you that you need to set the date and time before you can use skype that and the bluetooth is moody…..somtimes it works sometimes it dont so i think its an ok phone tbh
December 29th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
everything sounds good but where is it made
December 30th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
99% sure they are made in China. Just like most electronic stuff nowadays.
January 9th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
can this phone fit a micro sd 2gb memory card in it ?
January 10th, 2010 at 7:18 am
Just bought this phone and it seems a great phone for the price!
January 10th, 2010 at 11:37 am
heyy, dont take this the wrong wayy but.. do you people not realise that when it says standby, that means that there is nothing on screen and there are no applications running. its so basic! these phones are fine, its just silly people that think stanby means run a battery consuming application, AMETEURS!
January 10th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Hi,
Can someone confirm that you can use this phone for internet / mobile browsing / emails etc?
SOme site do hint that it does, but there is no confirmation from 3.
Also, does it really come with FM?
THanks
JP
January 12th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
jenna stacey Says:
January 10th, 2010 at 11:37 am
heyy, dont take this the wrong wayy but.. do you people not realise that when it says standby, that means that there is nothing on screen and there are no applications running. its so basic! these phones are fine, its just silly people that think stanby means run a battery consuming application, AMETEURS!
If you call people silly and AMETEURS, how can they not take it the wrong way!?
BTW, the correct spelling is “AMATEURS”. You should know that, being as you’re so clever!!
January 14th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Hey Can someone tell me how to lock keyguard manually! Mine seems to not lock it automatically on some occassions. If I switch off the phone and On it again, then it does lock after 10 Sec.
Thanks for your help
JP
January 16th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Is there anyway you can read PDF? Any experts here who can share what needs to be installed to read PDF on this mobile
January 16th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Can someone please explain how to use WAP with this mobile. There is nothing in the manual but on 3 sites, they say that you can use WAP with this mobile….
any ideas?
January 18th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
I am so so new to this can someone please tell me which Key turns off the predictive text in messaging
Thanks
January 20th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
I tried to download my photos from this phone and got a message saying the driver was not suitable for platform (vista). Is anyone managing to do this ?
January 21st, 2010 at 4:02 pm
I have used “Hide” option but my battery still lasts only 24 hours! Can someone please help.
Many Thanks
January 24th, 2010 at 1:35 am
Jenna’s right – school children know that leaving apps running on any device means power consumption, even if you’re on standby. Its standby, not suspend mode!
Bet Ken would be less irritated if customer services were not from “idiot” indians (xenophobe!) – never mind if czech or irish accents are just as bad.
January 25th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
i have two of these phones and they are good value, they feel quite lightweight( hardly an 8800 nokia), the interface is easy to use and the speakers are clear and do not distort overall not a bad phone for <£30
February 1st, 2010 at 12:05 am
Just got the ZTE F102 yesterday, and with so much functionality for only £29.99 i am an instant 3 fan. Loving the network and the highspeed internet access.
The ZTE F102 comes preinstalled with all the applications you need, facebook, twitter, Webmail accounts. The operating system that it runs on is also pretty amazing and makes it very simple to multitask and switch between applications a thing that you cant even do on the Iphone.
The only drawback that I found with the phone is that I cannot Lock the phone when I have the media player running. But that is a very small infraction against a phone which honestly as cheap as chips but delivers the world.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
I only just heard about this phone. I’m trying to understand how the pay and go works.. a few questions for anyone in the know:
Do you buy the phone and it comes with/without a sim?
Does it even need a sim/will it work without?
Do you have to top up monthly?
Using facebook , webmail etc … is that free?
Thanks.. TJ
February 16th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
ZTE just bought one, good value for money
February 21st, 2010 at 1:42 am
how do i lock this phone? the instructions in the manual don’t seem to work
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:33 pm
will this phone work abroad? i.e in Japan?
February 26th, 2010 at 7:17 am
I got this phone in October
When surfing the net on it it will turn off part way thru..
took it back and got a new one
It did it again.
Never had problems with the battery tho.
