【9k Jogabilidade】9k Jogabilidade

9k Jogabilidade

We’re sure you are well aware that keeping up with the latest Chinese phone releases is pretty difficult, and comparing phones even more so, so to make things easier Gizchina have put together a Chinese phone comparison tool!Are you a fan of Chinese phones? Are you stuck choosing between the latest, JiaYu, Xiaomi, Huawei, or Star models? Wouldn’t it be great if there was a Chinese phone comparison tool?Well now there is!Over the past week we have been keeping ourselves busy by preparing the all new Gizchina Chinese phone comparison tool, an easy system for you to simply compare up to 3 phones at once!Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramCurrently we have over 70 Chinese phone models listed, however we will be adding more phones daily and we are sure to reach the hundreds in just a few days!As always the information we provide is totally free of charge, and all we ask is that you LIKE the tool on Facebook to promote the system. Also, as this is a new system we are open to suggestions so please let us know what you think here or on the comments section where the comparison tool is located.jogos que ganha dinheiro JogabilidadeAnother great video for all you potential JiaYu G4 owners. Below we have a 1080p video sample filmed on the G4 though it’s 13 mega-pixel Sony rear sensor.As we all know the rear camera on the new JiaYu is a 13 mega-pixel Sony sensor which is capable of 1080p video capture.鑱絀n this video we get to see 1080p capture first hand and it looksbet365 casino Jogabilidade quite good, with good focus and no hunting for the subject. We would like to see some better contrast but as this is a pre production phone and the software hadn’t been fully optimised we can hope for an improvement when the phone finally ships.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramWatch the JiaYu G4 1080 video sample here

A small selection of sample photos taken with the JiaYu G4’s 13 mega-pixel rear camera with download link to full size images.With the first batch of just 2000 JiaYu G4 phones about to go on sale this Sunday JiaYu are releasing more detailed information to help potential customers with their purchase.The first is photographic evidence from the G4’s main, 13 mega-pixel camera to prove just how well it performs. The selection which (taken by an early beater tester) is only small but gives us a look at how the phone captures images in both day and night lighting conditions.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramBelow are the photos reduced for web viewing, full size, untouched images can be downloaded here.Xiaomi launched the updated M2S and all new Xiaomi M2A on Tuesday, but real photos of the all new entry-level phone have been difficult to get hold of until today.Xiaomi are not your typical smartphone manufacturer. Everything they do is different from the high specs and low pricing, to their sales and marketing strategies, and now even their latest phone!Although the Xiaomi M2S is the companies more powerful flagship model, the lower price M2A is such a great phone we expect many Xiaomi fans opt for the cheaper phone! Even I’m considering to buy one!If we didn’t know any better we would assume the larger of the two phones shown here is the flagship Xiaomi model, but this is not the case! In fact the cheaper Xiaomi M2A has a larger 4.5-inch display where as the M2S has a 4.3-inch unit.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramAs the M2A started as a blank canvas the designers behind the phone have managed to include some other great features, features which the top-of-the-range phone doesn’t have! NFC is built in to the new phone allowing for easy transfer of data and electronic payment, WI-FI has been updated with a new 5Ghz chip, and Dirac HD Sound has been included to allow to easily connect to car audio systems!The M2A represents such great value that even owners of the current Mi2 might even consider buying one an upgrade, if they don’t mind just 1GB RAM and a dual-core CPU.Speaking of the CPU, the M2A uses an updated version the dual-core Qualcomm S4 Pro based on Krait 300 architecture, running at 1.7Ghz. This is by no means a slow phone!Xiaomi launched the updated M2S and all new Xiaomi M2A on Tuesday, but real photos of the all new entry-level phone have been difficult to get hold of until today.Xiaomi are not your typical smartphone manufacturer. Everything they do is different from the high specs and low pricing, to their sales and marketing strategies, and now even their latest phone!Although the Xiaomi M2S is the companies more powerful flagship model, the lower price M2A is such a great phone we expect many Xiaomi fans opt for the cheaper phone! Even I’m considering to buy one!If we didn’t know any better we would assume the larger of the two phones shown here is the flagship Xiaomi model, but this is not the case! In fact the cheaper Xiaomi M2A has a larger 4.5-inch display where as the M2S has a 4.3-inch unit.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramAs the M2A started as a blank canvas the designers behind the phone have managed to include some other great features, features which the top-of-the-range phone doesn’t have! NFC is built in to the new phone allowing for easy transfer of data and electronic payment, WI-FI has been updated with a new 5Ghz chip, and Dirac HD Sound has been included to allow to easily connect to car audio systems!The M2A represents such great value that even owners of the current Mi2 might even consider buying one an upgrade, if they don’t mind just 1GB RAM and a dual-core CPU.Speaking of the CPU, the M2A uses an updated version the dual-core Qualcomm S4 Pro based on Krait 300 architecture, running at 1.7Ghz. This is by no means a slow phone!Hero are one of the more established Android phone makers here in China, and their reach has managed to find its way to customers in market across the world. For 2013 Hero have embraced 5-inch, quad-core MT6589 phones and we got to test the Hero H7500+. Keep reading for the full review.Hero manufacture their phones in the same factory as Zopo and Ceaser, and it’s quite common for Zopo and Hero phones to launch with the same designs and specification. The Hero H7500+ for example is the same phone as the Zopo 810, but just how good is the Hero version?Design, feel and qualityThe Hero H7500+ is a 5-inch phone, but it doesn’t sport the narrow bezels found on other phones (5mm from screen to edge of phone), this together with the overall thickness of the phone would make it quite cumbersome for those with smaller hands to use. That’s not to say it works well in larger hands though.When held in my right hand the power/lock screen button can be pressed with the center of my thumb. Perfect! You might think, but with the power button in this position the volume rocker sits further down meaning I am forced to readjust my grip when trying to adjust the volume.Not a huge complaint on its own, but when you are holding a it one-handed the glossy plastic rear shell can make things a little hairy at times! Thankfully I didn’t manage to drop the Hero while testing, but I did have some near misses!Speaking of that glossy rear, I’m not a fan. I don’t like it on my personal phone (the Xiaomi Mi2) and I don’t like it on the Hero. The glossy rear means zero friction between table tops, car dashboards and when in your pocket. This results in a phone that won’t stay still while used as an in car GPS, one which will happily fly out of your pocket (if you have tighter, more fitted clothing) and makes it easy to be dragged off the table while plugged in to its charger.Zopo have sorted this with a rubberized finish on the ZP810, however Hero have resorted to providing a rubber case with the phone. This does work, but makes an already large phone simply huge!And this brings me on to another point. The H7500+ is not a thin phone (142 x 74 x 10mm according to my measurements) I don’t see why the designers have insisted on making the 8 mega-pixel rear camera sit proud of the body!? It would probably have fitted flush and would have improved the looks. I rather like the protruding camera on the HTC One X, but on the Hero it just seems unnecessary.With all this said though, the Hero does feel well made. The plastics don’t feel cheap, the steel band which encircles the phone fits well, there are no burrs or sharp edges. I’m happy with the overall quality (well except the screen but I’ll come on to that). DSC02986 DSC02987 DSC02990 DSC02991 hero h7500+ hands on review hero h7500+ hands on review hero h7500+ hands on review hero h7500+ hands on review Screen: bright but thick and then there is something else鈥?The Hero H7500+ isn’t the lightest phone in the world (181g) due to the large battery, overall size, but mainly due to the thick glass screen. Most manufactures of quad-core MT6589 phones have updated the displays OGS panels which helps keeps the weight and girth down. Hero haven’t, and turning the phone on its side you can see just how thick the glass is.As far as we can tell the display isn’t Gorilla Glass or AGS, so be careful with it! A good drop will likely spell the end of it.In use the screen is good. The 1280 x 720 resolution means you will be getting a 5-inch 720p display rather than a full HD unit, but in use I found it to be nice, bright and more than adequate for gaming and watching movies. I even passed the phone around some iPhone and 1080HD Android phone users and many commented on how good the screen was for a 720 unit.I can also confirm that the display on our test Hero H7500+ has been fully inspected and has passed a strict quality inspection! How? Well when using the phone in bright sunlight for this review I noticed a distinct ‘check’ appear on the screen in permanent marker!It seems the screen had been marked fit for use and then not correctly cleaned as the check is now clearly visible even when the display is locked!Performance: impressive turn of speed from the quad-core MT6589 processorPerformance is not an issue with the Hero H7500+. The 1.2Ghz quad-core MT6589 processor and 1GB RAM provide more than enough grunt and as they only have to drive a 720 display benchmarks are impressive too.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramRunning Antutu on the Hero H7500+ resulted in a score of 12,745 which is on par with phones such as the 1GB JiaYu G4.Quadrant also resulted in an impressive score as the Hero managed 3643.Benchmarks are one thing, but what about real world use? Well gaming is fantastic, I tested the graphically challenging Riptide GP on the Hero and it handled the fast frame rate and close racing action without a skip. The Hero also managed to keep from overheating while gaming, actually cooler than the Mi2 in some situations.UPDATE: As requested I have also ran Epic Citadel benchmark on the Hero which achieved 44.3FPS.Browsing the web is also fast, with even heavy webpages opening at an impressive speed.Camera: Very good 8 mega-pixel camera聽The rear camera on the Hero H7500+ is an 8 mega-pixel unit with a 2 mega-pixel unit performing self-portrait and video call duty on the front.I was pleasantly surprised with the performance of the 8 mega-pixel rear camera. Images taken on bright sunny days, dull rainy conditions and even in dimly lit coffee shops came out really well! Better than expected! Don’t go expecting the same level of quality you get from a more expensive Xiaomi Mi2 or better equipped Newman N2, but for the price you won’t be disappointed! hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample IMG_20130312_123755 IMG_20130312_123745 IMG_20130312_123738 IMG_20130312_123731 IMG_20130312_123731 IMG_20130312_123738 IMG_20130312_123745 IMG_20130312_123755 The built-in camera featurea HDR and burst mode. Strangely I found HDR on the Hero made images darker and less impressive than they were when taken in the regular camera mode. The burst setting is fast, but needs some optimisation to be really workable, if this is something you want though you could always use the Fast Burst Camera app which I find performs a great job.I don’t tend to use the video capture option on any smartphone all that often, but when I do I prefer the autofocus to behave itself and stop hunting for focus. The Hero was very naughty in this respect and seemed to be constantly distracted with everything going on around it.You can download full size photo samples taken with the Hero H7500+ here.Other detailsI know that many of you have asked questions (and will likely ask further questions below) and I’ve tried to test most things which are possible for me to test here in China.GPSGPS works very well. It locks on quickly and is accurate. This is not like the old days of the MT6577, this GPS is usable. As for Glonass, I wasn’t able to connect to any Glonass satellites during our review, and that’s trying the phone on dull rainy and clear sunny days.BatteryThe battery on the Hero H7500+ is a 2800mAh unit, in fact it comes with 2 which was a very nice surprise. Using the phone with 3G, GPS and Wi-Fi on, as I always do resulted in a full day of use without the need for a top up. Gaming and video does reduce this though, so if you are more of a gamer than I am (I don’t have time 馃檨 ) then you will want to either carry the spare battery or the cable with you.Charging the battery for 0 – 100% took around 3 1/2 hours for a new battery.Network supportAccording to Hero the H7500+ GSM 850/900/1800/1900 & WCDMA 850/2100 MHz. I was only able to test the phone using my China Unicom 3G SIM and low and behold it works fine!ConclusionSo after a good long test of the Hero H7500+ would I recommend you buy it?If you are looking for a quad-core MT6589 phone with good camera and want the phone right this moment then I would say it’s probably your only option (unless you want to spend a little more and get one of the Zopo phones) ! I would also say it’s probably going to be the cheapest alternative (for those of you not in China and buying through a reseller) and is going to be pretty easy to get hold of.However, if I was in the market for a quad-core MT6589 phone right now, I would wait! There are more attractive, better spec’d and nicer designed phones on their way. Yes, they will cost more, and yes they will be a nightmare to get hold of but I would hold off getting the Hero unless I really wanted an MT6589 phone this very second.This is all relative though there are going to be scores of people who will absolutely love the Hero H7500+ and it is without doubt better than a lot of the phones on sale now, but knowing what’s just around the corner I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on a Hero H7500+ for myself.Hero are one of the more established Android phone makers here in China, and their reach has managed to find its way to customers in market across the world. For 2013 Hero have embraced 5-inch, quad-core MT6589 phones and we got to test the Hero H7500+. Keep reading for the full review.Hero manufacture their phones in the same factory as Zopo and Ceaser, and it’s quite common for Zopo and Hero phones to launch with the same designs and specification. The Hero H7500+ for example is the same phone as the Zopo 810, but just how good is the Hero version?Design, feel and qualityThe Hero H7500+ is a 5-inch phone, but it doesn’t sport the narrow bezels found on other phones (5mm from screen to edge of phone), this together with the overall thickness of the phone would make it quite cumbersome for those with smaller hands to use. That’s not to say it works well in larger hands though.When held in my right hand the power/lock screen button can be pressed with the center of my thumb. Perfect! You might think, but with the power button in this position the volume rocker sits further down meaning I am forced to readjust my grip when trying to adjust the volume.Not a huge complaint on its own, but when you are holding a it one-handed the glossy plastic rear shell can make things a little hairy at times! Thankfully I didn’t manage to drop the Hero while testing, but I did have some near misses!Speaking of that glossy rear, I’m not a fan. I don’t like it on my personal phone (the Xiaomi Mi2) and I don’t like it on the Hero. The glossy rear means zero friction between table tops, car dashboards and when in your pocket. This results in a phone that won’t stay still while used as an in car GPS, one which will happily fly out of your pocket (if you have tighter, more fitted clothing) and makes it easy to be dragged off the table while plugged in to its charger.Zopo have sorted this with a rubberized finish on the ZP810, however Hero have resorted to providing a rubber case with the phone. This does work, but makes an already large phone simply huge!And this brings me on to another point. The H7500+ is not a thin phone (142 x 74 x 10mm according to my measurements) I don’t see why the designers have insisted on making the 8 mega-pixel rear camera sit proud of the body!? It would probably have fitted flush and would have improved the looks. I rather like the protruding camera on the HTC One X, but on the Hero it just seems unnecessary.With all this said though, the Hero does feel well made. The plastics don’t feel cheap, the steel band which encircles the phone fits well, there are no burrs or sharp edges. I’m happy with the overall quality (well except the screen but I’ll come on to that). DSC02986 DSC02987 DSC02990 DSC02991 hero h7500+ hands on review hero h7500+ hands on review hero h7500+ hands on review hero h7500+ hands on review Screen: bright but thick and then there is something else鈥?The Hero H7500+ isn’t the lightest phone in the world (181g) due to the large battery, overall size, but mainly due to the thick glass screen. Most manufactures of quad-core MT6589 phones have updated the displays OGS panels which helps keeps the weight and girth down. Hero haven’t, and turning the phone on its side you can see just how thick the glass is.As far as we can tell the display isn’t Gorilla Glass or AGS, so be careful with it! A good drop will likely spell the end of it.In use the screen is good. The 1280 x 720 resolution means you will be getting a 5-inch 720p display rather than a full HD unit, but in use I found it to be nice, bright and more than adequate for gaming and watching movies. I even passed the phone around some iPhone and 1080HD Android phone users and many commented on how good the screen was for a 720 unit.I can also confirm that the display on our test Hero H7500+ has been fully inspected and has passed a strict quality inspection! How? Well when using the phone in bright sunlight for this review I noticed a distinct ‘check’ appear on the screen in permanent marker!It seems the screen had been marked fit for use and then not correctly cleaned as the check is now clearly visible even when the display is locked!Performance: impressive turn of speed from the quad-core MT6589 processorPerformance is not an issue with the Hero H7500+. The 1.2Ghz quad-core MT6589 processor and 1GB RAM provide more than enough grunt and as they only have to drive a 720 display benchmarks are impressive too.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramRunning Antutu on the Hero H7500+ resulted in a score of 12,745 which is on par with phones such as the 1GB JiaYu G4.Quadrant also resulted in an impressive score as the Hero managed 3643.Benchmarks are one thing, but what about real world use? Well gaming is fantastic, I tested the graphically challenging Riptide GP on the Hero and it handled the fast frame rate and close racing action without a skip. The Hero also managed to keep from overheating while gaming, actually cooler than the Mi2 in some situations.UPDATE: As requested I have also ran Epic Citadel benchmark on the Hero which achieved 44.3FPS.Browsing the web is also fast, with even heavy webpages opening at an impressive speed.Camera: Very good 8 mega-pixel camera聽The rear camera on the Hero H7500+ is an 8 mega-pixel unit with a 2 mega-pixel unit performing self-portrait and video call duty on the front.I was pleasantly surprised with the performance of the 8 mega-pixel rear camera. Images taken on bright sunny days, dull rainy conditions and even in dimly lit coffee shops came out really well! Better than expected! Don’t go expecting the same level of quality you get from a more expensive Xiaomi Mi2 or better equipped Newman N2, but for the price you won’t be disappointed! hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample hero h7500+ camera sample IMG_20130312_123755 IMG_20130312_123745 IMG_20130312_123738 IMG_20130312_123731 IMG_20130312_123731 IMG_20130312_123738 IMG_20130312_123745 IMG_20130312_123755 The built-in camera featurea HDR and burst mode. Strangely I found HDR on the Hero made images darker and less impressive than they were when taken in the regular camera mode. The burst setting is fast, but needs some optimisation to be really workable, if this is something you want though you could always use the Fast Burst Camera app which I find performs a great job.I don’t tend to use the video capture option on any smartphone all that often, but when I do I prefer the autofocus to behave itself and stop hunting for focus. The Hero was very naughty in this respect and seemed to be constantly distracted with everything going on around it.You can download full size photo samples taken with the Hero H7500+ here.Other detailsI know that many of you have asked questions (and will likely ask further questions below) and I’ve tried to test most things which are possible for me to test here in China.GPSGPS works very well. It locks on quickly and is accurate. This is not like the old days of the MT6577, this GPS is usable. As for Glonass, I wasn’t able to connect to any Glonass satellites during our review, and that’s trying the phone on dull rainy and clear sunny days.BatteryThe battery on the Hero H7500+ is a 2800mAh unit, in fact it comes with 2 which was a very nice surprise. Using the phone with 3G, GPS and Wi-Fi on, as I always do resulted in a full day of use without the need for a top up. Gaming and video does reduce this though, so if you are more of a gamer than I am (I don’t have time 馃檨 ) then you will want to either carry the spare battery or the cable with you.Charging the battery for 0 – 100% took around 3 1/2 hours for a new battery.Network supportAccording to Hero the H7500+ GSM 850/900/1800/1900 & WCDMA 850/2100 MHz. I was only able to test the phone using my China Unicom 3G SIM and low and behold it works fine!ConclusionSo after a good long test of the Hero H7500+ would I recommend you buy it?If you are looking for a quad-core MT6589 phone with good camera and want the phone right this moment then I would say it’s probably your only option (unless you want to spend a little more and get one of the Zopo phones) ! I would also say it’s probably going to be the cheapest alternative (for those of you not in China and buying through a reseller) and is going to be pretty easy to get hold of.However, if I was in the market for a quad-core MT6589 phone right now, I would wait! There are more attractive, better spec’d and nicer designed phones on their way. Yes, they will cost more, and yes they will be a nightmare to get hold of but I would hold off getting the Hero unless I really wanted an MT6589 phone this very second.This is all relative though there are going to be scores of people who will absolutely love the Hero H7500+ and it is without doubt better than a lot of the phones on sale now, but knowing what’s just around the corner I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on a Hero H7500+ for myself.

