Today we got in to a bit of a debate with a Chinese resellers who tell us the Catee CT550 is the greatest thing since sliced bread, however our opinion is it really isn’t something you guys would be interested in. Have your say.
We were approached today by 1949deal to review their Catee CT550 smartphone. Catee is 1949deal’s own brand phone company and they asked us to review the phone as they believed customers want cheap, large screen phones. We countered that line of thought with “well yes some customers do, but not when it means the rest of the hardware has to suffer”.
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Going over the hardware we can see the 5.5-inch Catee CT550 has a resolution of just 960 x 540, only 512mb RAM, still runs Android 4.2 and to top it all off has just a dual-core processor!
In my opinion phones like the Catee CT550 shouldn’t exist any longer. Surely we are at the point where manufactures should stop building phones thinking “a bigger screen is better”, and instead make a well-rounded, solid performing devices. Wouldn’t a smaller 4.5-inch 720p phone with a quad-core processor and at least 1GB RAM and Kitkat sound a whole lot better than the Catee CT550?
I have told 1949deal that I am writing this article and they are actually very open to hear your opinions, so make yourself heard in the comments below. I’ll start the comments off.
I believe it is not worth the money and a better designed phone could be made for the same price.
I really agree with you here Andi. A 4.5 inch screen would have been perfectly fine here, the resolution would have been kind of adequate then and the difference in screen size cost could have been invested in 512 MB of RAM so it would have had 1 GB of RAM.
Then again such phones do exist and are being sold for this price so I guess Catee thought it could do something differently ?
I do agree with you Andi: specifications are really too “low”, either in terms of hardware (screen, RAM/ROM, SoC MTK6572 Dual-Core) and software (Android 4.2.2). This is a device of year 2011 imho…
Please 1949deal, don’t waste your time and money in such a product: instead, consider something like an Android One device, with according and relevant specs 😉
Although it’s dual core, but 1949deal will make a big promotion about it, and it will be the cheapest 5.5inch 3g smartphone with fat gifts in 1949deal. Although quad core is very hot, dual core smartphone with fat gifts will also enjoy popularity as gifts in many countries. Not everything is perfect for today’s smartphones.
Not everything is perfect, but this thing is just terrible. Even with a lot of freebies, no one should use something like this unless they’re paid to.
haha, nice bit of spam from 1949deal …..
lol 😀
“Not everything is perfect for today’s smartphones.”
no ,most people dont want 5.5 inch screen, 5 is the sweetspot for many, but this phone is complete @!$#% , 512mb ram?? 540p?? and 5.5 inches? sure i want a shovel that freeze even with the basic facebook/twitter apps…. no thanks ,the cheapest i would go for a phone is redmi 1s range and thats for my parents who dont use apps at all and want a smooth phone,
for someone in a european country who looks into stuff like chinese smartphones noone is gonna be interested in a phone like this,
sorry 1949deal but that phone is bad and it shouldnt be made anymore, even 1gb ram phones shouldnt be made anymore imo…
lol, i believe 1949deal has the reason to choose this one, and later they will give us more surprise about it. So just wait and see! catee ct550 will make a miracle, right? hope it can be the cheapest 5.5inch 3g smartphone with fat gifts for its users that are interested in it.
Stop advertising, do you really think people will buy this phone even if you did, this is a massive flop and it likely can’t even run basic applications, I personally had a LG Optimus L3 it was rubbish and yet had specifications that were better than this, I even have a ZTE Blade 3 with 1gig of RAM, 4GB ROM and a dual-core 1GHz Processor its awful to.
The fact that manufacturers are still making these baffles me. They aren’t of good quality, they have generic designs, the specifications are terrible, it’s not going to last even 3 weeks and to top it off, if you add $30 more you can get an iOcean X1 with superior specs, build and quality from the same website. Add another $10 and you can an Elephone G5 with pretty much better everything. These things should not exist, let alone be sold in an online store.
I agree with pa5t1s, an Android One device would be better than this monstrosity.
+1 for iOcean X1 😉
+1 for Elephone (I bought a G4 for my kid 😉
@pa5t1s:disqus The G4 is good so far?
Dunno, it’s still pre-sell and didn’t get it yet 🙂 Anyway, it’s a nice looking phone, with humble specs, at a nice price… Perfect for Xmas!
oh, it is pre sell, i see.
elephone g4 is also a good smartphone with competitive price, and i see 1949deal is in stock now and later they will release the great promotion for this smartphone. Hope i can get the lowest price about it, and more gifts for me. i can share it to you. http://goo.gl/Ce62LA
iocean X1 has 10usd coupon in 1949deal.com, coupon code is 10coupon20141008,
and the special price is $102.99. http://goo.gl/aSi8rs
i will make a great comparison between catee ct550 and iocean x1.