Im now back in NZ where it does roam(skype wont work tho) but I want to unlock it to use my NZ sim card
can anyone help me???
Just need the code or something….
much appreciated
March 8th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
I have bought this new phone, however i cannot for the life of me find out how to transfer music from my computer onto this mobile….PLEASE HELP!!
N.B i have a memory card and when i try to connect nothing happens!!
March 13th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
for the life of me how do you set up msn????? all i get is wrong name and password. heeeeelp
March 16th, 2010 at 11:14 am
I can’t find a radio on mine either, but there is a Media Player which supports streaming links, so that means that you can listen to radio stations via the web.
March 26th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
go to argos only 20 pound BRGEN
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:30 pm
how do i lock fone?
April 30th, 2010 at 7:08 am
Lemme say something,that will surprise you…
I bought this phone caple of months ago and some day i restarted the phone ,and it became on a FTM mode and i cant do anything,i cant even access my memory card…
PEOPLE!! PLEASE!! DONT BUY THIS PEACE OF CRAP !;/
May 14th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
My ZTE F102
sometimes the bluetooth works(in the shop) sometimes note.g. everywhere else.
Have found very few games that will work on this phone.
May 17th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
I have had mine for about 2 months, it’s pretty good, apart form 2 things (rather big things)
Every 5 minutes the signal bar drops to ‘No service’ and then 5 seconds later it goes to full again (This only happens in a GPRS or EDGE zone for some reason, on 3G it’s fine) It has the hideously annoying habit of doing it when you are trying to load a web page or send a text. It doesn’t do it when on a call. It did it just when I was trying to download a £1.99 game that I had just bought. It drives me up the wall sometimes!!
Oh and every couple of weeks or so it just can’t resist restarting.
Plus the vibrate is louder than a cow farting.
Apart for that it is good.
Only £30 and works 85% of the time, what do you want? lol
I’m buying the Huawei U7510 tomorrow which should be a proper phone that I can rely on, I’ll keep the ZTE coz it has free skype calls and why get rid of it anyway? All of us have our faults
May 18th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
People, pls help, where can I buy used or new battery for this phone. It’s the only phone I have and the battery is spoilt. Can’t find it to buy. Quick response will be highly appreciated.
June 5th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
I bought 4 of these about 2 months ago for the family to replace our Sony Ericsson Z530i phones which were beginning to wear out (after about 6 years of abuse). While the 3 to 3 free calls and the free skype are great features the phones themselves are a major disappointment.
All 4 of them are unreliable, mine frequently is unable to find a signal after moving from an area with no coverage back to some place it should get a signal, in fact it’s quite common to go from it showing “no coverage” before a reboot to full 3g signal after. Battery life on standby is anything between 12 and 48 hours despite no difference in where the phone is, what is running on it etc. etc..
I’ve also noticed that the bluetooth doesn’t work properly; call quality when using the jabra handsfree in the car is abysmal, this is the same handsfree I’ve used with the Z530i, in fact I’ve put an O2 simm into the Z530i to use as a backup phone in case of emergencies and tried a call from it using the handsfree just to check nothing had gone wrong with that, the call was fine yet the F102 sounds like it’s getting signal dropout even when in line of site of a transmitter (and if you transfer the call back to the handset the call is fine in that.
My wife’s needs the user name and password entering back in every time on Skype (all of them loose these occasionally but hers does it every time).
One of the others gets consistently poorer signal than all the others, and the fourth phone switches it’s self off randomly.
Net result is that I’ve seriously considered taking all 4 back for a refund as “not fit for purpose”, the problem being I can’t afford to replace them with anything better at the moment. As soon as I can afford it I’m junking these and getting something that is more than a cheap plastic toy.
June 5th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
To robert leitch
Not sure if this is the same problem you are having.
I was also missing most of my skype contacts. It was bugging and I thought I need to do an update or something. I thought it just wasn’t right.
Anway I decided to sign out and start from the main sign in screen where you sign in manually and there is a settings options. It is default set to show international contacts. What a revelation!! So I now have all my contacts because I set it to show all contacts!!