The JiaYu G4 is currently the most anticipated quad-core MT6589 phone of any manufacture today (check the poll here), and with it’s great styling, high performance and low-cost it’s easy to see why. So what else do we know about the JiaYu G4?What processor will the JiaYu G4 have?The JiaYu G4 will be JiaYu’s flagship MTK (Mediatek) phone for 2013, and as such it uses the top of the range quad-core Mediatek MT6589 processor running at 1.2 Ghz! We know from leaked benchmarks from the G4 and similar phones that this chip, together with at least 1GB RAM is capable of Antutu benchmarks close to 13,000!For more information about the Mediatek MT6589 quad-core processor, have a read of our full resource here.How much RAM will the JiaYu G4 have?Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe JiaYu G4 will come in two options. A entry-level “Youth” model which will cost 999 Yuan ($160) and a top of the range ‘Premium’ model which will cost slightly more. The cheaper ‘Youth’ model will have 1GB RAM while the top-of-the range ‘Premium’ G4 will have 2GB RAM.What screen does the JiaYu G4 have?Unlike most manufacturers JiaYu have decided that the G4 won’t get a 5-inch full HD display, and have instead designed the G4 with a 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 panel. This screen offers 720HD which for the size should look stunning and thanks to IPS technology, viewing angles will be superb. The screen is of course a multi-touch unit, has a PPI (pixel per inch) of 312 and boasts OGS (One Glass Solution) technology.Another great Chinese Android phone has landed on my desk. The 5.7-inch Zopo ZP950+ is Zopo’s large screen MT6589 phone and we have one on review now!It’s going to be a busy week for us next week as we will be putting the Hero H7500+ through its paces alongside the Zopo ZP950+ phablet (and if we’re lucky the Zopo 810+ too!).The ZP950+ is a 5.7-inch HD phablet from Zopo, one of the larger and better known local phone manufacturers. The phones offers a similar design to the ZP900 we reviewed last year, but with the addition of a larger display, more efficient quad-core MT6589 processor and improved 8 mega-pixel rear sensor.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramAccording to the official specification sheet, the Zopo ZP950+ Phablet packs 1GB RAM, 4GB ROM, an SD card reader with support for 64GB cards, 2 mega-pixel front camera, network support for GSM 850/900/1800/1900Mhz) WCDMA (850/2100Mhz) and runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.As with all Zopo phones, first impressions are good. The quality is superb and the overall feel is airing more on the premium side when compared to the chunky Hero. We haven’t had chance to run any benchmarks just yet and we can’t wait to fire it up and get the review underway.ViewSonic is a name that you would usually associate with LCD monitors, perhaps from the past. If you weren鈥檛 aware, the company also does smartphone, and the V500 happens to be one of them.The V500 is very much an entry-level to mid-range device. That is exactly the category that has seen a boom in the recent months; no one鈥檚 really spending US$500-600 to get a flagship phone anymore, or so it appears.The ViewSonic V500 comes with a 5.5-inch full HD display, and is powered by the Snapdragon 400 SoC. How good is the phone? Let鈥檚 find that out in the ViewSonic V500 review!ViewSonic V500 Review: DesignThere鈥檚 hardly anything to say about the design of this phone, for it鈥檚 a phone with a very generic bar-ish design. It does come with a couple of rear covers that try to add to the style quotient, however.The front of the phone is covered in glass (no mention of Gorilla Glass here), with the most space obviously being taken by the 5.5-inch 1080p panel. The setting is usual, nothing out of the ordinary; an earpiece on top (next to the usual suite of sensors), a 2 mega-pixel front camera and below the screen, the three capacitive buttons. Since this is a KitKat phone, the leftmost capacitive button is for accessing the menu rather than recent apps.Despite lacking Gorilla Glass, the screen coating on the V500 seems robust enough to be used without a screen protector. Through the weeks of usage I鈥檓 yet to encounter a scratch on the screen, so I assume it is perfectly safe to use it without a screen protector.The most impressive bit about the V500 is the metal lip around the screen. Phones that sell for around US$100 hardly feature any metal, and the ones that do hardly are generous with usage. The case here is different, and the V500 is made with a nice chunky yet stylish metal edge, with a glossy coating.The edges of the phone besides the metal are made up of an impressive rubbery-plastic combo material, which give you a nice grip when the phone is held in the hands. The rear, as mentioned, comes in two options — one with the same rubbery coating, and the other with a faux leather texture. I found the latter to be plain hideous.Taking off the rear is simple, you only need something to pry at it with. When you do that, the 2500mAh battery slot, 2x SIM slots and a microSD card slot are exposed. Nothing too fancy in here, and the speaker too is a simple single driver at the center below the battery slot. The camera with its single LED flash is found on the top left of the chassis. The camera does poke out of the body ever so slightly, but nothing to worry about.ViewSonic V500 Review: Screen Welcome to the section where you鈥檒l read about the best part of the ViewSonic V500. Yes, the display on the phone is a treat… and that shouldn鈥檛 be a surprise for ViewSonic has been in the display business for a long while. Although the V500 doesn鈥檛 really have the same sized panel as the monitors that the company makes, it does however have the same display quality.The screen is a 5.5-inch 1080p unit. Colors are really natural on the panel, far away from the supersaturated ones of a Super AMOLED screen. The resolution on offer — 1080p — is quite impressive too when you consider that the phone sells for US$110.Viewing angles are up to par and it鈥檚 in all a very nice display. Brightness is satisfactory, but the reflective front glass of the phone means that it can sometimes be a problem when used outdoors.The bezels are surprisingly narrow also, perhaps only a little thicker than the bezel-less Le 1 (of course it isn鈥檛 bezel-less). Like mentioned, the screen is easily the most impressive bit on the V500.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramViewSonic V500 Review: PerformanceIn the age of 64-bit octa-core chips, the Snapdragon 400 certainly sounds lacklustre. Unfortunately, that shows in real life usage also. First, it is disappointing that the phone ships only with Android KitKat and not Lollipop. MediaTek phones which often find themselves criticized for not having Android updates come with Lollipop, so there鈥檚 no excuse for having a KitKat system on the V500. I鈥檓 not sure how popular the V500 is going to be, so there鈥檚 no promise of a killer community support for this one also.The system is still OK-ish for 2D and general UI, but it is really poor for 3D where the effects of an old SoC become more apparent.Here鈥檚 how the phone performs at benchmarks:AnTuTu: 17032Quadrant Standard: 7983Vellamo Browser: 857Vellamo Metal: 738Vellamo Multicore: 912 ViewSonic V500 Review: CameraSmartphone cameras have come a long way, and it isn鈥檛 the flagships, but the entry-level to mid-range phones like the V500 that are representative of this fact. The V500 has a 13 mega-pixel camera that could do with better dynamic ranging, but for what it costs, the phone does a great job.HDR mode deserves a special mention. HDR has saved quite a few otherwise-sub-standard camera phones, but on the V500 it adds to the overall appeal. That said, you must know that the camera app isn鈥檛 the fastest, and HDR especially can be really slow.Take a look at some samples. ViewSonic V500 Review:聽RadioAnother department where the V500 shines. 4G LTE connectivity is one of the phone鈥檚 USPs, and along with that, the V500 does very good cellular connectivity (ex-4G) and has a brilliant WiFi performance. GPS too is up to par, and in fact better than some other phones in the sub-US$150 range we have tested.ViewSonic V500 Review: BatteryThe V500 is a very average phone all round, and the battery part is no different. The 2500mAh battery of the device is enough for around 4-4.5 hours of screen on time. This is a figure that I鈥檝e established with my general usage which includes email, Facebook, WhatsApp, and a lot of Chrome besides some other productivity apps and virtually no gaming. Gaming will reduce the battery life by quite a bit, and the V500 anyway doesn鈥檛 have enough grunt in it to provide for your games. I would鈥檝e liked to see a better battery performance from the V500, but it is possible to make do with what鈥檚 on offer.ViewSonic V500 Review: AudioThe V500 comes with a decent earpiece but the loudspeaker is below par. Audio quality from the earpiece is pretty satisfactory, but it does lack volume. The loudspeaker though, lacks a LOT of volume. It would be fair to say that the loudspeaker is simply of no use — you would use it only in a noisy environment and given the audio output it produces, it won鈥檛 really be of much help, only embarrassment.ViewSonic V500 Review: 聽ConclusionOne word to describe the V500 would be — 鈥榝air鈥? That because the phone does nothing special, but yet somehow manages to be worthy of the asking price. There are, however, better phones in the range — one that comes to mind is the Elephone P6000 which is a brilliant phone for the money. However, if you are among those that worry about brand names, then the V500 could probably make for a decent choice.

ViewSonic is a name that you would usually associate with LCD monitors, perhaps from the past. If you weren鈥檛 aware, the company also does smartphone, and the V500 happens to be one of them.The V500 is very much an entry-level to mid-range device. That is exactly the category that has seen a boom in the recent months; no one鈥檚 really spending US$500-600 to get a flagship phone anymore, or so it appears.The ViewSonic V500 comes with a 5.5-inch full HD display, and is powered by the Snapdragon 400 SoC. How good is the phone? Let鈥檚 find that out in the ViewSonic V500 review!ViewSonic V500 Review: DesignThere鈥檚 hardly anything to say about the design of this phone, for it鈥檚 a phone with a very generic bar-ish design. It does come with a couple of rear covers that try to add to the style quotient, however.The front of the phone is covered in glass (no mention of Gorilla Glass here), with the most space obviously being taken by the 5.5-inch 1080p panel. The setting is usual, nothing out of the ordinary; an earpiece on top (next to the usual suite of sensors), a 2 mega-pixel front camera and below the screen, the three capacitive buttons. Since this is a KitKat phone, the leftmost capacitive button is for accessing the menu rather than recent apps.Despite lacking Gorilla Glass, the screen coating on the V500 seems robust enough to be used without a screen protector. Through the weeks of usage I鈥檓 yet to encounter a scratch on the screen, so I assume it is perfectly safe to use it without a screen protector.The most impressive bit about the V500 is the metal lip around the screen. Phones that sell for around US$100 hardly feature any metal, and the ones that do hardly are generous with usage. The case here is different, and the V500 is made with a nice chunky yet stylish metal edge, with a glossy coating.The edges of the phone besides the metal are made up of an impressive rubbery-plastic combo material, which give you a nice grip when the phone is held in the hands. The rear, as mentioned, comes in two options — one with the same rubbery coating, and the other with a faux leather texture. I found the latter to be plain hideous.Taking off the rear is simple, you only need something to pry at it with. When you do that, the 2500mAh battery slot, 2x SIM slots and a microSD card slot are exposed. Nothing too fancy in here, and the speaker too is a simple single driver at the center below the battery slot. The camera with its single LED flash is found on the top left of the chassis. The camera does poke out of the body ever so slightly, but nothing to worry about.ViewSonic V500 Review: Screen Welcome to the section where you鈥檒l read about the best part of the ViewSonic V500. Yes, the display on the phone is a treat… and that shouldn鈥檛 be a surprise for ViewSonic has been in the display business for a long while. Although the V500 doesn鈥檛 really have the same sized panel as the monitors that the company makes, it does however have the same display quality.The screen is a 5.5-inch 1080p unit. Colors are really natural on the panel, far away from the supersaturated ones of a Super AMOLED screen. The resolution on offer — 1080p — is quite impressive too when you consider that the phone sells for US$110.Viewing angles are up to par and it鈥檚 in all a very nice display. Brightness is satisfactory, but the reflective front glass of the phone means that it can sometimes be a problem when used outdoors.The bezels are surprisingly narrow also, perhaps only a little thicker than the bezel-less Le 1 (of course it isn鈥檛 bezel-less). Like mentioned, the screen is easily the most impressive bit on the V500.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramViewSonic V500 Review: PerformanceIn the age of 64-bit octa-core chips, the Snapdragon 400 certainly sounds lacklustre. Unfortunately, that shows in real life usage also. First, it is disappointing that the phone ships only with Android KitKat and not Lollipop. MediaTek phones which often find themselves criticized for not having Android updates come with Lollipop, so there鈥檚 no excuse for having a KitKat system on the V500. I鈥檓 not sure how popular the V500 is going to be, so there鈥檚 no promise of a killer community support for this one also.The system is still OK-ish for 2D and general UI, but it is really poor for 3D where the effects of an old SoC become more apparent.Here鈥檚 how the phone performs at benchmarks:AnTuTu: 17032Quadrant Standard: 7983Vellamo Browser: 857Vellamo Metal: 738Vellamo Multicore: 912 ViewSonic V500 Review: CameraSmartphone cameras have come a long way, and it isn鈥檛 the flagships, but the entry-level to mid-range phones like the V500 that are representative of this fact. The V500 has a 13 mega-pixel camera that could do with better dynamic ranging, but for what it costs, the phone does a great job.HDR mode deserves a special mention. HDR has saved quite a few otherwise-sub-standard camera phones, but on the V500 it adds to the overall appeal. That said, you must know that the camera app isn鈥檛 the fastest, and HDR especially can be really slow.Take a look at some samples. ViewSonic V500 Review:聽RadioAnother department where the V500 shines. 4G LTE connectivity is one of the phone鈥檚 USPs, and along with that, the V500 does very good cellular connectivity (ex-4G) and has a brilliant WiFi performance. GPS too is up to par, and in fact better than some other phones in the sub-US$150 range we have tested.ViewSonic V500 Review: BatteryThe V500 is a very average phone all round, and the battery part is no different. The 2500mAh battery of the device is enough for around 4-4.5 hours of screen on time. This is a figure that I鈥檝e established with my general usage which includes email, Facebook, WhatsApp, and a lot of Chrome besides some other productivity apps and virtually no gaming. Gaming will reduce the battery life by quite a bit, and the V500 anyway doesn鈥檛 have enough grunt in it to provide for your games. I would鈥檝e liked to see a better battery performance from the V500, but it is possible to make do with what鈥檚 on offer.ViewSonic V500 Review: AudioThe V500 comes with a decent earpiece but the loudspeaker is below par. Audio quality from the earpiece is pretty satisfactory, but it does lack volume. The loudspeaker though, lacks a LOT of volume. It would be fair to say that the loudspeaker is simply of no use — you would use it only in a noisy environment and given the audio output it produces, it won鈥檛 really be of much help, only embarrassment.ViewSonic V500 Review: 聽ConclusionOne word to describe the V500 would be — 鈥榝air鈥? That because the phone does nothing special, but yet somehow manages to be worthy of the asking price. There are, however, better phones in the range — one that comes to mind is the Elephone P6000 which is a brilliant phone for the money. However, if you are among those that worry about brand names, then the V500 could probably make for a decent choice.“All the gear and no idea” is a term we use for someone who has the best of everything but isn’t sure how to use it. That sort of sums up our impression of the Elephone P7000. Find out more in our full review.The Elephone P7000 was/is a phone that was reported on a lot, and looking at the specifications it is easy to say why. The phone has everything you could possibly wan’t from a Chinese phone. 3GB RAM, IMX214 camera (claimed), 5.5-inch 1080 display, large battery, LTE, MT6752 processor and Android Lollipop. Really you can’t want for more, well you couldn’t have asked for more when the P7000 was originally announced (back in December) since then there have been a lot of changes in phone design and there are new Mediatek chipsets to choose.Elephone P7000: Unboxing and first impressionsElephone P7000 Review: DesignJust looking at the design of the Elephone P7000, it is clear where the majority of the budget went in this phone. The P7000 is a very good reminder that we simply cannot have everything at such a low price (yet). In this case the phone has all the hardware right, but the design couldn’t be further off the mark. Imagine if FSO (Google them they were/are a car maker) had decided to build a car with Ferrari engine. Sure it would be fast but it would look like sh$t and handle like a soggy biscuit.The first thing you will notice is the bezels around the display. Elephone have tried to hide them by making them black (the same as the screen when off) and just showing a narrow white bezel on either side. It’s not a narrow black border either but a huge black void all around the screen. It looks ugly and make the 5.5-inch phone significantly large than other 5.5-inch phones, in fact the 5.7-inch Xiaomi Mi Note is only very slightly larger than the Elephone. This is a huge deal. If you were someone who looked at 5.7-inch or 6-inch phones and thought there were too big, well you are going to feel the same about the 5.5-inch Elephone. On the other hand the 5.5-inch LeTV and even the Mlias M7 are much more compact and easy to handle.I like cars so I am going to liken the Elephone P7000 to car design once again. How often have you seen a concept car and thought ‘wow’ only for the production model to look bloated and ‘meh’? (if you can’t think of one take a look at the Chinese MG3). The Elephone P7000 is the same. Renders of the phone looked good, and the final device is obviously based on those renders, but it’s gotten fatter and and longer in the process. It’s not good.So it isn’t a great looking phone, but neither is the Asus Zenfone 2 really isn’t? And I really like that phone. perhaps the P7000 is a gem in other areas?Elephone P7000 Review: BuildHow often do you feel the urge to bend your phone? That’s right you don’t but there are times that your phone is put under similar stress. For example if you put a large phone in your back pocket as it won’t fit in your side pockets (remember the P7000 is bigger than most 5.5-inch devices). What would happen then if you sat down?To test how the phone would survive under these stresses I gave it a go and low and behold the Elephone P7000 bent and has stayed bent. I’m not the only reviewer to test this out as you can see here.鑱絆ut of fariness I also performed the same with the Elephone P7000’s nearest rivals aka the Ulefone Be Touch and Mlais M7, and neither deformed. In fact the Ulefone has鑱給ne hell of a sturdy chassis!Elephone P7000 Review: Performance and SystemWe have established that Elephone have blown the budget on the hardware side of the Elephone P7000 so just how well does it perform? Well if you take a look at the benchmarks you will see that the performance is pretty good. For a phone with 3GB RAM and an octacore Mediatek MT6752 chipset the benchmarks are about right, but benchmarks don’t really mean anything in real world terms.In actual usage the Elephone P7000 suffers from not having the greatest ROM in the world. The poor optimisation of Android 5.0 Lollipop on the device means the system doesn’t feel as smooth as it should and suffers from bugs. The good news is that Elephone are bring OTA updates to the phone and with each one the P7000 gets smoother and more stable. Just how long it will take for Elephone to get it all sorted and running to a point we are making the most of the hardware is another question.