I totally agree with you.
I’m afraid it will be a cheap gift, with lots of tears 🙁
I agree with Andi, but people are still making phones with 256mb of ram like the discovery V8. At least this phone is an improvement over that.
Link: https://www.fastcardtech.com/Discovery-v8-Android-Phone-Yellow.html
For me, iwill make a comparison among catee ct550, iocean x1, elephone g4 in 1949deal.com, but not consider discovery v8, it’s not so powerful as those smartphone. I wil make a good decision.
WHY THE MAKE SHIT LIKE THIS. Some phones are really cool for a very low price.
But you have in China 2 kind of phones. OR the specs are highend and you pay about 450USD. Or you pay for a highend phone about 300USD with a battery below 2800mah
Well it certainly is no JiaYu, their entry level phones are a class way above these.
Specs are just too low to do anything with it. There are better budget phones for not that much more money.
“to top it all off has just a dual-core processor!”>>>>really Andi? seems like hardly a fail to me..when over 80% of apps are barely taking advantage of more than 2 cores…In fact, the iPhone 6 is still pushing a dual core…and i’m sure it will be faster than my octa-core(depressing….isn’t it)
Sure the iPhone also has 2 cores, but apple’s cores are miles faster than what this phone is using. It won’t matter if an app only utilizes 1 core because the IPC is so bad on these cores, it’ll be slow anyway.
there are no facts at all to back this absurd statement up. Please do not listen to this person
I totally agree with Andi. I don’t want larger phones, but phones with better specs.
The only real thing I can see this phone used for is a tablet-like “portable youtube/video player” for BlackBerry users with their small screens…. besides that this phone needs to be destroyed.
Phones for less than 120 USD shouldn”t have 5+ inch screens, as thst also results in qhd resolutions or lower to keep the costs low. A 4.5 720p screen is much more appreciated.
If you want a decent cheap phone $89 will get you a quad core Jiayu G2F on AliExpress
Hear, hear!! Excellent phone!
right now, the standard of low-cost china smartphones are mt6582, 1gb ram, 4-8 gb rom, 5 inches display and 2000-2250mah battery… It seems this phone really didn’t hit any of those specs!
Please try to review THL T6 Pro… Available for 99 – 116 USD (depending on reseller, some cheaper sites “out of stock”), octacore, 5 inch HD, 1GB RAM, Wifi display (Miracast): looks like a steal 😉
THL makes quality phones, if you are thinking about buying it. I have owned a few THL phones in the past and all have been very good to excellent. They are good build quality and I never had a problem with customer service. They even replaced my Monkey King 2 free of charge because of a problem I was experiencing.
The CT550 is 100% useless. Agree full with you Andi, a 4.5 Incher with 1GB Ram is the minimum today. It can be a 5.5 as well, but also minimum 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM and HD screen.
Everything else is a waste of resources…
No it is a bad phone. Jiayu G2F TD was a proper specced budget phone for that price. Dual core in 2014 is embarrassing. It would make a nice dumbphone killer at $50 though.
To be honest I wouldn’t look at anything that didn’t have 2gigs of Ram, I ordered a thl 5000 to upgrade from my beloved and first chinese phone iocean x7youth.
My only gripe is that I wish they’d make note accessories in the vein of covers/cases for the Chinese phones.
The 1949 staff comments are a bit cringey too lol
As of now being internet available to anyone and everyone!! People have become much more aware about their phones and the hardwares running their phone! There was a time when I used to speak crazy about all the hardwares and people looked at me with their eyes wide open! But now when I something similar, they join me instead of getting astonished! It clearly is a change! My sister she is not willing to take my Xiaomi Mi3 since it is having Snapdragon 800, she is saying she wants nothing less than 801 or the MTK6596 and 3gb ram! I told that is not your requirement! She argues, I want it! O.o
I think OEMs should stop manufacturing such phones and build some respectable or innovative features in their phones instead of just packing up stuff and bringing stock android.
Low resolution… 512mb is ridicoules low, the whole phone is uber garbage quality. Nobody is interested in anno 2003 phones.
put it 1GB RAM, 3500mah battery,4.4 kitkat , 8GB internal storage, i don’t care anything else. this is most budget user want if 1949deal can manage do this your can grab average joe in budget like me