Best of Luck
June 8th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
I think the strength of the battery is the best, i all ways charge it after every four days.
am also not able to access the skype.
June 9th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
JP Says:
January 16th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Is there anyway you can read PDF? Any experts here who can share what needs to be installed to read PDF on this mobile
To JP
The ZTE F102 can read text files (txt). all u have to do (if you have adobe reader 6) is;
1 go to “file”
2 click on “save as text”
3 when it has finished open the text file then MAKE SURE you save as type “unicode”
I have 2 ZTE F102 phones one o them has the FTM problem that Konrad R has,but i can still access my memory card,and it
realy dosent bother me,cause i can still read books on it and take pics ect.
But u cant do anything like skype or mesenger.
the only reason i was annoyed is that i hat bought two 4.99 games on and every thing went away.
so i advise against using this phone as a flash drive cause if this happens everything will dissapear.
June 26th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
hi i need pc suite software for f102 can any one help me plz
July 13th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
hi i need pc suite software for f102 can any one help me plz
July 18th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Hello,
Nice phone and Tesco have it for £20, if you only want to use Skype then you dont need any credit.
I could not get Skype to log in but if you set the time and date correctly it will let you log in.
Hope this helps.
July 27th, 2010 at 7:58 am
i wont to unlok a zte f102h3g you can help me please?
August 7th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
my f102 has a problem in that when i try to log on to skype it reboots and when it starts again I am right back where I started
any one have any ideas of cause and a possible way of repairing it.
Thanks
September 1st, 2010 at 12:32 pm
hello i brought a zte f102 1 month a go and my battery life very poor but when i read the review of this phone it says battery life is up to 150 hours but my one is only 48 hours. ANY HELP??
September 17th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
I have a very old vodaphone (not 3G) aged ago, more than 5 years, could I put this sim on my unlock ZTE F102 (if I pay to unlock it).
I have 2 ZTE F102 in my family but now we just need one. Since they are both not new buy any more, I couldn’t just move the vodaphone phone number. And I have lots of credit on my vodaphone (I don’t think I could use up the credit in next 12 months).
I want to move the sim as my vodaphone is very heavy and I just need very basic function (receive and sending calls). I stilll have another ZTE to use as well.
Thanks in advance
September 24th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
I’ve had my ZTE F102 for about a year now, and I’ve just about had enough of it. The only reason I’ve kept it this long is because it was a gift and I can’t afford a new one right now. The camera is awful quality unless you’re snapping in bright sunlight, anything dimmer, or slight shadows gives you pixelated, poor images. When I’m browsing online the phone goes off without warning and reboots itself. It also crashes when I’m using mobile MSN, sometimes several times during one conversation, driving me to distraction. One time I got so annoyed I threw the phone across the room! I can’t wait to get a new phone and chuck this one in the recyling bin. Good riddance!
September 29th, 2010 at 11:36 am
plss my skype is frozen on it .. plzz some one should help me restart it ..
October 6th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
3 Sweden/Sverige does not offer skype in their network anymore which makes this phone even less interesting. Also the auto-completion t9-clone is a total joke and often has no idea what you want to type but instead suggesting stuff that are not real words.And sometimes the alarm does not work for no good reason, which can be a tad infuriating when you wake up at noon with a vague feeling you should have been somewhere to do something important four hours ago. Don’t buy this phone.
October 13th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
I have not got or ever will get a 3 phone again in my life, however I do have some interesting facts to convey to the audience 3 are the most disreputable firm to deal with, they simply ignore customers concerns..I was forced to endure a year of 3s poor customer service sought advice from CAB and a private solicitor to no avail I was locked into a contract that I could not get out of, and had no broadcast reception for 13 months of the 18 month contract I had a hell ofa time of it was occupied and preoccupied with those at 3 who refused to listen to me, until I was given a lifeline in Otelo the officeTelecommunications ombudsman where eventually at the end of the contract I got half my money back [mind you 3 and Otelo to some degree pee in the same pot] and I had to submit evidence and keep on submitting it before 3 owned up to a degradation in the phone line reception in my area, only then did I get a reimbursement.After 15 months of torture where 3 tried to buy me off I eventually won however this was a hollow victory these bastards cost me a 15 months of my life for something that could have been sorted in 10 mins..They are the most reprehensible lot it has ever been my displeasure to come across but only those that have problems with them and theiur language barrier will know what I am indeed talking about..