鑱紸lso keep in mind that MiraVision is missing from the ROM. Not a feature I personally use but something to keep in my for those who do make use of it.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramOne option that Elephone P7000 owners can try for better performance is the Vibe UI ROM available from the Elephone Forum. I haven’t tried it myself but Chris over at Gizchina.de claims that the performance is much improved and the system offers a better camera app too. The only issue is that there is no fingerprint scanner support.Elephone P7000 benchmarks Benchmarks from my Elephone P7000鑱絘re:Antutu: 43,914Geekbench Single-core score: 798Geekbench Multi-core score: 3948Quadrant: 20,733Ice Storm Extreme: 6306GFX Manhattan: 372.9GFX Manhattan Offscreen: 372.9GFX T-Rex: 752.9GFX T-Rex Offscreen: 736.2Nenamark 2: 55.0 fpsVellamo Metal: 1373Vellamo Multicore: 1834Vellamo Browser: 3091Elephone P7000 Review: ScreenSo the good bits. The screen on the Elephone P7000 is a good one. If you don’t get distracted by the huge black bezels then you can enjoy a 1920 x 1080 FHD display. It’s not the brightest screen in the world, Elephone seem to have limited the brightness to improve battery life, but we hope this will be addressed with updates. When opening up the P7000 packaging ensure you turn off the battery saving mode (some are shipping like this) as this will prevent the screen from going to full brightness.Viewing angles are good and touch response is as fast as the sluggish ROM will allow. Other reviewers have mentioned white spots on the screen. Our review phone has one, and鑱絀 believe they only appear after bending the phone and get worse the more it is bent.Elephone P7000 Review: CameraLet’s get things in to perspective. The Elephone P7000 is a $200 phone (RRP) and for the money it offers a Sony IMX214 13 mega-pixel main camera and 5 mega-pixel front camera. Although it is a IMX214 the photographic performance of the Elephone P7000 isn’t on par with the Le 1 or the Xiaomi Mi Note, but compared to other $200 phones the results are pretty good and a nice leap forward for Elephone.What is odd about the camera on the p7000 is that under certain lighting conditions there is a red tint to photos. This has been present since the phone arrived and persisted through the various updates. I belive it is due to the optics and probably will remain with the phone. A huge shame as the camera can produce some nice photos, just not all the time!Elephone P7000 Photo samples Slight Red Tint Elephone P7000 Photo samples normal Elephone P7000 Photo samples low-light Elephone P7000 Review: ConnectivityYou might be surprised to learn that there really isn’t much to complain about in this area. 3G and 4G worked well through out鑱絫he review from the first day and through various updates. Call quality is good and updates have improved clarity. WIFI strength is also above average and GPS is good too, better in the latest updates.Elephone P7000 Review: BatteryElephone say that the battery in the Elephone P7000 is a 3450mAh battery. That’s a good size and should give enough juice to the FHD display and octacore processor to get you through the day without issue.With the poor ROM optimisation though we aren’t getting the most from the battery yet, but as OTA updates have been coming out frequently we can hope that the ROM will be optimised correclty and we will eventually get more than 6 hours (or there abouts) of screen on time. Like all phones though your milage will vary depending on how you use your device.Elephone P7000 Review: AudioAudio on the P7000 is loud and clear, but I wouldn’t say the sound through the external speakers in enjoyable. It’s a little tinny and struggles at higher volumes. You could easily fill small room with music from the phone, but it is highly unlikely you will enjoy what you hear. Coming from phones like the Le 1 and Xiaomi Mi Note the audio is well off the mark, even the Ulefone Be Touch has better audio.Elephone P7000 Review: ConclusionIs the Elephone P7000 a bad phone? Well it isn’t the best looking phone, or the most solid phone or the best optimised phone that’s for sure. What the phone does offer is a large battery and impressive hardware for the money. I would also like to add the camera to the P700’s pros as it can take some very nice photos, but that intermitent red tint is extremely annoying!Was the P7000 worth the hype? If it had launched 6 weeks earlier then the P7000 would have been the first and only phone of this calibre which you could buy, but with such a delay Ulefone, Mlais, Zeaplus, and other phone makers all have their own equivalents and some of them are better all round packages than the P7000.“All the gear and no idea” is a term we use for someone who has the best of everything but isn’t sure how to use it. That sort of sums up our impression of the Elephone P7000. Find out more in our full review.The Elephone P7000 was/is a phone that was reported on a lot, and looking at the specifications it is easy to say why. The phone has everything you could possibly wan’t from a Chinese phone. 3GB RAM, IMX214 camera (claimed), 5.5-inch 1080 display, large battery, LTE, MT6752 processor and Android Lollipop. Really you can’t want for more, well you couldn’t have asked for more when the P7000 was originally announced (back in December) since then there have been a lot of changes in phone design and there are new Mediatek chipsets to choose.Elephone P7000: Unboxing and first impressionsElephone P7000 Review: DesignJust looking at the design of the Elephone P7000, it is clear where the majority of the budget went in this phone. The P7000 is a very good reminder that we simply cannot have everything at such a low price (yet). In this case the phone has all the hardware right, but the design couldn’t be further off the mark. Imagine if FSO (Google them they were/are a car maker) had decided to build a car with Ferrari engine. Sure it would be fast but it would look like sh$t and handle like a soggy biscuit.The first thing you will notice is the bezels around the display. Elephone have tried to hide them by making them black (the same as the screen when off) and just showing a narrow white bezel on either side. It’s not a narrow black border either but a huge black void all around the screen. It looks ugly and make the 5.5-inch phone significantly large than other 5.5-inch phones, in fact the 5.7-inch Xiaomi Mi Note is only very slightly larger than the Elephone. This is a huge deal. If you were someone who looked at 5.7-inch or 6-inch phones and thought there were too big, well you are going to feel the same about the 5.5-inch Elephone. On the other hand the 5.5-inch LeTV and even the Mlias M7 are much more compact and easy to handle.I like cars so I am going to liken the Elephone P7000 to car design once again. How often have you seen a concept car and thought ‘wow’ only for the production model to look bloated and ‘meh’? (if you can’t think of one take a look at the Chinese MG3). The Elephone P7000 is the same. Renders of the phone looked good, and the final device is obviously based on those renders, but it’s gotten fatter and and longer in the process. It’s not good.So it isn’t a great looking phone, but neither is the Asus Zenfone 2 really isn’t? And I really like that phone. perhaps the P7000 is a gem in other areas?Elephone P7000 Review: BuildHow often do you feel the urge to bend your phone? That’s right you don’t but there are times that your phone is put under similar stress. For example if you put a large phone in your back pocket as it won’t fit in your side pockets (remember the P7000 is bigger than most 5.5-inch devices). What would happen then if you sat down?To test how the phone would survive under these stresses I gave it a go and low and behold the Elephone P7000 bent and has stayed bent. I’m not the only reviewer to test this out as you can see here.鑱絆ut of fariness I also performed the same with the Elephone P7000’s nearest rivals aka the Ulefone Be Touch and Mlais M7, and neither deformed. In fact the Ulefone has鑱給ne hell of a sturdy chassis!Elephone P7000 Review: Performance and SystemWe have established that Elephone have blown the budget on the hardware side of the Elephone P7000 so just how well does it perform? Well if you take a look at the benchmarks you will see that the performance is pretty good. For a phone with 3GB RAM and an octacore Mediatek MT6752 chipset the benchmarks are about right, but benchmarks don’t really mean anything in real world terms.In actual usage the Elephone P7000 suffers from not having the greatest ROM in the world. The poor optimisation of Android 5.0 Lollipop on the device means the system doesn’t feel as smooth as it should and suffers from bugs. The good news is that Elephone are bring OTA updates to the phone and with each one the P7000 gets smoother and more stable. Just how long it will take for Elephone to get it all sorted and running to a point we are making the most of the hardware is another question.鑱紸lso keep in mind that MiraVision is missing from the ROM. Not a feature I personally use but something to keep in my for those who do make use of it.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramOne option that Elephone P7000 owners can try for better performance is the Vibe UI ROM available from the Elephone Forum. I haven’t tried it myself but Chris over at Gizchina.de claims that the performance is much improved and the system offers a better camera app too. The only issue is that there is no fingerprint scanner support.Elephone P7000 benchmarks Benchmarks from my Elephone P7000鑱絘re:Antutu: 43,914Geekbench Single-core score: 798Geekbench Multi-core score: 3948Quadrant: 20,733Ice Storm Extreme: 6306GFX Manhattan: 372.9GFX Manhattan Offscreen: 372.9GFX T-Rex: 752.9GFX T-Rex Offscreen: 736.2Nenamark 2: 55.0 fpsVellamo Metal: 1373Vellamo Multicore: 1834Vellamo Browser: 3091Elephone P7000 Review: ScreenSo the good bits. The screen on the Elephone P7000 is a good one. If you don’t get distracted by the huge black bezels then you can enjoy a 1920 x 1080 FHD display. It’s not the brightest screen in the world, Elephone seem to have limited the brightness to improve battery life, but we hope this will be addressed with updates. When opening up the P7000 packaging ensure you turn off the battery saving mode (some are shipping like this) as this will prevent the screen from going to full brightness.Viewing angles are good and touch response is as fast as the sluggish ROM will allow. Other reviewers have mentioned white spots on the screen. Our review phone has one, and鑱絀 believe they only appear after bending the phone and get worse the more it is bent.Elephone P7000 Review: CameraLet’s get things in to perspective. The Elephone P7000 is a $200 phone (RRP) and for the money it offers a Sony IMX214 13 mega-pixel main camera and 5 mega-pixel front camera. Although it is a IMX214 the photographic performance of the Elephone P7000 isn’t on par with the Le 1 or the Xiaomi Mi Note, but compared to other $200 phones the results are pretty good and a nice leap forward for Elephone.What is odd about the camera on the p7000 is that under certain lighting conditions there is a red tint to photos. This has been present since the phone arrived and persisted through the various updates. I belive it is due to the optics and probably will remain with the phone. A huge shame as the camera can produce some nice photos, just not all the time!Elephone P7000 Photo samples Slight Red Tint Elephone P7000 Photo samples normal Elephone P7000 Photo samples low-light Elephone P7000 Review: ConnectivityYou might be surprised to learn that there really isn’t much to complain about in this area. 3G and 4G worked well through out鑱絫he review from the first day and through various updates. Call quality is good and updates have improved clarity. WIFI strength is also above average and GPS is good too, better in the latest updates.Elephone P7000 Review: BatteryElephone say that the battery in the Elephone P7000 is a 3450mAh battery. That’s a good size and should give enough juice to the FHD display and octacore processor to get you through the day without issue.With the poor ROM optimisation though we aren’t getting the most from the battery yet, but as OTA updates have been coming out frequently we can hope that the ROM will be optimised correclty and we will eventually get more than 6 hours (or there abouts) of screen on time. Like all phones though your milage will vary depending on how you use your device.Elephone P7000 Review: AudioAudio on the P7000 is loud and clear, but I wouldn’t say the sound through the external speakers in enjoyable. It’s a little tinny and struggles at higher volumes. You could easily fill small room with music from the phone, but it is highly unlikely you will enjoy what you hear. Coming from phones like the Le 1 and Xiaomi Mi Note the audio is well off the mark, even the Ulefone Be Touch has better audio.Elephone P7000 Review: ConclusionIs the Elephone P7000 a bad phone? Well it isn’t the best looking phone, or the most solid phone or the best optimised phone that’s for sure. What the phone does offer is a large battery and impressive hardware for the money. I would also like to add the camera to the P700’s pros as it can take some very nice photos, but that intermitent red tint is extremely annoying!Was the P7000 worth the hype? If it had launched 6 weeks earlier then the P7000 would have been the first and only phone of this calibre which you could buy, but with such a delay Ulefone, Mlais, Zeaplus, and other phone makers all have their own equivalents and some of them are better all round packages than the P7000.No.1 has been around for a while now, and is best known for its cloned phones. Not only have No.1 made lookalikes of Apple and Samsung phones, but they鈥檝e also cloned the likes of Xiaomi. Today we鈥檒l be talking about the No.1 S6i, which if you haven鈥檛 already guessed, is a Samsung Galaxy S6 clone.Of course, this one costs a hell lot lesser than the original thing. But that doesn鈥檛 stop No.1 from trying to emulate the Galaxy S6 in almost all segments. How far does it go with that? Let us find out!No.1 S6i Review: Specifications5.1-inch 1280 x 720p IPS display1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor1GB RAM16GB ROM13 mega-pixel rear camera5 mega-pixel front cameraAndroid 5.0 LollipopSingle SIM, GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, WCDMA 850/2100No.1 S6i Review: Build and DesignThere鈥檚 not a lot to speak about the design, because you鈥檙e already clear in the mind as to how the S6i will look in the hands. The build quality is something worth talking about, however. No.1 have almost always been a clone maker, but have made a mark for themselves by including some proper, usable material in their devices. The No.1 M4 was a phone which was almost as well built as the original Mi 4, and the S6i does equally well. The phone is made with metal and glass all around it, and I鈥檓 sure no one you hand the phone to will be able to tell that it鈥檚 only a $119 phone!The build quality in general is extremely impressive, and without doubt is the best part about the phone. There is, sometimes, an obvious lack of precision in the workmanship, but at a little over a hundred dollars, you can probably let that go.The phone fits very well in the hand, and can be used in one hand no problem. The edges are all covered in chamfered metal, with the front and rear covered in glass. Unfortunately, there doesn鈥檛 seem to be any anti-fingerprint oleophobic coating on the glass which makes the phone a dirt and fingerprint magnet.An IR blaster and a secondary mic sit on the top edge, while a micro USB port, 3.5mm headphone jack and a speaker grill sit on the bottom edge. Volume buttons can be found on the left, while the power button makes home on the right side with the SIM card tray (which, by the way, takes only nano SIM cards).The 13 mega-pixel camera of the S6i sits on the rear, protruding in pride. Next to it you find the the single LED flash and heartbeat sensor. You鈥檙e free to get worried about the amount of protrusion of the camera, but the S6i will always have the excuse of being a Galaxy S6 clone.All of the buttons on the edges feel really good and have a nice, tactile feedback to them. The home button however does lack the comforting feel, for there is a bit of a play in the unit I tested.No.1 S6i Review: DisplayGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramYou鈥檒l like the S6i display until you pit it against the original thing. Only the display from the original Galaxy S6 would probably be expensive than this entire phone plus worldwide shipping鈥 so you need to know what to expect. I personally like the S6i鈥檚 display more than the one on the Ulefone Be Touch, which should tell you a little about the quality. Of course, it isn鈥檛 mind blowing or anything, but you probably won鈥檛 have any qualms using it.The most impressive bit about the display are the viewing angles, and the fact that the colours are very true, i.e., neither are they washed out, nor over-saturated. No.1 S6i Review: PerformanceThe phone only comes with the good ol鈥 MediaTek MT6582 quad-core processor, which I assume all of you have used at one point or another. This chip from Taiwan鈥檚 MediaTek has graced millions of smartphone motherboards, and the S6i is just another one of them.The general UI responsiveness is in fact pretty good. This is the first MediaTek MT6582 phone I鈥檝e used that runs Android 5.0 Lollipop, and I think the MT6582 does pretty well at handling the OS. Speaking of the OS, the S6i appears to be running what looks like a 1:1 clone of Samsung鈥檚 TouchWiz, sometimes also the bugs and stutters that come along with it.In a nutshell, the S6i is a decently powered phone for general productivity; if you plan to buy a phone for gaming and the likes, you probably want to look elsewhere. Also, it has just 1GB of RAM which is more than just a bit of a bottleneck performance wise.No.1 S6i Review: Battery According to the manufacturer, the phone ships with a 2,800mAh battery. While I鈥檓 not sure about the accuracy of that claim, what is certain is that the battery is non-removable. While I haven鈥檛 opened up the phone to check the actual capacity, experience says that it is something around a 2000-2200mAh cell sitting inside the pretty shell.Nonetheless, what should matter to you is how long that works for regardless of the capacity. The phone will, on most days, last about 8-10 hours with average usage, and with heavy usage, you can expect the juice to dry up much sooner. The phone could do with a better battery life in my opinion.No.1 S6i Review: CameraThe S6i has a 13 mega-pixel camera, which is among the most impressive sensors you鈥檒l see in its range. The camera is fast and snappy when it comes to taking pictures, but it does have a bit of a lag while rendering the image on the viewfinder.Focus is touchy. It will take you more than just one attempt most times with tap to focus to get a sharp image with the focus on the main subject. But when you do achieve that, the result is pretty much well worth the pain on most occasions. The camera also performs pretty well indoors and in artificial light, which is pretty impressive for a clone. With flash No flash No.1 S6i Review: ConclusionThe No.1 S6i is a phone that鈥檚 built to impress. It鈥檒l certainly surprise you right off the bat, and probably won鈥檛 disappoint you with the way it performs. The lack of an additional GB of RAM certainly hurts, and there鈥檚 no fixing that. On the other hand, for storage, I鈥檝e heard that there is a microSD card slot that can be accessed if you somehow manage to take the rear off (not recommended).The phone is a clone and demands to be pitted against other clones, which are few and far between lately. In the end, you鈥檒l be paying a premium for the build quality more than anything else on the No.1 S6i.

