Aspera R5

Terrible, just terrible – Very out of date. Too loud even with sound all the way down. Only certain type of chargers can work. Buttons are faulty. The only good thing about it is that it wont break if you drop it. I would not recommend buying this terrible phone unless you were using as a hammer.  Show details

The 1 star is for it's 68IP rating. Otherwise this phone is trash – Buttons on the hand piece are crap, either don't click or click twice. Make a call and the receiver can hear you but you can't hear them. Can not receive photos, File too large. Can not take photos and use them or send them File too large... Photos are blurry anyway. It takes lousy photos. Cannot get Wi-Fi or any form of IT. File too large... No wonder we are skint - Aussie manufacturing is crap..... morons.  Show details

Mnnnnnn guess all I can say don't buy this phone – So here is an honest appraisal of this phone: Battery life is very bad ,& shuts itself down in middle of phone call, even though battery indicator still indicates life......needs charging every day..keeps switching itself into lock mode....No technical backup & cant contact tech support. .charger slot in phone is dodgy at best...cheap all… Read more

over!....purchased from "post office" and guy now says he has had 5 returned with all sorts of faults....very frustrating phone, worst one I've ever owned..doesnt do what advertised..best I can say is strong durable phone case.

R5 Aspera – Phone won't recharge, battery life can be as little as 2 hours after full recharge, bluetooth doesn't work, very slow on the internet, apps always a struggle to get workng. to heavy, battery gets very hot in hand. Camera is of poor quality. Widgets do not work. No technical support.  Show details

The R5 and R6 and the real deal of Tough Phones – I have owned an Aspera R5, R5h and R6. The Aspera R5 is not advertised as a 3G phone. It does work very well on Telstra's WCDMA 2100 network, I get download speeds of up to 20mBps on a busy network, which is fast enough to do whatever you need. The Aspera R6 has LTE, Band 28 in 1800 mHz and 2600mHz (contrary to some unfounded talk on the net)… Read more

which works just fine for Australia's LTE networks. I have personally tested this phone on these sub-bands of LTE by the way.

Overall:

I have never had a phone I can literally drive a car over and the thing is fine. I have dropped my phone literally into the ocean, and it came out fine. (talking about the R5/R5h). I have left it on rooftops and other tradies have casually walked on it, it's not even bothered, so neither am I.

One thing I absolutely love is the hang up and call buttons. They are awesome if you are busy on the phone all day long like me...

The R6 charges superfast, and is superfast with decent battery life. The R5 battery life is ok, but it definitely doesn't charge fast. In fact, it normally takes around 8 hrs to charge which is a bit ridiculous. Must remember to connect before sleep.

People who buy these kind of phones are not looking for a Samsung S7 that will last a few days in the hands of a tradie. They are looking for a genuinely tough phone. If you're looking for technical masterpiece, these are definitely not for you, however, if you're looking for a genuine 'tough' phone, look no further.

For what it is meant to do, these phones do it very very well.

R5/R5h Pros:

Loud speaker is loud, Toughness, Hangup/call buttons are awesome. Camera is pretty good for 8mp

Cons:

Kitkat 4.4.4. software issues, memory, charging socket, flash could be brighter, battery takes foooorrrreeeevvverrrr to charge.

R6

Pros: Fast to charge, bigger screen, super fast fast processors (octa core), still tough

Cons: No hang up or call buttons like the R5, loud speaker is very quiet, camera should be better for 13mp, seems like the same camera from the R5.

Bad Built with Rubber/Polymer components which in my phone torn out in an year – Pros 1.Battery wise excellent 2.A great tough& rough Phone 3.Excellent sound quality (voice clarity&Ring sound) 4.Good Signal Strength Cons 1.Bad Built with Rubber/Polymer components which in my phone torn out(volume and Screen lock key) 2.Heavy&Bulky 3.While in pocket if you get a msg/call by then its key pad & screen will be active and chances of unknown outgoing calls/msg/data use.  Show details

Need help :) – I just bought this ph & setting it up & & hit a button & now it talks to u & gets me to hold then double click for the e icon but it will not let me scroll to the next page to fix it, im hoping an IT person can help me out

tough enough but could be a lot better – Owned for less than a year Pros: Drop proof Tough screen Cons: Lousy camera Dim screen Internal memory ridiculously small No 4G Fairly heavy Takes about 10-12 hours to fully charge Most phone chargers won't fit it Bluetooth is a glitchy My camera and microphone died at 11 months Camera button doesn't work most of the time … Read more

Battery life sub par

Overall the internal memory thing is my biggest gripe. Even with 32g micro SD in it and write to SD as default it seems to fill up too quickly and you're endlessly clearing app data or deleting caches.

If you spend much time outside and use your phone rule this one out, the brightness when you are outside is just no good.

I'm not sure if its my phone or not but from day dot it takes forever to recharge. I can put it on charge before I go to bed and it will be on 70% when I wake up.

Biggest waste of money ever! – Great marketing (lying more like) from Aspera and Harvey Norman about this junk chinese made 'smart' phone. Android system crashed several times and the company have NO customer service, just some guy working out of a shed in Melbourne! Very poor in function. Camera has bad resolution, tiny internal drive is useless and fills quickly. Never buy from these amateurs.