October 21st, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Why does my computor not recognise the phone transfering photos using windows7 64bit, it looks for drivers that it can not find?? Not a bad phone but this gets my wick trying to find drivers to transfer photos to my PC.
October 26th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
This is the most un-user friendly phone for texting. The switching between upper/lower case and predictive and non predictive to put simple capital letters in for a predictive word is horendous. If you happen to text a lot – avoid at all costs. get a basic nokia. Aside from that, for the money, the phone is excellent for basic calling.
October 27th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Hi,
I have a problem with my new skype zte f102. Wehn put the sim card on displey is limited survice?
What can do?
Please help me
November 2nd, 2010 at 8:26 pm
hi i bought a zte phone it says it has fm radio but how do you work the radio?
November 23rd, 2010 at 11:18 pm
haven’t had this Zte f102 phone for long but my skype can even start up anymore
whereas before i was perfectly able to load it and use it. msn works just fine but not skype.
i’ve tried the date thing but that didnt help and apart from that everything like 3G coverage
and the whole chibang are just fine. just wondering it anyone knows if i am able to uninstall
skype somehow and perhaps try installing it again to see if it works.
Or if there’s a way or defaulting the entire phone properly ???
please help.
£20 is precious these days
December 5th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I bought this phone about a year ago when it gave me so much trouble that I stopped using it and started using my wife’s old nokia. It has been suggested that I must expect problems with the battery when running applications in the background. I’d agree, that’s why I never had anything running in the background when I used the phone. Didn’t make a damn bit of difference to the poor batter life. I tried again last night before I deposit it in a recyle bin. Full charge last night, left it on over night and it was still showing full charge this morning – result I though. Put it in my pocket and went out. Half an hour later checked it for a text I was expecting and it was dead. Took off the back and removed and replaced the battery and again it showed full charge. That’s the real problem with this phone, you just can’t trust it to do what is expected of a phone. Forget all the great features for £30, if a phone isn’t reliable enough to make a call or receive a text then it’s no better than a block of wood.
Hope it can be recyled into something more useful.
December 12th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
this phone is good but after months it will stop working
December 17th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
i got this phone it worked for a day i got o to skype and internet fine
then came hell 1 the skpye did not sign in
2 the battery died with in 24 hrs tho ment to have longer life
3 signal low as battery did not hold charge
4 the charger conection is not up to scrach and may not charge you mobil was told by
costomer services team tellin me there was a number of colours it maybe
5 well that was 2 weeks of playing to get no were and also a 3 hr phone call to 3 phones
after all this the company told me comman fault
1 try setting the time and date to acess skype this might help
2 turn it on and if as if not tried this heheehe
well that ended up to be just a long chat that got no were 3 and got no were
the updates to skpye means no memory is fault dont think think you need an sd card as you dont
its a terrible phone and could go on with lots more
January 17th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
no radio. What do you want for 29.99 a tv and built in xbox
February 22nd, 2011 at 12:16 pm
this is a great phone and I really like it. bad thing is it doesnt have a radio
March 19th, 2011 at 10:11 am
For the first…day or so i loved the phone.
Now…quite honestly the worst phone I have ever used. This is my third ZTE F102 handset in under a year and all the faults have been the same with each replacement;- it switches itself off several times a day, the battery life is incredibly poor as is the signal, skype freezes on the opening screen, and the most recent fault being that despite resetting/wiping the phone numerous times, it still continues to tell me that I have insufficient memory left to download a photo/audio file or EVEN take a picture with the camera. It now wont hold a single extra file when it used to hold many.
When contacting 3 regarding a repair they offered to repair the handset under the condition that I pay a £50 fee. Did I cause these faults? No. Was I willing to pay more than the handset’s price for a repair? Absolutely not.