No.1 has been around for a while now, and is best known for its cloned phones. Not only have No.1 made lookalikes of Apple and Samsung phones, but they鈥檝e also cloned the likes of Xiaomi. Today we鈥檒l be talking about the No.1 S6i, which if you haven鈥檛 already guessed, is a Samsung Galaxy S6 clone.Of course, this one costs a hell lot lesser than the original thing. But that doesn鈥檛 stop No.1 from trying to emulate the Galaxy S6 in almost all segments. How far does it go with that? Let us find out!No.1 S6i Review: Specifications5.1-inch 1280 x 720p IPS display1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor1GB RAM16GB ROM13 mega-pixel rear camera5 mega-pixel front cameraAndroid 5.0 LollipopSingle SIM, GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, WCDMA 850/2100No.1 S6i Review: Build and DesignThere鈥檚 not a lot to speak about the design, because you鈥檙e already clear in the mind as to how the S6i will look in the hands. The build quality is something worth talking about, however. No.1 have almost always been a clone maker, but have made a mark for themselves by including some proper, usable material in their devices. The No.1 M4 was a phone which was almost as well built as the original Mi 4, and the S6i does equally well. The phone is made with metal and glass all around it, and I鈥檓 sure no one you hand the phone to will be able to tell that it鈥檚 only a $119 phone!The build quality in general is extremely impressive, and without doubt is the best part about the phone. There is, sometimes, an obvious lack of precision in the workmanship, but at a little over a hundred dollars, you can probably let that go.The phone fits very well in the hand, and can be used in one hand no problem. The edges are all covered in chamfered metal, with the front and rear covered in glass. Unfortunately, there doesn鈥檛 seem to be any anti-fingerprint oleophobic coating on the glass which makes the phone a dirt and fingerprint magnet.An IR blaster and a secondary mic sit on the top edge, while a micro USB port, 3.5mm headphone jack and a speaker grill sit on the bottom edge. Volume buttons can be found on the left, while the power button makes home on the right side with the SIM card tray (which, by the way, takes only nano SIM cards).The 13 mega-pixel camera of the S6i sits on the rear, protruding in pride. Next to it you find the the single LED flash and heartbeat sensor. You鈥檙e free to get worried about the amount of protrusion of the camera, but the S6i will always have the excuse of being a Galaxy S6 clone.All of the buttons on the edges feel really good and have a nice, tactile feedback to them. The home button however does lack the comforting feel, for there is a bit of a play in the unit I tested.No.1 S6i Review: DisplayGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramYou鈥檒l like the S6i display until you pit it against the original thing. Only the display from the original Galaxy S6 would probably be expensive than this entire phone plus worldwide shipping鈥 so you need to know what to expect. I personally like the S6i鈥檚 display more than the one on the Ulefone Be Touch, which should tell you a little about the quality. Of course, it isn鈥檛 mind blowing or anything, but you probably won鈥檛 have any qualms using it.The most impressive bit about the display are the viewing angles, and the fact that the colours are very true, i.e., neither are they washed out, nor over-saturated. No.1 S6i Review: PerformanceThe phone only comes with the good ol鈥 MediaTek MT6582 quad-core processor, which I assume all of you have used at one point or another. This chip from Taiwan鈥檚 MediaTek has graced millions of smartphone motherboards, and the S6i is just another one of them.The general UI responsiveness is in fact pretty good. This is the first MediaTek MT6582 phone I鈥檝e used that runs Android 5.0 Lollipop, and I think the MT6582 does pretty well at handling the OS. Speaking of the OS, the S6i appears to be running what looks like a 1:1 clone of Samsung鈥檚 TouchWiz, sometimes also the bugs and stutters that come along with it.In a nutshell, the S6i is a decently powered phone for general productivity; if you plan to buy a phone for gaming and the likes, you probably want to look elsewhere. Also, it has just 1GB of RAM which is more than just a bit of a bottleneck performance wise.No.1 S6i Review: Battery According to the manufacturer, the phone ships with a 2,800mAh battery. While I鈥檓 not sure about the accuracy of that claim, what is certain is that the battery is non-removable. While I haven鈥檛 opened up the phone to check the actual capacity, experience says that it is something around a 2000-2200mAh cell sitting inside the pretty shell.Nonetheless, what should matter to you is how long that works for regardless of the capacity. The phone will, on most days, last about 8-10 hours with average usage, and with heavy usage, you can expect the juice to dry up much sooner. The phone could do with a better battery life in my opinion.No.1 S6i Review: CameraThe S6i has a 13 mega-pixel camera, which is among the most impressive sensors you鈥檒l see in its range. The camera is fast and snappy when it comes to taking pictures, but it does have a bit of a lag while rendering the image on the viewfinder.Focus is touchy. It will take you more than just one attempt most times with tap to focus to get a sharp image with the focus on the main subject. But when you do achieve that, the result is pretty much well worth the pain on most occasions. The camera also performs pretty well indoors and in artificial light, which is pretty impressive for a clone. With flash No flash No.1 S6i Review: ConclusionThe No.1 S6i is a phone that鈥檚 built to impress. It鈥檒l certainly surprise you right off the bat, and probably won鈥檛 disappoint you with the way it performs. The lack of an additional GB of RAM certainly hurts, and there鈥檚 no fixing that. On the other hand, for storage, I鈥檝e heard that there is a microSD card slot that can be accessed if you somehow manage to take the rear off (not recommended).The phone is a clone and demands to be pitted against other clones, which are few and far between lately. In the end, you鈥檒l be paying a premium for the build quality more than anything else on the No.1 S6i.The Ulefone Be Touch happens to be one of the most popular Chinese phones at the moment, right alongside the Elephone P7000 (which is playing a bit of hide-and-seek). The Be Touch is Ulefone鈥檚 most powerful phone ever, and it also happens to have a design which is quite pleasing to the eye, despite being heavily inspired by another phone, the one and only — iPhone 6.Leaks and rumours prior to the launch of this phone referred to it as the Ulefone Dare N1, but for whatever reasons it is now known as the Be Touch. It is perhaps to make the phone sound like it is one from the rejuvenated Ulefone, a company which launched a bunch of phones this year including the Be One, Be Pure and the Be Pro.Coming back to the Be Touch, it is a phone made with some really high quality material, along with a fingerprint sensor which works 鈥榩ress鈥 style (as opposed to swipe). The high-quality chassis, the curved front glass and the overall 鈥榝eel鈥 of the Be Touch give you a sense of holding a very well made piece of kit when the phone is in your hand. Before we say too much in this intro, let us get to the meat of the matter鈥 in the Ulefone Be Touch review!Ulefone Be Touch Review: Design and BuildDesign of the Be Touch is a bit of a mashup, with, as mentioned earlier, a lot of the iPhone 6. The other phone that the Be Touch will remind you of is the Meizu MX4; this one鈥檚 found more impostors than Meizu bosses would鈥檝e ever imagined (Siswoo Cooper i7 was one, too). That said, we ought to add that the Be Touch, build quality wise, is easily among the better Chinese 鈥榚xport brand鈥 phones that have landed in our hands in the past few months鈥 or even couple years.This is probably because Ulefone have been around for quite a while now, and are starting to get a hang of things — they even carry OnePlus-esque social media campaigns.The front is covered entirely in 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass. This is one of the favourite aspects of the phone for us. Up until now it used to be pretty easy to tell between a Chinese phone and phone from a big mainstream company, but with OEMs like Ulefone including things like 2.5D curved glass, machine-drilled speaker holes, etc., it is virtually impossible now.You鈥檒l find a 5 mega-pixel front camera right on the top left, accompanied by front LED flash (yeah, thanks, selfie addicts). Next to it sits the earpiece, and then the usual suite of sensors (light, proximity).There鈥檚 a black stripe of bezel right below the 5.5-inch screen. We call this a heartbreak more than anything else, because if not for that, the Be Touch would鈥檝e perhaps been THE phone (as far as looks are concerned, at least) for a lot of people. Speaking of bezels, the very impressive Ecoo E04 Aurora had something similar; we really hope companies find a way to deal with this in the coming months. Especially on 5.5-inch phones, where there鈥檚 more space to play around with things.Coming back to the device, below the screen, the menu, (fingerprint scanner enabled) home, and back keys sit in respective order. It must be said that the home button is really nice to touch and feels extremely high quality. It wouldn鈥檛 be wrong if we said we were surprised by how well it felt!To top off the iPhone impostor look, the Be Touch has its own metallic ring around the home button.A robust-looking metal frame sits around the edges of the phone, with precise cut-outs for jacks and ports, along with 6 machine-drilled holes at the bottom edge for the speaker. Between this metal frame and the front glass, there鈥檚 a barely noticeable plastic lip which is raised ever so slightly to ensure drops and falls don鈥檛 impact the glass directly.Power and volume keys can be found on the left edge. Again, these are put together in a very, very impressive fashion — clicks are registered in a very organized manner with great feedback. However, one issue we have with the power button is its positioning — it is put way too high for a 5.5-inch phone. Swapping the power and volume keys would make for a very sweet position for the power button, right where your left thumb would sit (if it HAS to be on the left). With the current arrangement, you鈥檒l either have to switch positions after unlocking the phone, or use the home button each time — the latter would make for a majority, we believe, especially if you鈥檙e going to use the fingerprint unlock feature (which you TOTALLY should — more on this later).The rear cover is flexible and looks to be made out of good quality plastic. It can be a little cumbersome to pry it out, but then that鈥檚 something we like, after all you don鈥檛 want it to come off or anything after every drop.Inside, there鈥檚 space for a 2550mAh battery and a couple SIMs along with a microSD card.The rear is also where you will find the 13 mega-pixel IMX214 camera (according to specs) and single LED flash. The flash cut-out is made to look like there鈥檚 dual LED flash, whereas there鈥檚 just one LED module in fact.The camera sensor is surrounded by a nice metallic ring, something which yet again adds to the build aspect of this phone. Another reminder of how well Ulefone have put together this handset!In a nutshell, we鈥檒l admit that the Be Touch is among the better made phones this year so far. It鈥檒l be interesting to see how the P7000 holds up against this one!Ulefone Be Touch Review: Components and performanceWhen you purchase the Be Touch you get a phone that is powered by the all impressive MediaTek MT6752 64-bit octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM and has a 5.5-inch screen. Unfortunately, the screen is only a 1280 x 720p unit. We鈥檇 have loved it to be a 1080p panel, the very least for the sake of this argument.Other than that, the Be Touch has 16GB of on-board storage, a 13 mega-pixel main camera (Sony IMX214) and a 5 mega-pixel front camera with LED flash. The battery is a 2550mAh cell, which does sound a little inadequate for the screen size but the fact that it is only a 720p panel helps here. Also something to be kept in mind is that the phone ships with stock Android, v5.0 Lollipop. The 5.5-inch 720p screen won鈥檛 blow you away with its color and sharpness. Instead, you鈥檒l be a little surprised by the fact that it is in fact a little pale in front of the competition. Also, one of our favourite features that come along with the MT6752 — MiraVision — seems to be missing from the Lollipop ROM. In the past, a lot of MT6752 and MT6732 phones have benefited from MiraVision鈥檚 suite of features, especially dynamic contrast. Here鈥檚 hoping that an update soon bring MiraVision to the Lollipop ROM of the Be Touch!The screen also isn鈥檛 the best with viewing angles; colours do 鈥榳ash out鈥 every now and then when you rotate the phone in front of your eyes. In more ways than one, the screen is the Achilles heel of the Be Touch.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe 13 mega-pixel camera, which according to the makers is a Sony IMX214 sensor, doesn鈥檛 seem to have been implemented too well. The pictures have a slight bit of a dark tint to them, and the dynamic contrast doesn鈥檛 seem to be the best. That is, with a bright and dark element in the single frame, the Be Touch doesn鈥檛 do exceedingly well. One counter to that would be HDR mode, but even that doesn鈥檛 help too much.Even yet, the phone does sometimes produce some quality images. For one, take a look at his picture taken in a relatively dark environment.In daylight however, the Be Touch seems to take decent photos. Also worth noting is the fact that the front 5 mega-pixel camera has LED flash, and is actually quite a decent camera in itself. What is worth mentioning however is the fact that the front flash is very weak and doesn鈥檛 really enhance the frame much, unless of course you鈥檙e trying to take a selfie in a pitch black environment.Taken on the front camera Reception on the Be Touch (GPS, call, WiFi) is fairly decent. GPS is actually pretty impressive; most MediaTek phones in the past have struggled to get a decent lock, but the Be Touch doesn鈥檛 just do that outdoors but indoors as well. GPS: Indoors GPS: Outdoors Call quality is very good. Volume could go a step higher though, but that鈥檚 something very subjective. One thing to note here is that the phone does get a little warm around the camera region (where the metallic ring acts as a heat sink, supposedly) for comfort.WiFi however is a bit of a different story. Performance in this department isn鈥檛 as good as the rest of the phone; quite worse, in fact. Compared to phones like the Gionee Elife S7, Xiaomi Mi 4 or even the Mi 4i, the Be Touch is always second and by quite a margin.Fingerprint sensor works very wellIt hasn鈥檛 been a long while since Chinese phones started shipping with fingerprint sensors, but the rate at which these sensors have improved is unbelievable. The Elephone P5000 was among the first ones to have a fingerprint sensor, and we鈥檙e now into the third generation of these — and to sum it up in one word, the fingerprint sensor on the Be Touch is brilliant.We even tried unlocking the phone with an inverted thumb, and it still worked — at the same speed. It just goes to show that the feature has been implemented really well and isn鈥檛 just a gimmick anymore. Rather, something that not only provides better security, but also better convenience!Battery life is about decent on the phone. It can be a better. After 4-5 charging/discharging cycles it did get better, but there’s still some room for improvement. After lot of browsing, around 1 and a half hours of calling, and some IMing, here’s how the battery life chart stood on the phone. Sound output on the Be Touch is one of the features of the phone which could get better. Very honestly, we鈥檝e encountered varying sound performance from the Be Touch; the speaker sometimes sounds loud enough but other times, it simply doesn鈥檛 cut it. What stays constant however is the fact that there鈥檚 virtually no bass in the sound output.Ulefone Be Touch Review: ROMAs mentioned above, the phone comes with a ROM that is completely stock. Unfortunately though, it doesn鈥檛 seem 100% optimized. Not just that Be Touch, non completely optimized Lollipop ROMs are, at the moment, hampering the performance of a lot of Chinese phones. What鈥檚 good is that this seems to be throttling only the UI performance, whereas performance from other 3rd party apps and games seems to be just fine. The ROM also offers some off-screen gestures which have now become a norm. Many a time these off screen gestures can be a problem (if you keep your phone in your pockets), which is why the usage hasn鈥檛 been as widespread as the makers would鈥檝e liked. Double tap to wake however is a brilliant feature which we鈥檙e sure most of you would already be using. The Be Touch doesn鈥檛 require that though, because there is a hardware button that can actually be 鈥榩ressed鈥 (as opposed to capacitive buttons). Nonetheless, double tap to wake is a good option if you aren鈥檛 using a fingerprint as your password.Here鈥檚 how the Be Touch performs on benchmarks. You can find more info about the phone鈥檚 benchmarking capabilities here.Antutu: 43,412Ice Storm Extreme: 6,745Nenamark 2: 72.0fpsGeekbench Single-core: 800Geekbench multi-core: 3455Vellamo Metal: 1291Vellamo Multicore: 1884Vellamo Browser: 3401GFX Manhattan: 715.1GFX Manhattan offscreen: 370.5GFX T-Rex: 1,142GFX T-Rex Offscreen: 702.9Quadrant: 16,411Ulefone Be Touch Review: OtherIn many ways, the Be Touch is a great phone. However, a few aspects do let it down鈥 for one, there鈥檚 no notification LED on the phone. This is pretty surprising for a 2015 phone; people have gotten used to notification LEDs. We believe every manufacturer, small or big, should have those on their phones.Another something that isn鈥檛 as back as the lack of a notification LED, but could鈥檝e been better: backlit buttons. While you will ultimately get used to the positioning of these buttons, having a little backlight beneath wouldn鈥檛 really hurt the company and would also save you the learning curve of hitting the buttons without knowing where they are.The touchscreen sensor can sometimes feel a little slow to respond. It can be frustrating, and we’re once again hoping it is a ROM issue which is fixed with an update.Charging the Be Touch takes a little longer than you would鈥檝e hoped for. Although this is in no way a gripe, but just something a potential buyer would want to know about. It takes just about 3 hours to charge the battery using the stock charger.Ulefone Be Touch Review: VerdictAs is very clear from what you鈥檝e read, we鈥檙e surprised (and positively) with the build quality that the Be Touch has on offer. Performance too is quite up to the mark, but the ROM needs a lot of polishing to extract whatever the MediaTek MT6752 has on offer. It does seem sometimes like the ROM is a beta release than a full public release.The phone has only started shipping now, so expect a lot of improvements on the ROM front. Ulefone have proven themselves with a good amount of firmware updates to their phones, and we hope to see similar treatment being given to the Be Touch also.At this point in time, it wouldn鈥檛 be cent percent accurate to call the Be Touch a flagship for 2015. But it does come close.We鈥檒l be bringing more Be Touch news to you as and when we gain access to newer and better firmware for the phone. In the meantime, let us know what you would choose between this and the elusive Elephone P7000.