Not too bad so far – I bought the aspera r5h mobile smartphone device from Australia post shop and so far so good as it's got all i need and it's easy to use though the think I like about it is its waterproof ability in the rain

is everthing i expected – I have had this phone now for 6 months. I bought it because due to the nature of my work all other phones last 6 months at best. This being my 4th this year. So far so good everything is operating as normal. It did take a little getting used to as the manual didn't explain many of the functions and I am still findind out little short cuts I wasn't… Read more

aware of. Bluetooth and 3g work perfect for me as does most the other features. The internet explorer app can be a little dodgy sometimes but when I close it and reopen it its fine. All in all I bought this phone for its durability and so far so good

Worst phone ever owned – Thought yeah good phone good for what I do speakers screw out though it was my fault so got another one had this for 5 months. Speakers gone again, ok well I'll deal with that theme phone starts locking and won't let me in then I'd send a message to a mate and I'd receive the same message all day, every minute of the day. This phone is crap and… Read more

for all who have purchased, we should be refunded. I haven't run out of warranty but to be honest, can't be bothered waiting for it to be fixed or Sent a new one for it to happen all a gain. I never send reviews but I am highly disappointed in this phone.

One of the worst phones I have owned – I have so far bought 3 Aspera phones (2 r5's & 1 R3) last year & they have all had it. 2 were lucky to last a couple of months before the speakers gave out. Now they are out of warranty all three have had it from broken speakers & microphones to touch screen rarely working properly. Now it has locked me out for about 30 mins as kept telling me I'm… Read more

using the wrong pattern to unlock. It frustrated me that much I thru it on the floor, now has a broken screen & the touch screen is now useless. So I'm looking for a new phone which won't be an Aspera.

Don't buy – This phone frustrates me every time I have to use. Bluetooth needs to be constantly reconnected. After 2 months of very little use the screen cover is very scratched. Settings randomly change themselves including screen brightness which makes it impossible to see in daylight. Pocket dials continually. Also, aeroplane mode activated on its own, one… Read more

time costing me a days worth of calls as phone didn't ring. Hard to navigate even simple things like SMS and calls.

Will be going back to iPhone with life proof case.

not what it's cracked up to be – We saw the reviews for this robust workers phone on a current affairs programme and decided it's worth a shot. Well great clarity of voice but sadly that is where the story ends. Under no circumstances would this phone pick up 3g service and a short battery life that took hours to recharge. The 399.00 I paid was a waste as our mobiles are our only source of internet and phone.

Bluetooth is Useless – My phones cop rough treatment and I've been through 3 or 4 in the last 4 years. I've used a flip type case with all of them. My last couple have been Samsung Galaxy S3s. Choice Magazine had just completed a review on mobile phones and the Aspera R5 (3G) did very well and was also the most rugged phone. I like the Samsungs - menus are logical… Read more

and easy to navigate, good camera and very simple to use.

Unfortunately I was disappointed with all of the above in the Aspera R5. Maybe I need to get used to it but I don't find the Aspera simple to use even though it's pretty basic. I get caught up in the menu trying to locate different functionalities. Camera does have some good options, multiple shots (40) with the touch of a button but picture quality isn't as good (to be expected as the R5 has fewer megapixels).

When texting the text field is difficult to read as the colour scheme is blue text on black background.

Ergonomics could have been better as when the screen times out you need to press the power button which is located on the top (on the side) of the phone which I find awkward. It's quite heavy but that's the trade off for something rugged. It's waterproof, dust proof, has rubberised protection around its extremities and the back cover is screwed in place so it should be pretty robust. Just make sure you have a screwdriver/5 cent coin on you, just in case you need to take the back cover off.

With only 1GB of internal memory (useless) an SD card is a must.

The charger connection is USB but frustratingly, not all my spare USB chargers work in the Aspera.

One potential clanger is that the R5 won't work on the 900MHz frequency used by Optus (my service provider). Even though I provided Optus specific regional street addresses they were unclear as to which frequency is available at those locations so it's a matter of wait and see.

The phone regularly doesn't connect to my car's bluetooth. I've tried turning the phone's bluetooth on and off but that doesn't seem to work so I have to resort to turning the car off and on, usually a couple of times for the connection to work. My S3s did this every now and then (nowhere near as often as the R5) but I could turn the S3's bluetooth off then back on and there'd be a connection with the car.

The manual that comes with the phone is inadequate; has basic instructions with little or no detail.

Given the chance again I may well have bought another Samsung to avoid some of the frustrations I'm experiencing.

But it is rugged so hopefully I'll become comfortable with the R5 and hopefully there'll be no issues re the 900MHz frequency.

Ok, it's 2 months down the track.

The bluetooth is a real frustration as for the last 3 weeks or so there's been no connection with my car. I was able to turn the phone's bluetooth off then back on (everytime I got in my car) but I soon tired of that and the result is that I miss calls when I'm driving.

Trying to bluetooth to my laptop is another failed exercise.

Using the internet (or should I say 'trying' to use the internet) is another source of frustration as it seems to take forever and now I don't bother..

I've read online that the internals of this phone are behind the times and from my experiences no argument from me. This phone has successfully converted me to someone who only uses their phone for calls, messaging and fotos.

Would not buy again (regardless of Choice Magazine's findings) and changing my rating to 2.

After 8 months...

Settings on the phone seem to randomly change themselves, volume & screen brightness. While in my pocket and even while locked phone calls are attempted, obviously the lock is bypassed by the emergency call feature - not good. Speakers volume went so unless I had the phone in my hand all calls/messages were missed so I had to check the phone regularly. Not good for business. Menus and functionality is still frustrating after 8 months. 900Mhz situation was never an issue travelling around Sydney, Wagga Wagga and up the coast to Taree.

Finally gave the phone in to Harveys Jan 2016 for repair (under warranty). After a couple of days Harveys advised that Aspera don't repair their phones and to come in and get a new one. No R5s available so got an R5h but had to pay $25 :(. Not happy about that as it wasn't my fault the R5 broke! Oh well.

R5h on paper is a better phone.