If you’re in the market for a cheap Android phone, the Itel A16 Plus is one of the phones I can suggest.
While this phone comes with a few good features, if I had to save you from a lot of trouble, I’d say don’t buy this device if you can’t put your phone down.
The battery on the Itel A16 Plus isn’t ideal for heavy users. We’ll talk more about that down the road.
So before we get into the nits and grits of the A16 Plus, if you want to get the A16 Plus for yourself, you can click the link below.
See current offers on Jumia by clicking here.
What’s in the Box?
The Itel A16 Plus comes with all the basic things all phones come with.
You get the phone itself, a charger head, the battery, a micro USB cord, a pair of regular headphones, and a plastic case (no, I didn’t say silicon).
If yours comes with more, well, sucks to be me.
Design
The A16 Plus has a typical design, however, the USB port is placed on top of the phone.
You also get the headphone jack here. Having the USB cord attached to the top of a phone isn’t something you usually see these days.
And so far, I haven’t been comfortable using the phone while it charges. I’m guessing that’s a good thing since the phone isn’t supposed to be used while it charges.
More on that when we get to the battery section.
Like I said, having the USB port on top of the phone made it uncomfortable for me, but I believe that’s because I’ve always used phones with USB ports on the bottom.
So I can’t say this is a good or bad thing.
Ironically, I like that the headphone jack is on top of the phone.
While there’s nothing on the left side, you get the typical power button and volume buttons on the right.
The buttons are very clicky, and reachable as well. I don’t think you’ll have any problem with the phone’s buttons.
Behind the phone is where you’ll find the 5MP camera and the LED flash.
They protrude a little and make the phone wobble on a flat surface, but don’t worry, the phone doesn’t wobble to the point that you can’t use it.
You also get that vinyl disc design here. You can scratch it with your fingernails to pass time or become your DJ.
On the front, you have the selfie camera, the earpiece, and the front flash. Ideally, you also get the proximity sensors here that you can’t see.
So far, while making calls with the device, it sometimes lights up.
This means the proximity sensor isn’t very accurate. While making phone calls, the phone should not light up because it’s close to your ear.
This may be a normal thing for the phone or I may have a defective model.
Anyways, there’s not a lot happening on the device in terms of design here.
Finally, on the bottom, you get the mouthpiece for your phone calls and audio related activities.
Although this is a typical design, you may have noticed that you don’t get a normal speaker. Well, this is because the earpiece doubles as a speaker.
I haven’t found that ideal because you can’t play music and keep the phone face down. Your music is going to get muffled.
Well, that’s just for me. Overall, you get a decently designed phone. You don’t get features like water resistance or wireless charging but I’m sure you weren’t expecting that.
Display
While this is not a fancy display with a high refresh rate, it is quite good. This is because the screen is quite small and the pixels aren’t getting stretched out.
And a lot was done to make it look like the display is sharp, but well, you will notice some blurriness here and there.
Anyways, so it is a 5-inch, 480 x 854 screen, for the specs guys out there.
From my use of the device so far, the screen has been responsive. It’s not the smoothest screen out there but it gets the job done.
While under the sun, you’ll find it a bit difficult to use. The brightness on the phone isn’t ideal for that. Especially if you have issues with your eyes.
The A16 Plus doesn’t have an Auto-brightness option. This means you may find yourself struggling with the device while trying to use it under the sun because the screen is going to be too dark.
Manually trying to increase the brightness is a pain sometimes.
You can tweak the screen using some of the options available on the device. The most important options are the Font size and display size.
The font size adjusts the size of texts on the phone. You can make your texts big or small, while the display size adjusts the size of icons and everything else.
There’s not a lot to say here about this screen, for the price of the device, I can’t complain about the screen.
Performance
I was actually impressed by the performance on the A16 Plus. It’s only got 1GB RAM and a 1.3GHz Quad-core CPU.
However, the phone has been responsive so far.
Apps launch fast, they stay working in the background and the phone isn’t as slow as I thought it would be.
I haven’t been able to play any games on the device and I don’t plan to either.
This is because the phone only has 8GB internal storage. Sure that’s okay for games, but I have more important apps I’ll be using instead of games.
And even though you can play games, this is not a device I would recommend playing heavy games on. The battery is not ideal.
You can expand the storage on the device, using an SD card of up to 32GB.
That’s not a lot of space, but well, that’s what you should expect from an 18,000 Naira phone.
It also comes with Android 8.1 Oreo. With Android 11 now getting released on some devices, soon this device isn’t going to get updates.
After getting the device, it had a 44mb October update, and a November update. For now, it may still be getting updates for a few months.
Cameras
Talking about cameras isn’t what I like doing, I hardly buy phones because of their cameras, neither do I frequently use the cameras.
However, I did check out the cameras on the A16 Plus, and well the selfie one is horrible.
It is a 2 Megapixel camera. And it is as bad as that number. Using the camera makes you look like you’re still buffering in real life.
The camera also makes you look like you’re too close to the phone.
I was on a WhatsApp call with the device and I was told to move back. That was the first time in my life that I ever heard something like that.
But the good part of it is, at least you are able to make video calls using the device. And it comes with a flash as well.
You can shoot 480p videos with the camera.
The back camera is a bit better. It is a 5 Megapixel camera.
It is sharper, also comes with a flash, and shoots 720p videos max. You’re going to be using this camera more anyways so don’t worry, it’s good enough.
Here’s a link to some camera samples on Google Drive. You can download and check out the pictures if you want.
Battery
Now the battery is one of the things about the A16 Plus that isn’t good. It is a 2050mAh battery.
Unless you hardly use your phone, this device is going to be a pain for you as you watch the battery die. One minute it’s 90%, the next it’s 87%.
I believe this battery can do 6 hours of active usage after charging to 100%.
I was able to use around 20% in approximately 1 hour. But this was with internet turned on. If you’re using the phone offline, you’re probably going to get an additional hour.
The A16 Plus is not a device you want to carry out heavy activities on.
You don’t get fast charging. This is one of those phones you’ll have to constantly charge if you are always using your device.
It takes around 6 hours to fully charge.
I got the phone down to around 10% and charged it for 6 hours before it got to 100%. For a small battery, it really takes a while to fully charge.
While you’re charging this device, make sure you stay away from it, and turn off your mobile data for it to charge faster.
But honestly, I wish they’d have gotten rid of the selfie camera and made the battery 3,000mAh instead.
There are quite a few things you’re getting and not getting on the A16 Plus, below are some of them.
Available
- Headphone Jack
- LED Flash (front and back)
- SD Card support
- Dedicated SD card slot
- FM Radio
- 3G
- Dual SIM
Not Available
- Fingerprint scanner
- Fast charging
- 4G
Price
The Itel A16 Plus currently costs 18,000 Naira, which converts to approximately $47. You can see the receipt in the image below. It’s a fair price for a device with the features it comes with.
To see current offers click here.
Who is the Itel A16 Plus For?
There are different categories of people that can use this device. I bought it as a last resort because my main phone got damaged and I needed something to use while I waited. Plus, I had to travel, so I needed music.
With that said, I can recommend the A16 Plus to anyone who just needs a cheap phone they won’t be carrying out most of their activities on. This is because of the battery.
They should use it for their phone calls, occasional browsing, and other light activities.
The A16 Plus is also a phone you can get for senior citizens, non-tech savvy people, and people with a lot of patience.
Conclusion
Well, that’s all I can say about the Itel A16 Plus for now. However, I’ll be showing you some tips and tricks you can carry out on the phone.
If you plan to use the device, you’ll probably need to know some (if not all) of them.
If you have questions, you can leave them in the comments and I’ll respond when I can.