The Ulefone Be Touch happens to be one of the most popular Chinese phones at the moment, right alongside the Elephone P7000 (which is playing a bit of hide-and-seek). The Be Touch is Ulefone鈥檚 most powerful phone ever, and it also happens to have a design which is quite pleasing to the eye, despite being heavily inspired by another phone, the one and only — iPhone 6.Leaks and rumours prior to the launch of this phone referred to it as the Ulefone Dare N1, but for whatever reasons it is now known as the Be Touch. It is perhaps to make the phone sound like it is one from the rejuvenated Ulefone, a company which launched a bunch of phones this year including the Be One, Be Pure and the Be Pro.Coming back to the Be Touch, it is a phone made with some really high quality material, along with a fingerprint sensor which works 鈥榩ress鈥 style (as opposed to swipe). The high-quality chassis, the curved front glass and the overall 鈥榝eel鈥 of the Be Touch give you a sense of holding a very well made piece of kit when the phone is in your hand. Before we say too much in this intro, let us get to the meat of the matter鈥 in the Ulefone Be Touch review!Ulefone Be Touch Review: Design and BuildDesign of the Be Touch is a bit of a mashup, with, as mentioned earlier, a lot of the iPhone 6. The other phone that the Be Touch will remind you of is the Meizu MX4; this one鈥檚 found more impostors than Meizu bosses would鈥檝e ever imagined (Siswoo Cooper i7 was one, too). That said, we ought to add that the Be Touch, build quality wise, is easily among the better Chinese 鈥榚xport brand鈥 phones that have landed in our hands in the past few months鈥 or even couple years.This is probably because Ulefone have been around for quite a while now, and are starting to get a hang of things — they even carry OnePlus-esque social media campaigns.The front is covered entirely in 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass. This is one of the favourite aspects of the phone for us. Up until now it used to be pretty easy to tell between a Chinese phone and phone from a big mainstream company, but with OEMs like Ulefone including things like 2.5D curved glass, machine-drilled speaker holes, etc., it is virtually impossible now.You鈥檒l find a 5 mega-pixel front camera right on the top left, accompanied by front LED flash (yeah, thanks, selfie addicts). Next to it sits the earpiece, and then the usual suite of sensors (light, proximity).There鈥檚 a black stripe of bezel right below the 5.5-inch screen. We call this a heartbreak more than anything else, because if not for that, the Be Touch would鈥檝e perhaps been THE phone (as far as looks are concerned, at least) for a lot of people. Speaking of bezels, the very impressive Ecoo E04 Aurora had something similar; we really hope companies find a way to deal with this in the coming months. Especially on 5.5-inch phones, where there鈥檚 more space to play around with things.Coming back to the device, below the screen, the menu, (fingerprint scanner enabled) home, and back keys sit in respective order. It must be said that the home button is really nice to touch and feels extremely high quality. It wouldn鈥檛 be wrong if we said we were surprised by how well it felt!To top off the iPhone impostor look, the Be Touch has its own metallic ring around the home button.A robust-looking metal frame sits around the edges of the phone, with precise cut-outs for jacks and ports, along with 6 machine-drilled holes at the bottom edge for the speaker. Between this metal frame and the front glass, there鈥檚 a barely noticeable plastic lip which is raised ever so slightly to ensure drops and falls don鈥檛 impact the glass directly.Power and volume keys can be found on the left edge. Again, these are put together in a very, very impressive fashion — clicks are registered in a very organized manner with great feedback. However, one issue we have with the power button is its positioning — it is put way too high for a 5.5-inch phone. Swapping the power and volume keys would make for a very sweet position for the power button, right where your left thumb would sit (if it HAS to be on the left). With the current arrangement, you鈥檒l either have to switch positions after unlocking the phone, or use the home button each time — the latter would make for a majority, we believe, especially if you鈥檙e going to use the fingerprint unlock feature (which you TOTALLY should — more on this later).The rear cover is flexible and looks to be made out of good quality plastic. It can be a little cumbersome to pry it out, but then that鈥檚 something we like, after all you don鈥檛 want it to come off or anything after every drop.Inside, there鈥檚 space for a 2550mAh battery and a couple SIMs along with a microSD card.The rear is also where you will find the 13 mega-pixel IMX214 camera (according to specs) and single LED flash. The flash cut-out is made to look like there鈥檚 dual LED flash, whereas there鈥檚 just one LED module in fact.The camera sensor is surrounded by a nice metallic ring, something which yet again adds to the build aspect of this phone. Another reminder of how well Ulefone have put together this handset!In a nutshell, we鈥檒l admit that the Be Touch is among the better made phones this year so far. It鈥檒l be interesting to see how the P7000 holds up against this one!Ulefone Be Touch Review: Components and performanceWhen you purchase the Be Touch you get a phone that is powered by the all impressive MediaTek MT6752 64-bit octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM and has a 5.5-inch screen. Unfortunately, the screen is only a 1280 x 720p unit. We鈥檇 have loved it to be a 1080p panel, the very least for the sake of this argument.Other than that, the Be Touch has 16GB of on-board storage, a 13 mega-pixel main camera (Sony IMX214) and a 5 mega-pixel front camera with LED flash. The battery is a 2550mAh cell, which does sound a little inadequate for the screen size but the fact that it is only a 720p panel helps here. Also something to be kept in mind is that the phone ships with stock Android, v5.0 Lollipop. The 5.5-inch 720p screen won鈥檛 blow you away with its color and sharpness. Instead, you鈥檒l be a little surprised by the fact that it is in fact a little pale in front of the competition. Also, one of our favourite features that come along with the MT6752 — MiraVision — seems to be missing from the Lollipop ROM. In the past, a lot of MT6752 and MT6732 phones have benefited from MiraVision鈥檚 suite of features, especially dynamic contrast. Here鈥檚 hoping that an update soon bring MiraVision to the Lollipop ROM of the Be Touch!The screen also isn鈥檛 the best with viewing angles; colours do 鈥榳ash out鈥 every now and then when you rotate the phone in front of your eyes. In more ways than one, the screen is the Achilles heel of the Be Touch.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe 13 mega-pixel camera, which according to the makers is a Sony IMX214 sensor, doesn鈥檛 seem to have been implemented too well. The pictures have a slight bit of a dark tint to them, and the dynamic contrast doesn鈥檛 seem to be the best. That is, with a bright and dark element in the single frame, the Be Touch doesn鈥檛 do exceedingly well. One counter to that would be HDR mode, but even that doesn鈥檛 help too much.Even yet, the phone does sometimes produce some quality images. For one, take a look at his picture taken in a relatively dark environment.In daylight however, the Be Touch seems to take decent photos. Also worth noting is the fact that the front 5 mega-pixel camera has LED flash, and is actually quite a decent camera in itself. What is worth mentioning however is the fact that the front flash is very weak and doesn鈥檛 really enhance the frame much, unless of course you鈥檙e trying to take a selfie in a pitch black environment.Taken on the front camera Reception on the Be Touch (GPS, call, WiFi) is fairly decent. GPS is actually pretty impressive; most MediaTek phones in the past have struggled to get a decent lock, but the Be Touch doesn鈥檛 just do that outdoors but indoors as well. GPS: Indoors GPS: Outdoors Call quality is very good. Volume could go a step higher though, but that鈥檚 something very subjective. One thing to note here is that the phone does get a little warm around the camera region (where the metallic ring acts as a heat sink, supposedly) for comfort.WiFi however is a bit of a different story. Performance in this department isn鈥檛 as good as the rest of the phone; quite worse, in fact. Compared to phones like the Gionee Elife S7, Xiaomi Mi 4 or even the Mi 4i, the Be Touch is always second and by quite a margin.Fingerprint sensor works very wellIt hasn鈥檛 been a long while since Chinese phones started shipping with fingerprint sensors, but the rate at which these sensors have improved is unbelievable. The Elephone P5000 was among the first ones to have a fingerprint sensor, and we鈥檙e now into the third generation of these — and to sum it up in one word, the fingerprint sensor on the Be Touch is brilliant.We even tried unlocking the phone with an inverted thumb, and it still worked — at the same speed. It just goes to show that the feature has been implemented really well and isn鈥檛 just a gimmick anymore. Rather, something that not only provides better security, but also better convenience!Battery life is about decent on the phone. It can be a better. After 4-5 charging/discharging cycles it did get better, but there’s still some room for improvement. After lot of browsing, around 1 and a half hours of calling, and some IMing, here’s how the battery life chart stood on the phone. Sound output on the Be Touch is one of the features of the phone which could get better. Very honestly, we鈥檝e encountered varying sound performance from the Be Touch; the speaker sometimes sounds loud enough but other times, it simply doesn鈥檛 cut it. What stays constant however is the fact that there鈥檚 virtually no bass in the sound output.Ulefone Be Touch Review: ROMAs mentioned above, the phone comes with a ROM that is completely stock. Unfortunately though, it doesn鈥檛 seem 100% optimized. Not just that Be Touch, non completely optimized Lollipop ROMs are, at the moment, hampering the performance of a lot of Chinese phones. What鈥檚 good is that this seems to be throttling only the UI performance, whereas performance from other 3rd party apps and games seems to be just fine. The ROM also offers some off-screen gestures which have now become a norm. Many a time these off screen gestures can be a problem (if you keep your phone in your pockets), which is why the usage hasn鈥檛 been as widespread as the makers would鈥檝e liked. Double tap to wake however is a brilliant feature which we鈥檙e sure most of you would already be using. The Be Touch doesn鈥檛 require that though, because there is a hardware button that can actually be 鈥榩ressed鈥 (as opposed to capacitive buttons). Nonetheless, double tap to wake is a good option if you aren鈥檛 using a fingerprint as your password.Here鈥檚 how the Be Touch performs on benchmarks. You can find more info about the phone鈥檚 benchmarking capabilities here.Antutu: 43,412Ice Storm Extreme: 6,745Nenamark 2: 72.0fpsGeekbench Single-core: 800Geekbench multi-core: 3455Vellamo Metal: 1291Vellamo Multicore: 1884Vellamo Browser: 3401GFX Manhattan: 715.1GFX Manhattan offscreen: 370.5GFX T-Rex: 1,142GFX T-Rex Offscreen: 702.9Quadrant: 16,411Ulefone Be Touch Review: OtherIn many ways, the Be Touch is a great phone. However, a few aspects do let it down鈥 for one, there鈥檚 no notification LED on the phone. This is pretty surprising for a 2015 phone; people have gotten used to notification LEDs. We believe every manufacturer, small or big, should have those on their phones.Another something that isn鈥檛 as back as the lack of a notification LED, but could鈥檝e been better: backlit buttons. While you will ultimately get used to the positioning of these buttons, having a little backlight beneath wouldn鈥檛 really hurt the company and would also save you the learning curve of hitting the buttons without knowing where they are.The touchscreen sensor can sometimes feel a little slow to respond. It can be frustrating, and we’re once again hoping it is a ROM issue which is fixed with an update.Charging the Be Touch takes a little longer than you would鈥檝e hoped for. Although this is in no way a gripe, but just something a potential buyer would want to know about. It takes just about 3 hours to charge the battery using the stock charger.Ulefone Be Touch Review: VerdictAs is very clear from what you鈥檝e read, we鈥檙e surprised (and positively) with the build quality that the Be Touch has on offer. Performance too is quite up to the mark, but the ROM needs a lot of polishing to extract whatever the MediaTek MT6752 has on offer. It does seem sometimes like the ROM is a beta release than a full public release.The phone has only started shipping now, so expect a lot of improvements on the ROM front. Ulefone have proven themselves with a good amount of firmware updates to their phones, and we hope to see similar treatment being given to the Be Touch also.At this point in time, it wouldn鈥檛 be cent percent accurate to call the Be Touch a flagship for 2015. But it does come close.We鈥檒l be bringing more Be Touch news to you as and when we gain access to newer and better firmware for the phone. In the meantime, let us know what you would choose between this and the elusive Elephone P7000.I’m pretty certain you haven鈥檛 heard of this new phone company on the block that calls itself 鈥楽iswoo鈥? but what you will be pleased to know is that the company鈥檚 first phone itself is a winner. We鈥檙e talking about the Siswoo Cooper i7, with which we spent some hands on time a while back.The device has one of the most ergonomic designs I鈥檝e seen in the past few months, and it also comes with a better than average processor for the money. There鈥檚 a lot of good things about the phone that I have to say, along with some bad ones; so let鈥檚 get it all out of the way in this Siswoo Cooper i7 review!MediaTek MT6752 rules the roost MediaTek have started this year with a bang. First with the 64-bit quad-core MT6732 (as seen on the Elephone P6000), and then with the more powerful 64-bit octa-core MT6752, which is also the SoC that powers the Siswoo Cooper i7. The Cooper i7 is however more 鈥榤id-range鈥 than other phones that are powered by the MT6752 because it has 2GB of RAM, while others seem to ship with 3GB.Siswoo Cooper i7 Review: Design and BuildThe Meizu MX4 was one of the most user-friendly phones in terms of design back in late 2014, and so is the Cooper i7. You must be wondering why I鈥檓 mentioning the MX4 in a Cooper i7 review; that鈥檚 because the Cooper i7 takes the design of the MX4, and doesn鈥檛 change it enough so it clearly reminds you of the Meizu phone. The Siswoo Cooper i7 in fact, also comes with the glowing halo (which certainly seems to be a VERY popular addition on Chinese phones) to top off the MX4 doppelganger look.The phone per se is perhaps the most comfortable 5-inch phone you鈥檒l ever hold; it certainly was the case for me. So much so that I even contemplated retiring my trusty old Mi 4 for this!There isn鈥檛 a lot of metal on the phone, but whatever Siswoo have used (and it鈥檚 certainly not some aircraft grade material) works surprisingly well for them, and then the user. The phone is fairly lightweight too, but has just enough heft to feel like a well put-together piece of kit. A chrome plated lip does run around the screen, but I鈥檓 not sure if its metal or plastic鈥 would like to assume the former, though.The curved edges really make the phone a pleasure to hold, and use. In other words, the form factor of the Siswoo Cooper i7 is a delight for users that find it hard to get used to larger (>5-inch) screen phones. All corners of the phone are reachable with your thumb when you鈥檙e using the phone in one hand, and that isn鈥檛 something you get to hear very often these days.The front of the frame is very recognizable thanks to some iconic phones (iConic?), and some that we discussed before such as the Meizu MX4. Even then, the device is a pleasure to look at with the glowing holo on the bottom. The bezels around the screen aren鈥檛 the narrowest, but also not so wide to make the phone look ugly.Both sides of the phone are fairly minimalistic in design, and curve to blend with the rear. The right edge also makes home for the power and volume buttons, both of which are plated in the same chrome-ish material as the lip around the screen鈥 but this time, its definitely plastic. On the rear of the phone, you find the Siswoo logo which sits below the camera module, printed in italics. Not much else on the rear besides the company logo (and a little mention of 4G-LTE on the bottom). A flash module sits right below the camera sensor, which might look like it makes home for dual LEDs, but in fact it has just one. This is something I鈥檝e seen on a lot of Chinese phones in the recent months.There鈥檚 nothing at all on the bottom (aka the chin) of the phone, while the top edge of the Cooper i7 makes space for a micro USB port and a 3.5mm headset jack.Beneath the rear cover, there鈥檚 the familiar sight of two SIM slots (1x mini SIM, 1x micro SIM) and a microSD card slot. The Cooper i7 uses a 2100mAh battery, which does sound under-par for a phone of today, but in real life does perform well enough, as you shall read through the course of this review. Around the aforementioned, you can also see the 3D printed antennas which unfortunately aren鈥檛 the best, at least as far as WiFi is concerned. A mono speaker too is seen right near the edge of the phone.Siswoo Cooper i7 Review: Components and PerformanceThe Cooper i7 smartphone, and Siswoo itself, came out of nowhere to produce a phone that鈥檚 actually one of the best in its range. While you may not have heard of the company name before, you will certainly know a bit about the components the phone uses. It comes with a 5-inch 1280 x 720 pixel display (which is actually pretty good), an octa-core, 64-bit MediaTek MT6752 processor that impresses beyond expectations, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of on-board storage, an 8 mega-pixel rear camera and a 5 mega-pixel front camera along with a 2100mAh removable battery.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram The display itself is as impressive as the rest of the phone. It isn鈥檛 a QHD display, or not even a full HD panel; but the experience of using the phone is pretty much beats that of using any other phone in its range, at least display wise. Its an IPS panel as you would expect, and thanks to MediaTek鈥檚 Miravision technology, the display can be tuned to your taste without much hassle. In all, I鈥檇 say that the display is top notch and doesn鈥檛 leave anything to complain about.Blacks though, could get a bit darker. This isn鈥檛 a gripe per se, but rather something that could make the package, that is the Cooper i7, look better.Moving on, there鈥檚 not a lot that鈥檚 left to be said about the MediaTek MT6752 octa-core processor. The SoC was used in the current JiaYu flagship, the JiaYu S3, and has impressed one and all. The MT6752 is one from the new breed of MediaTek SoCs that don鈥檛 aim to follow the competition, but beat it. And from my usage of the Cooper i7, I have to say I鈥檓 more than just impressed. I can foresee MT6752 phones such as the Cooper i7 sell for around US$150 in the coming months; and that鈥檚 something that will really redefine the market. The MT6732 beats the Snapdragon 615 in my book, at least as far as general usage is concerned; the MT6752 does miles better.2GB of RAM means the phone is more than just decent at multitasking. As far as I鈥檓 concerned, the quality of multitasking depends more on the CPU than one usually assumes; it is a common idea to base a phone鈥檚 ability on the amount of RAM is has, which isn鈥檛 entirely accurate. Think of it this way: you have a 20 litre bucket full of water (RAM on phone) and various smaller mugs (apps) that take up water from the 20 litre bucket. How soon you switch from 1litre mug A to 1 litre mug B completely depends on how fast YOU (CPU) can transfer the water, and not just the capacity of the 20 litre bucket.The phone charges up at a nominal rate, which isn鈥檛 the fastest. Personally, I don鈥檛 like fast chargers too much (unless they鈥檙e the VOOC kind which really make a difference), because it also means that you鈥檙e hurting your phone鈥檚 battery. Which is why I tend to stick to 1A chargers when I鈥檓 not in a hurry. (The test on the Cooper i7 was, of course, conducted using a 2A unit) Battery life itself is pretty good on the phone. It’ll take you through one day of usage, but not a lot more. What’s interesting is, if you happen to have a busy day with a lot of phone use, the Cooper i7 will probably not let you down.Another area where the Cooper i7 doesn鈥檛 score too highly is WiFi reception. In areas in my house where the Xiaomi Mi 4 and Yu Yureka easily latch on to my WiFi network, the Cooper i7 finds it tough to even stay connected when coming from an area with greater strength, let alone discovering the network. This is something that Siswoo can certainly work upon.The vibration motor on the phone too is something to complain about. After 1-2 motions, the motor will simply stop working; it’s working is sporadic in nature, in other words. This is certainly a massive let down on a phone that has otherwise proven to be a gem. Makes you wonder about the quality of components used inside the pretty exterior.What鈥檚 also not great about the Siswoo Cooper i7 (although I faced this issue only twice in the two months of usage) is that the speaker went off for no apparent reason a couple of times. I had to restart the phone to get audio back, so its certainly not a hardware issue but something to do with poor software implementation.Unfortunately for you shutterbugs, the Cooper i7 isn鈥檛 really a very good camera phone. The photos that it takes have a pinkish tint to them, and lack detail. Not only that, they鈥檙e also not as sharp as you would like. It isn’t the worst camera phone ever, but I’ve certainly seen better. ConclusionProsErgonomicsBatteryPerformanceConsVibration motor turns offCameraWiFiHaving used the phone for a couple of months, I can vouch for the fact that the device is certainly blazing fast and doesn鈥檛 get slow with time. The fact that it comes with a near stock ROM helps the issue also. The few niggles — poor WiFi, vibration motor functions sporadically, audio goes off — can鈥檛 be overlooked certainly, but the phone itself despite the issues has a lot of potential.The design is pretty much a ripoff of the MX4 which is another thing that might bother a lot of potential buyers. Despite that, the Cooper i7 is THE most ergonomic phone I鈥檝e used in鈥 ever. Especially since I鈥檓 a one-handed phone user kind of a guy.In any case, Siswoo as a manufacturer has certainly done exceedingly well to make their first phone as good as the Cooper i7. With more time and experience in the market, combined with user reviews, I can foresee them making some killer phones in the next year or so.I’m pretty certain you haven鈥檛 heard of this new phone company on the block that calls itself 鈥楽iswoo鈥? but what you will be pleased to know is that the company鈥檚 first phone itself is a winner. We鈥檙e talking about the Siswoo Cooper i7, with which we spent some hands on time a while back.The device has one of the most ergonomic designs I鈥檝e seen in the past few months, and it also comes with a better than average processor for the money. There鈥檚 a lot of good things about the phone that I have to say, along with some bad ones; so let鈥檚 get it all out of the way in this Siswoo Cooper i7 review!MediaTek MT6752 rules the roost MediaTek have started this year with a bang. First with the 64-bit quad-core MT6732 (as seen on the Elephone P6000), and then with the more powerful 64-bit octa-core MT6752, which is also the SoC that powers the Siswoo Cooper i7. The Cooper i7 is however more 鈥榤id-range鈥 than other phones that are powered by the MT6752 because it has 2GB of RAM, while others seem to ship with 3GB.Siswoo Cooper i7 Review: Design and BuildThe Meizu MX4 was one of the most user-friendly phones in terms of design back in late 2014, and so is the Cooper i7. You must be wondering why I鈥檓 mentioning the MX4 in a Cooper i7 review; that鈥檚 because the Cooper i7 takes the design of the MX4, and doesn鈥檛 change it enough so it clearly reminds you of the Meizu phone. The Siswoo Cooper i7 in fact, also comes with the glowing halo (which certainly seems to be a VERY popular addition on Chinese phones) to top off the MX4 doppelganger look.The phone per se is perhaps the most comfortable 5-inch phone you鈥檒l ever hold; it certainly was the case for me. So much so that I even contemplated retiring my trusty old Mi 4 for this!There isn鈥檛 a lot of metal on the phone, but whatever Siswoo have used (and it鈥檚 certainly not some aircraft grade material) works surprisingly well for them, and then the user. The phone is fairly lightweight too, but has just enough heft to feel like a well put-together piece of kit. A chrome plated lip does run around the screen, but I鈥檓 not sure if its metal or plastic鈥 would like to assume the former, though.The curved edges really make the phone a pleasure to hold, and use. In other words, the form factor of the Siswoo Cooper i7 is a delight for users that find it hard to get used to larger (>5-inch) screen phones. All corners of the phone are reachable with your thumb when you鈥檙e using the phone in one hand, and that isn鈥檛 something you get to hear very often these days.The front of the frame is very recognizable thanks to some iconic phones (iConic?), and some that we discussed before such as the Meizu MX4. Even then, the device is a pleasure to look at with the glowing holo on the bottom. The bezels around the screen aren鈥檛 the narrowest, but also not so wide to make the phone look ugly.Both sides of the phone are fairly minimalistic in design, and curve to blend with the rear. The right edge also makes home for the power and volume buttons, both of which are plated in the same chrome-ish material as the lip around the screen鈥 but this time, its definitely plastic. On the rear of the phone, you find the Siswoo logo which sits below the camera module, printed in italics. Not much else on the rear besides the company logo (and a little mention of 4G-LTE on the bottom). A flash module sits right below the camera sensor, which might look like it makes home for dual LEDs, but in fact it has just one. This is something I鈥檝e seen on a lot of Chinese phones in the recent months.There鈥檚 nothing at all on the bottom (aka the chin) of the phone, while the top edge of the Cooper i7 makes space for a micro USB port and a 3.5mm headset jack.Beneath the rear cover, there鈥檚 the familiar sight of two SIM slots (1x mini SIM, 1x micro SIM) and a microSD card slot. The Cooper i7 uses a 2100mAh battery, which does sound under-par for a phone of today, but in real life does perform well enough, as you shall read through the course of this review. Around the aforementioned, you can also see the 3D printed antennas which unfortunately aren鈥檛 the best, at least as far as WiFi is concerned. A mono speaker too is seen right near the edge of the phone.Siswoo Cooper i7 Review: Components and PerformanceThe Cooper i7 smartphone, and Siswoo itself, came out of nowhere to produce a phone that鈥檚 actually one of the best in its range. While you may not have heard of the company name before, you will certainly know a bit about the components the phone uses. It comes with a 5-inch 1280 x 720 pixel display (which is actually pretty good), an octa-core, 64-bit MediaTek MT6752 processor that impresses beyond expectations, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of on-board storage, an 8 mega-pixel rear camera and a 5 mega-pixel front camera along with a 2100mAh removable battery.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram The display itself is as impressive as the rest of the phone. It isn鈥檛 a QHD display, or not even a full HD panel; but the experience of using the phone is pretty much beats that of using any other phone in its range, at least display wise. Its an IPS panel as you would expect, and thanks to MediaTek鈥檚 Miravision technology, the display can be tuned to your taste without much hassle. In all, I鈥檇 say that the display is top notch and doesn鈥檛 leave anything to complain about.Blacks though, could get a bit darker. This isn鈥檛 a gripe per se, but rather something that could make the package, that is the Cooper i7, look better.Moving on, there鈥檚 not a lot that鈥檚 left to be said about the MediaTek MT6752 octa-core processor. The SoC was used in the current JiaYu flagship, the JiaYu S3, and has impressed one and all. The MT6752 is one from the new breed of MediaTek SoCs that don鈥檛 aim to follow the competition, but beat it. And from my usage of the Cooper i7, I have to say I鈥檓 more than just impressed. I can foresee MT6752 phones such as the Cooper i7 sell for around US$150 in the coming months; and that鈥檚 something that will really redefine the market. The MT6732 beats the Snapdragon 615 in my book, at least as far as general usage is concerned; the MT6752 does miles better.2GB of RAM means the phone is more than just decent at multitasking. As far as I鈥檓 concerned, the quality of multitasking depends more on the CPU than one usually assumes; it is a common idea to base a phone鈥檚 ability on the amount of RAM is has, which isn鈥檛 entirely accurate. Think of it this way: you have a 20 litre bucket full of water (RAM on phone) and various smaller mugs (apps) that take up water from the 20 litre bucket. How soon you switch from 1litre mug A to 1 litre mug B completely depends on how fast YOU (CPU) can transfer the water, and not just the capacity of the 20 litre bucket.The phone charges up at a nominal rate, which isn鈥檛 the fastest. Personally, I don鈥檛 like fast chargers too much (unless they鈥檙e the VOOC kind which really make a difference), because it also means that you鈥檙e hurting your phone鈥檚 battery. Which is why I tend to stick to 1A chargers when I鈥檓 not in a hurry. (The test on the Cooper i7 was, of course, conducted using a 2A unit) Battery life itself is pretty good on the phone. It’ll take you through one day of usage, but not a lot more. What’s interesting is, if you happen to have a busy day with a lot of phone use, the Cooper i7 will probably not let you down.Another area where the Cooper i7 doesn鈥檛 score too highly is WiFi reception. In areas in my house where the Xiaomi Mi 4 and Yu Yureka easily latch on to my WiFi network, the Cooper i7 finds it tough to even stay connected when coming from an area with greater strength, let alone discovering the network. This is something that Siswoo can certainly work upon.The vibration motor on the phone too is something to complain about. After 1-2 motions, the motor will simply stop working; it’s working is sporadic in nature, in other words. This is certainly a massive let down on a phone that has otherwise proven to be a gem. Makes you wonder about the quality of components used inside the pretty exterior.What鈥檚 also not great about the Siswoo Cooper i7 (although I faced this issue only twice in the two months of usage) is that the speaker went off for no apparent reason a couple of times. I had to restart the phone to get audio back, so its certainly not a hardware issue but something to do with poor software implementation.Unfortunately for you shutterbugs, the Cooper i7 isn鈥檛 really a very good camera phone. The photos that it takes have a pinkish tint to them, and lack detail. Not only that, they鈥檙e also not as sharp as you would like. It isn’t the worst camera phone ever, but I’ve certainly seen better. ConclusionProsErgonomicsBatteryPerformanceConsVibration motor turns offCameraWiFiHaving used the phone for a couple of months, I can vouch for the fact that the device is certainly blazing fast and doesn鈥檛 get slow with time. The fact that it comes with a near stock ROM helps the issue also. The few niggles — poor WiFi, vibration motor functions sporadically, audio goes off — can鈥檛 be overlooked certainly, but the phone itself despite the issues has a lot of potential.The design is pretty much a ripoff of the MX4 which is another thing that might bother a lot of potential buyers. Despite that, the Cooper i7 is THE most ergonomic phone I鈥檝e used in鈥 ever. Especially since I鈥檓 a one-handed phone user kind of a guy.In any case, Siswoo as a manufacturer has certainly done exceedingly well to make their first phone as good as the Cooper i7. With more time and experience in the market, combined with user reviews, I can foresee them making some killer phones in the next year or so.The Asus Zenfone aimed to disrupt the phone market and I believe they鈥檝e done a sterling job. Here is our full review of the Asus Zenfone 2.Asus knew what was needed to grab headlines when announcing their new flagship phone. First of all they went and gave their new device a whopping 4GB RAM, then they gave it an affordable price and finally great availability with the device already on sale, or launching soon, in markets around the world.For us at GizChina.com we were excited to get our hands on the Asus Zenfone 2 for a few reasons. We wanted to see what 4GB RAM really means in the real world, and we wanted to see if Asus had finally produced a phone truly worth getting excited about. Keep reading for full details.Asus Zenfone 2 – First impressionsAsus Zenfone 2 Review – DesignI鈥檓 not going to beat around the bush, the Zenfone 2 isn鈥檛 the best looking phone on the market today. Going from the luxurious Xiaomi Mi Note to the chunky, plastic Asus certainly felt like a downgrade, but once I got to grips with the device I soon forgot about the looks.Made of plastic with chunky bezels and a removable rear panel, there is nothing revolutionary about the design of the Zenfone 2. It is clear to me that Asus took inspiration from HTC and LG when designing their device, and while it might not feel as premium as the G3 or M9 it doesn鈥檛 feel poorly made either.There are no creaks or groans from the material when under pressure and everything fits nice and flush.On the front we have a 5.5-inch FHD display with navigations buttons on a bar above an empty chin area. Removing the chin would greatly reduce the length of the Asus Zenfone 2, and would improve the front end looks no end too, but I suppose these are changes to look forward to in the next-gen model.An Asus logo on the front isn鈥檛 to my taste either and reminds me of phone designs of old, but I suppose Asus are proud of their phone and want to ensure everyone knows who put it together.The sides are very thin thanks to a generous curve to the removable back panel. Even with it鈥檚 wider bezels the smooth rear fits in to your hand easily, although I do struggle now and then when reaching across the screen with my thumb. As Asus have located the power button at the top in the middle and the volume rocker on the rear there are no buttons on either side. The only details we find are the power button and 3.5mm headphone jack at the very top and USB in the base.That brushed metal finish isn鈥檛 actually metal but a nice pattern on a plastic panel. Starting at the top we have a very bright dual tone LED flash, then 13 mega-pixel main camera, volume control, another Asus logo, an Intel logo then large speaker grill. It sounds rather busy but actually looks pretty good in real life.Removing the rear panel is harder work than on other phones but that鈥檚 fine as it is a nice tight fit. On the inside with have space for dual SIM cards, a micro SD card and we can see the battery but not remove it.Although I wasn鈥檛 taken with the design at first I鈥檝e become quite used to it. It is a well put together phone it feels good in the hand and considering it as a package is a joy to use.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – SpecificationsSpecifications are really what make the Asus shine in comparison to the competition. At the current price of around $322 (Coupon code at the end of the review) through resellers there are very few phone that can touch the Zenfone 2. The version of the Asus Zenfone 2 which I have been testing is the ZE551Ml and has a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 display, 13 mega-pixel PixelMaster main camera, 1.8Ghz Intel processor, 4GB RAM and 3000mAh battery.Looking at the specifications a little more closely and we find that the main camera has a F2.0 aperture and 178 degree lens plus dual LED flash. The screen is a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 item聽with IPS, there is a 5 mega-pixel front facing camera, LED notification light, and ZENUI runs on Android 5.0.Those are some seriously impressive specifications for a phone of this money and means that the Zenfone 2 is a really great performer.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – ScreenI’ve been using the Asus Zenfone 2 in some pretty bright outdoor environments and have been pleasantly surprised at just how legible the device is even in intense sunlight. Interestingly, when indoors and turning the screen brightness up the Zenfone 2 isn’t as bright as say the Meizu MX4 Pro, but it is still easy to read in sunny conditions.In the past I have tested great value flagships, the OnePlus One for example, and have found that overtime the screen can sometimes develop ghost touches. Thankfully this isn’t the case with the Asus Zenfone 2 which remains free of hauntings so far.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – Performance and BenchmarksWith a quad-core, 64bit, 1.8Ghz processor and 4GB RAM you expect blazing performance and that is exactly what you get. In real world situations the Zenfone 2 is lightning fast. Applications open in an instant, the system is fluid, everything just works great. 4GB RAM means that you can multitask to your heart’s content. It might not be a good habit but I’ve had upwards of 20聽applications/windows (browser tabs are displayed as a separate card in the multi-tasking window) running before the system has shown any signs of slowing.As usual I ran a number of benchmarking application of the Asus Zenfone 2, but in all honesty the phone needs to be tried to be believed! It really is a powerhouse of a device!Asus Zenfone 2 benchmarksGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramQuadrant: 16,861GFXBench Manhattan: 712.0GFXBench Manhattan offscreen: 754.9GFXBench T-Rex: 1,494GFXBench T-Rex offscreen: 1,421Vellamo Metal: 1,076Vellamo Multicore: 1,335Vellamo Browser: 2,645Ice Storm Extreme: 18,328Geekbench Single-core Score: 744Geekbench Multi-core Score: 2,257Antutu: 41,077Asus Zenfone 2 benchmarks screenshots Asus Zenfone 2 Review – CameraThe camera on the Asus Zenfone 2 is a real hit and miss unit. Take the phone out on a sunny day and you can really capture some amazing photos. Go out another day in the same conditions and the camera acts like it has a hangover.The 13 megapixel PixelMaster sensor has all the makings of a great unit, F2.0 Aperture, 5 element lens and a feature packed camera application, but so far Asus haven’t been able to optimise it as well as we would have hoped. The camera optimisation issues is another area the Zenfone 2 is comparable to the OPO, and I hope that in future updates we are going to see a vast improvement.Whether the camera performance will bother you though really depends on what you use your camera for. If you just intend to take photos to share through Facebook or Instagram (where their quality will be reduced anyway) the Asus Zenfone 2 is fine. If you want to create larger images to share on your PC then there are certainly better camera phones available, although not at this price.Personally I love a phone with a great camera, it is a feature that I simply cannot live without. So on the one hand I am sometimes a little disappointed with the photos captured, but on the other hand I love the features on offer in the camera application.Features I have used the most are Auto, HDR, and Selfie. Auto is obviously the default setting, HDR really needs to be worked on but in the right conditions it works well. Selfie mode actually uses the main camera to detect faces and shoot a group photo with the 13 mega-pixel sensor, great for family photos.In addition to those settings I have also used聽Super Resolution mode (similar to HD photo on the Oppo N3), Low Light mode (for use within 3 meters of a subject) and Night Mode. I’ve not used them much though as I have that they need some serious improvement.Other camera features include Time Lapse, All Smiles, Smart Remove, Time Rewind, Miniature, Panorama, GIF Animation, Effect and Depth of Field. There probably is enough content here for a review of te Zenfone 2 camera application itself, but for I’ll leave it there for now and post a few photo sample taken with the phone in the gallery below.Asus Zenfone 2 Photo Samples Asus Zenfone 2 review Low light photo sampleI used the camera in the Auto setting for these low-light test, when using the “low-light” or “night” mode the quality is actually worse. Asus Zenfone 2 Review – Audio, Connectivity and BatteryWhen I first received the Asus Zenfone 2 I had issues with GPS when using Strava, but there have been 2 OTA updates since which have solved the issue. Call reception, LTE, WIFI and Bluetooth have all worked trouble-free from the time of receiving the unit and through the various updates.The 3000mAh battery in the phone, I feel, is pretty good. Other reports have said that the battery life is poor, but I have not experienced this. Earlier in my time with the phone I managed to get through almost a full day of use with my LG G Watch connected, and WIFI, LTE and GPS on constantly under review conditions. This morning I woke with 15% power left after a full day of use yesterday including over a 2 hour bike ride with Strava running, and music streaming over LTE via Google Music!Sound quality through the receiver is loud and clear, audio through headphones is very good, but not up to the standard set by Vivo and Oppo, and the rear speaker isn’t bad either too.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – ZenUIAsus quite simple cannot make a good-looking operating system. ZenUI is easily the ugliest ROM I have ever used in my life! If it hadn’t been so smooth and feature packed I’m sure I would have stopped using the Zenfone 2 way back. The developers at Asus quite clearly have some amazing ideas and they have stuffed a lot in to the operating system, but where they fail is on presentation. It doesn’t have the nice flat icons of other ROMs, and the UI doesn’t flow from app to app or menu to menu. A cleaner more polished ROM would greatly improve the user experience, however if you can get past the looks the ROM is some really nice features.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – ConclusionThe Asus Zenfone 2, in my opinion, is the OnePlus One of 2015 (until the OP2 is released). It is a absolute bargain of a phone when you see what the phone has to offer for the money, but has fewer issues than the OnePlus phone.It might not be the best in terms of looks and camera performance but the building blocks are all there and with continued updates (Asus are rolling them out quite frequently) we are should see improved camera performance and you can always use a launcher if you don’t like the UI.The only major drawback of the Asus Zenfone 2 I can see is app compatibility. I’ve heard that Here maps won’t work with the Intel chipset for example and never will. This is a downer as I did tend to use Here quite often, but it is the only app that I’ve had to sacrifice so far, and it’s not a huge deal.Asus were once a brand I simply ignored but after using the Zenfone 2 I cannot wait to see what they have in store for the phone, and what their next devices are going to offer.

The Asus Zenfone aimed to disrupt the phone market and I believe they鈥檝e done a sterling job. Here is our full review of the Asus Zenfone 2.Asus knew what was needed to grab headlines when announcing their new flagship phone. First of all they went and gave their new device a whopping 4GB RAM, then they gave it an affordable price and finally great availability with the device already on sale, or launching soon, in markets around the world.For us at GizChina.com we were excited to get our hands on the Asus Zenfone 2 for a few reasons. We wanted to see what 4GB RAM really means in the real world, and we wanted to see if Asus had finally produced a phone truly worth getting excited about. Keep reading for full details.Asus Zenfone 2 – First impressionsAsus Zenfone 2 Review – DesignI鈥檓 not going to beat around the bush, the Zenfone 2 isn鈥檛 the best looking phone on the market today. Going from the luxurious Xiaomi Mi Note to the chunky, plastic Asus certainly felt like a downgrade, but once I got to grips with the device I soon forgot about the looks.Made of plastic with chunky bezels and a removable rear panel, there is nothing revolutionary about the design of the Zenfone 2. It is clear to me that Asus took inspiration from HTC and LG when designing their device, and while it might not feel as premium as the G3 or M9 it doesn鈥檛 feel poorly made either.There are no creaks or groans from the material when under pressure and everything fits nice and flush.On the front we have a 5.5-inch FHD display with navigations buttons on a bar above an empty chin area. Removing the chin would greatly reduce the length of the Asus Zenfone 2, and would improve the front end looks no end too, but I suppose these are changes to look forward to in the next-gen model.An Asus logo on the front isn鈥檛 to my taste either and reminds me of phone designs of old, but I suppose Asus are proud of their phone and want to ensure everyone knows who put it together.The sides are very thin thanks to a generous curve to the removable back panel. Even with it鈥檚 wider bezels the smooth rear fits in to your hand easily, although I do struggle now and then when reaching across the screen with my thumb. As Asus have located the power button at the top in the middle and the volume rocker on the rear there are no buttons on either side. The only details we find are the power button and 3.5mm headphone jack at the very top and USB in the base.That brushed metal finish isn鈥檛 actually metal but a nice pattern on a plastic panel. Starting at the top we have a very bright dual tone LED flash, then 13 mega-pixel main camera, volume control, another Asus logo, an Intel logo then large speaker grill. It sounds rather busy but actually looks pretty good in real life.Removing the rear panel is harder work than on other phones but that鈥檚 fine as it is a nice tight fit. On the inside with have space for dual SIM cards, a micro SD card and we can see the battery but not remove it.Although I wasn鈥檛 taken with the design at first I鈥檝e become quite used to it. It is a well put together phone it feels good in the hand and considering it as a package is a joy to use.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – SpecificationsSpecifications are really what make the Asus shine in comparison to the competition. At the current price of around $322 (Coupon code at the end of the review) through resellers there are very few phone that can touch the Zenfone 2. The version of the Asus Zenfone 2 which I have been testing is the ZE551Ml and has a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 display, 13 mega-pixel PixelMaster main camera, 1.8Ghz Intel processor, 4GB RAM and 3000mAh battery.Looking at the specifications a little more closely and we find that the main camera has a F2.0 aperture and 178 degree lens plus dual LED flash. The screen is a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 item聽with IPS, there is a 5 mega-pixel front facing camera, LED notification light, and ZENUI runs on Android 5.0.Those are some seriously impressive specifications for a phone of this money and means that the Zenfone 2 is a really great performer.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – ScreenI’ve been using the Asus Zenfone 2 in some pretty bright outdoor environments and have been pleasantly surprised at just how legible the device is even in intense sunlight. Interestingly, when indoors and turning the screen brightness up the Zenfone 2 isn’t as bright as say the Meizu MX4 Pro, but it is still easy to read in sunny conditions.In the past I have tested great value flagships, the OnePlus One for example, and have found that overtime the screen can sometimes develop ghost touches. Thankfully this isn’t the case with the Asus Zenfone 2 which remains free of hauntings so far.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – Performance and BenchmarksWith a quad-core, 64bit, 1.8Ghz processor and 4GB RAM you expect blazing performance and that is exactly what you get. In real world situations the Zenfone 2 is lightning fast. Applications open in an instant, the system is fluid, everything just works great. 4GB RAM means that you can multitask to your heart’s content. It might not be a good habit but I’ve had upwards of 20聽applications/windows (browser tabs are displayed as a separate card in the multi-tasking window) running before the system has shown any signs of slowing.As usual I ran a number of benchmarking application of the Asus Zenfone 2, but in all honesty the phone needs to be tried to be believed! It really is a powerhouse of a device!Asus Zenfone 2 benchmarksGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramQuadrant: 16,861GFXBench Manhattan: 712.0GFXBench Manhattan offscreen: 754.9GFXBench T-Rex: 1,494GFXBench T-Rex offscreen: 1,421Vellamo Metal: 1,076Vellamo Multicore: 1,335Vellamo Browser: 2,645Ice Storm Extreme: 18,328Geekbench Single-core Score: 744Geekbench Multi-core Score: 2,257Antutu: 41,077Asus Zenfone 2 benchmarks screenshots Asus Zenfone 2 Review – CameraThe camera on the Asus Zenfone 2 is a real hit and miss unit. Take the phone out on a sunny day and you can really capture some amazing photos. Go out another day in the same conditions and the camera acts like it has a hangover.The 13 megapixel PixelMaster sensor has all the makings of a great unit, F2.0 Aperture, 5 element lens and a feature packed camera application, but so far Asus haven’t been able to optimise it as well as we would have hoped. The camera optimisation issues is another area the Zenfone 2 is comparable to the OPO, and I hope that in future updates we are going to see a vast improvement.Whether the camera performance will bother you though really depends on what you use your camera for. If you just intend to take photos to share through Facebook or Instagram (where their quality will be reduced anyway) the Asus Zenfone 2 is fine. If you want to create larger images to share on your PC then there are certainly better camera phones available, although not at this price.Personally I love a phone with a great camera, it is a feature that I simply cannot live without. So on the one hand I am sometimes a little disappointed with the photos captured, but on the other hand I love the features on offer in the camera application.Features I have used the most are Auto, HDR, and Selfie. Auto is obviously the default setting, HDR really needs to be worked on but in the right conditions it works well. Selfie mode actually uses the main camera to detect faces and shoot a group photo with the 13 mega-pixel sensor, great for family photos.In addition to those settings I have also used聽Super Resolution mode (similar to HD photo on the Oppo N3), Low Light mode (for use within 3 meters of a subject) and Night Mode. I’ve not used them much though as I have that they need some serious improvement.Other camera features include Time Lapse, All Smiles, Smart Remove, Time Rewind, Miniature, Panorama, GIF Animation, Effect and Depth of Field. There probably is enough content here for a review of te Zenfone 2 camera application itself, but for I’ll leave it there for now and post a few photo sample taken with the phone in the gallery below.Asus Zenfone 2 Photo Samples Asus Zenfone 2 review Low light photo sampleI used the camera in the Auto setting for these low-light test, when using the “low-light” or “night” mode the quality is actually worse. Asus Zenfone 2 Review – Audio, Connectivity and BatteryWhen I first received the Asus Zenfone 2 I had issues with GPS when using Strava, but there have been 2 OTA updates since which have solved the issue. Call reception, LTE, WIFI and Bluetooth have all worked trouble-free from the time of receiving the unit and through the various updates.The 3000mAh battery in the phone, I feel, is pretty good. Other reports have said that the battery life is poor, but I have not experienced this. Earlier in my time with the phone I managed to get through almost a full day of use with my LG G Watch connected, and WIFI, LTE and GPS on constantly under review conditions. This morning I woke with 15% power left after a full day of use yesterday including over a 2 hour bike ride with Strava running, and music streaming over LTE via Google Music!Sound quality through the receiver is loud and clear, audio through headphones is very good, but not up to the standard set by Vivo and Oppo, and the rear speaker isn’t bad either too.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – ZenUIAsus quite simple cannot make a good-looking operating system. ZenUI is easily the ugliest ROM I have ever used in my life! If it hadn’t been so smooth and feature packed I’m sure I would have stopped using the Zenfone 2 way back. The developers at Asus quite clearly have some amazing ideas and they have stuffed a lot in to the operating system, but where they fail is on presentation. It doesn’t have the nice flat icons of other ROMs, and the UI doesn’t flow from app to app or menu to menu. A cleaner more polished ROM would greatly improve the user experience, however if you can get past the looks the ROM is some really nice features.Asus Zenfone 2 Review – ConclusionThe Asus Zenfone 2, in my opinion, is the OnePlus One of 2015 (until the OP2 is released). It is a absolute bargain of a phone when you see what the phone has to offer for the money, but has fewer issues than the OnePlus phone.It might not be the best in terms of looks and camera performance but the building blocks are all there and with continued updates (Asus are rolling them out quite frequently) we are should see improved camera performance and you can always use a launcher if you don’t like the UI.The only major drawback of the Asus Zenfone 2 I can see is app compatibility. I’ve heard that Here maps won’t work with the Intel chipset for example and never will. This is a downer as I did tend to use Here quite often, but it is the only app that I’ve had to sacrifice so far, and it’s not a huge deal.Asus were once a brand I simply ignored but after using the Zenfone 2 I cannot wait to see what they have in store for the phone, and what their next devices are going to offer.By late 2014, things in the Chinese smartphone industry had started getting monotonous. It was the usual MT6592/82 phone that launched every other day, had a mediocre camera and sucked with battery life. A change was needed quite desperately, and MediaTek delivered; if there鈥檚 a perfect use of the idiom 鈥榮trike when the iron is still hot鈥? this was it. MediaTek came out with the MT6595 and variants thereof.The Meizu MX4 was the first to sport the all-new MediaTek chip. Performance, especially graphics, was lauded and MediaTek was finally a 鈥榤ainstream鈥 fabricator. However, the excitement around the MT6595 didn鈥檛 last too long after the new MT67xx series of 64-bit chips was announced. And that, it turns out, was the stuff worth waiting for.The first few MT6732 phones impressed. One of them happens to be the Elephone P6000, which is still among my most favourite phones — certainly in the top 3 this year. The MT6732 is a quad-core 64-bit CPU, whereas the successor to that, the MT6752 has eight cores, again 64-bit.The Ecoo Aurora was among the first phones to get the MT6752, but it first came with 2GB RAM. Ecoo took their own time in delivering the Aurora Plus, i.e., 3GB RAM version of the phone. But it happens to be quite a good one!Ecoo E04 Plus Review: Design and buildDesign, in the Chinese tech world, is a rather unique experience. Phones from OPPO, Vivo, Meizu, and up to a certain extent, even Xiaomi can look VERY different from what you get to see usually鈥 on the other hand, devices from newcomers and very 鈥楥hinese鈥 brands such as Elephone, Umi, etc. can often have a very generic taste. Thankfully though, that鈥檚 changing, and fast!The Ecoo Aurora doesn鈥檛 have the best looking design, or one that would stand out from the rest. The phone is of the bar form and has a bit of Samsung in it (home button). It does feel very good in the hands though, but that is a different story altogether. Metallic edges on the sides aren鈥檛 really metal, or so it appears to me. From a couple of feet away, the edges can easily fool you into believing they鈥檙e made out of metal. Despite that, there鈥檚 a few things that work in favour of the phone.For one, the device has a lovely heft to it. That is perhaps one major contributor to the 鈥榝eel good鈥 factor of the phone. Also, the curved glass (curved on the edges) on the front gives the phone a polished look. It certainly doesn鈥檛 鈥榣ook鈥 like a sub-$200 phone!Last but not least, the rear of the phone has a woven cloth sort of a texture to it鈥 this adds to the 鈥榥ot-so-generic鈥 aspect of the phone, and also provides much needed grip.I鈥檝e managed to drop the phone a few times (all unintentional, from a maximum height of around 4 feet) and there isn鈥檛 much on the body that tells, apart from a little blemish on the top left corner. And you have to look REALLY hard to spot that. So, I鈥檇 say, the Ecoo Aurora is pretty well put together, although you might feel otherwise on the first look.Ecoo E04 Plus Review:聽Components and performanceStandard display made to look better by softwareThe 5.5-inch screen on the Ecoo E04 Aurora Plus is what you鈥檙e going to notice first. It is a full HD (1920 x 1080p) panel, with some decent picture quality but yet far from ground-breaking. It is one of those panels that look like a 720p display than anything else, and the resolution remains a number more than anything else.However, the MiraVision technology that appears on these MT67xx phones seems to help quite a bit. I鈥檝e found myself to be a sucker for greater saturation on displays, and MiraVision鈥檚 Dynamic Contrast setting helps with regards to bringing up the saturation by a bit. It can be thought of as HDR for displays.The powerful MediaTek MT6752 needs no introduction, I believe. The SoC has appeared on some other phones in the past, such as the iOcean Rock, Siswoo Cooper i7, etc. and has proven its mettle. The octa-core 64-bit SoC feels almost as snappy as a Snapdragon 801, and to think of the price difference between devices powered by those processors (usually around $150) goes to show how good a job MediaTek have done with the MT6752.Multitaskers’ havenThe phone comes with 3GB of RAM, which although doesn鈥檛 provide any performance benefits as such, certainly improves the user experience when a lot of apps are being used at once. 2GB was enough at a point in time, but that was before we were presented with 3GB RAM phones.The MT6752 + 3GB RAM combo is certainly something I can live with. My main phone is an ageing Xiaomi Mi 4, and with time, I think it鈥檒l make a shift to one of these MT6752/MT6795 phones with 3GB RAM.Coming back to the Ecoo, the phone is one made for multitaskers. The AOSP ROM doesn鈥檛 take up much resources, and you鈥檙e free to tinker with it as much as you please. Firing up a tonne of apps all at once isn鈥檛 a problem, unless of course they鈥檙e hardcore games.The phone comes with 16GB of on-board storage, which is expandable via microSD. I鈥檓 not really among those that watch movies and such, but on the Ecoo I did find myself spending time on YouTube before going to bed. That is one advantage of a phablet (I鈥檝e been a devout sub-5鈥 smartphone supporter for a while) that one has to acknowledge!One gripe that I have with the display, however, is that it is a bit too bright even at the lowest settings. Reading in the dark is therefore not very easy on the eyes. Also, the backlit buttons feels a bit too bright — and there鈥檚 no way to turn them off.Performance monsterI鈥檝e spoken about how well the phone manages things when multiple apps are run at once. What about performance per se? I鈥檇 say the Ecoo E04 Plus is one of the most fastest MediaTek phones I鈥檝e used lately (and this includes the Gionee Elife S7). General usage such as UI transitions, etc., feel as snappy as say, the OnePlus One.During more than two weeks of usage, never did I come across any sort of stuttering or lag while usage. This goes to show just how much Chinese phones have progressed in the past one year or so!In general, it is hard to find complaints in the performance department of this phone. Please note what鈥檚 being documented was carried out while the phone was running the stock KitKat ROM. A Lollipop ROM is out on the Ecoo website, which can be downloaded from ecoo.hk.AudioGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramI don鈥檛 know if it was a fault in the unit or a standard feature, but the Ecoo E04 Plus we tested has a very, very poor audio output from the main external speaker. Also, it is a mono speaker鈥 although the design does attempt to fool you into believing otherwise.The volume is REALLY low. It is low enough to render the unit unusable — and this includes loudspeaker calls.Thankfully though, the audio from the 3.5mm jack isn鈥檛 half as bad. The YouTube part was enjoyable only because of this鈥 in all fairness, the Ecoo E04 Plus produces some lovely audio from the 3.5mm jack!Decent battery lifeI don鈥檛 know why, but my mind keeps comparing this to the OnePlus One鈥 and that鈥檚 probably a good thing because the Ecoo E04 Plus is available invite free! (excuse me for the pun).The device is listed to have a 3,000mAh battery. More often than not, Chinese OEMs slap a greater number on the battery sticker than the actual capacity, and that does seem to be the case on the Ecoo E04 Plus also. I鈥檓 not sure about the exact real capacity. But on the other hand, the battery life delivered by whatever size the battery is, is pretty good indeed.Of course, as always, there鈥檒l be the customary 鈥榙epending on your usage鈥 part that鈥檒l apply to battery life. In general, it is very easy to go through one day on the Ecoo E04 Plus on a single charge, especially if you don鈥檛 do a lot of gaming. Even with casual gaming, one day is no daunting task.SOT (screen on time) is one of my favourite metrics to measure a phone鈥檚 battery life. On the Ecoo E04 Plus, I was returned with over 5 hours of SOT which isn鈥檛 bad by any means. 6 hours is what I would call really good, but 5 to 5 and a half hours is not far away from that.WirelessThe phone has a very good WiFi antenna. It isn鈥檛 something out of the world, but is among the better WiFi phones out there鈥 performance for me was at par (and sometimes a little better) than the Xiaomi Mi 4.GPS also works fine on the E04 Plus, but isn鈥檛 as impressive as the WiFi performance. During a recent visit to another city, the E04 Plus got easily outdone by the Xiaomi Mi 4. It doesn鈥檛 take a lot of time to get a GPS lock, but then it kind of 鈥榮kips鈥 sections on the map when you鈥檙e on the move.A camera that could鈥檝e been betterI have to admit, the Ecoo E04 Plus caught me off guard. I didn鈥檛 really expect it to be as good as it is鈥 and that鈥檚 also why I expected better camera performance from the phone. It isn鈥檛 the worst, but I think the camera app (and the underlying system) lacks some sheen.The phone uses a 16 mega-pixel sensor (pretty sure extrapolated鈥 from 8MP? 13MP?), and you generally expect a number as impressive looking as that to churn out some mind blowing photos. Unfortunately that isn鈥檛 the case with the E04 Plus. I mean, the photos 鈥榙o the job鈥? but nothing more. Also, it suffers from a lack of sharp focus like many phones that come from its home country.Another generic trait the camera seems to have is the ability to take some crazy macro shots. I mean, I have no clue why other mainstream phones aren鈥檛 able to take macros from as up close as these Chinese phones do. Kudos!Take a look at a few photos taken on the phone to see how it performs Fingerprint sensor that ACTUALLY works!Up until now, the only Chinese phone I鈥檝e tested that had a fingerprint sensor was the Elephone P5000. To sum it up in one word, the sensor was crap. The E04 Plus, however, has a MUCH better fingerprint sensor, which actually makes your phone not only a lot more secure, but also makes it convenient for you to unlock the screen.I鈥檝e had no problems with the sensor whatsoever in the prolonged use. Unwillingly, I happened to use the phone with oily hands right after a heavy meal, and the sensor still worked (although I wouldn鈥檛 recommend you doing that). There however was a little issue for a short duration once when the fingerprint reader controller seemed to stop working. A quick reboot fixed the issue, and it hasn鈥檛 reappeared since.The entire fingerprint 鈥榯hing鈥 is controlled by an app. What is cool is that the E04 Plus can learn up to 10 fingerprints, each of which can be either assigned to simply unlock the screen, or bind to an app. I usually just use my right thumb to unlock the screen (fastest way for me), but if you tend to use a particular app a lot, it wouldn鈥檛 be a bad idea to assign a finger for that app. Pretty neat!Right after the performance, the fingerprint reader is my favourite feature of the E04 Plus!Ecoo E04 Plus Review:聽ROM The E04 Plus ships with an almost untouched vanilla Android ROM. Thankfully, Chinese OEMs have realized that is the call of the hour; heavily (and often tastelessly) modded Android ROMs do more harm than good.The additions that come with the phone are in form of apps. This includes the aforementioned app that handles fingerprints and a smart wake app (for features such as double tap to wake, gestures, etc.).Ecoo E04 Plus Review:聽VerdictThe Ecoo E04 Plus is touted as the world鈥檚 cheapest 3GB RAM phone. When there鈥檚 a 鈥榗heapest xyz phone鈥 tag associated with a device, it is usually a marketing gimmick; in this case, we鈥檙e happy to report, it isn鈥檛.The E04 Plus is well built, performs like a pro and offers fingerprint security — all for under $200 shipped. Now, that is a lot of smartphone for not a lot of money!By late 2014, things in the Chinese smartphone industry had started getting monotonous. It was the usual MT6592/82 phone that launched every other day, had a mediocre camera and sucked with battery life. A change was needed quite desperately, and MediaTek delivered; if there鈥檚 a perfect use of the idiom 鈥榮trike when the iron is still hot鈥? this was it. MediaTek came out with the MT6595 and variants thereof.The Meizu MX4 was the first to sport the all-new MediaTek chip. Performance, especially graphics, was lauded and MediaTek was finally a 鈥榤ainstream鈥 fabricator. However, the excitement around the MT6595 didn鈥檛 last too long after the new MT67xx series of 64-bit chips was announced. And that, it turns out, was the stuff worth waiting for.The first few MT6732 phones impressed. One of them happens to be the Elephone P6000, which is still among my most favourite phones — certainly in the top 3 this year. The MT6732 is a quad-core 64-bit CPU, whereas the successor to that, the MT6752 has eight cores, again 64-bit.The Ecoo Aurora was among the first phones to get the MT6752, but it first came with 2GB RAM. Ecoo took their own time in delivering the Aurora Plus, i.e., 3GB RAM version of the phone. But it happens to be quite a good one!Ecoo E04 Plus Review: Design and buildDesign, in the Chinese tech world, is a rather unique experience. Phones from OPPO, Vivo, Meizu, and up to a certain extent, even Xiaomi can look VERY different from what you get to see usually鈥 on the other hand, devices from newcomers and very 鈥楥hinese鈥 brands such as Elephone, Umi, etc. can often have a very generic taste. Thankfully though, that鈥檚 changing, and fast!The Ecoo Aurora doesn鈥檛 have the best looking design, or one that would stand out from the rest. The phone is of the bar form and has a bit of Samsung in it (home button). It does feel very good in the hands though, but that is a different story altogether. Metallic edges on the sides aren鈥檛 really metal, or so it appears to me. From a couple of feet away, the edges can easily fool you into believing they鈥檙e made out of metal. Despite that, there鈥檚 a few things that work in favour of the phone.For one, the device has a lovely heft to it. That is perhaps one major contributor to the 鈥榝eel good鈥 factor of the phone. Also, the curved glass (curved on the edges) on the front gives the phone a polished look. It certainly doesn鈥檛 鈥榣ook鈥 like a sub-$200 phone!Last but not least, the rear of the phone has a woven cloth sort of a texture to it鈥 this adds to the 鈥榥ot-so-generic鈥 aspect of the phone, and also provides much needed grip.I鈥檝e managed to drop the phone a few times (all unintentional, from a maximum height of around 4 feet) and there isn鈥檛 much on the body that tells, apart from a little blemish on the top left corner. And you have to look REALLY hard to spot that. So, I鈥檇 say, the Ecoo Aurora is pretty well put together, although you might feel otherwise on the first look.Ecoo E04 Plus Review:聽Components and performanceStandard display made to look better by softwareThe 5.5-inch screen on the Ecoo E04 Aurora Plus is what you鈥檙e going to notice first. It is a full HD (1920 x 1080p) panel, with some decent picture quality but yet far from ground-breaking. It is one of those panels that look like a 720p display than anything else, and the resolution remains a number more than anything else.However, the MiraVision technology that appears on these MT67xx phones seems to help quite a bit. I鈥檝e found myself to be a sucker for greater saturation on displays, and MiraVision鈥檚 Dynamic Contrast setting helps with regards to bringing up the saturation by a bit. It can be thought of as HDR for displays.The powerful MediaTek MT6752 needs no introduction, I believe. The SoC has appeared on some other phones in the past, such as the iOcean Rock, Siswoo Cooper i7, etc. and has proven its mettle. The octa-core 64-bit SoC feels almost as snappy as a Snapdragon 801, and to think of the price difference between devices powered by those processors (usually around $150) goes to show how good a job MediaTek have done with the MT6752.Multitaskers’ havenThe phone comes with 3GB of RAM, which although doesn鈥檛 provide any performance benefits as such, certainly improves the user experience when a lot of apps are being used at once. 2GB was enough at a point in time, but that was before we were presented with 3GB RAM phones.The MT6752 + 3GB RAM combo is certainly something I can live with. My main phone is an ageing Xiaomi Mi 4, and with time, I think it鈥檒l make a shift to one of these MT6752/MT6795 phones with 3GB RAM.Coming back to the Ecoo, the phone is one made for multitaskers. The AOSP ROM doesn鈥檛 take up much resources, and you鈥檙e free to tinker with it as much as you please. Firing up a tonne of apps all at once isn鈥檛 a problem, unless of course they鈥檙e hardcore games.The phone comes with 16GB of on-board storage, which is expandable via microSD. I鈥檓 not really among those that watch movies and such, but on the Ecoo I did find myself spending time on YouTube before going to bed. That is one advantage of a phablet (I鈥檝e been a devout sub-5鈥 smartphone supporter for a while) that one has to acknowledge!One gripe that I have with the display, however, is that it is a bit too bright even at the lowest settings. Reading in the dark is therefore not very easy on the eyes. Also, the backlit buttons feels a bit too bright — and there鈥檚 no way to turn them off.Performance monsterI鈥檝e spoken about how well the phone manages things when multiple apps are run at once. What about performance per se? I鈥檇 say the Ecoo E04 Plus is one of the most fastest MediaTek phones I鈥檝e used lately (and this includes the Gionee Elife S7). General usage such as UI transitions, etc., feel as snappy as say, the OnePlus One.During more than two weeks of usage, never did I come across any sort of stuttering or lag while usage. This goes to show just how much Chinese phones have progressed in the past one year or so!In general, it is hard to find complaints in the performance department of this phone. Please note what鈥檚 being documented was carried out while the phone was running the stock KitKat ROM. A Lollipop ROM is out on the Ecoo website, which can be downloaded from ecoo.hk.AudioGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramI don鈥檛 know if it was a fault in the unit or a standard feature, but the Ecoo E04 Plus we tested has a very, very poor audio output from the main external speaker. Also, it is a mono speaker鈥 although the design does attempt to fool you into believing otherwise.The volume is REALLY low. It is low enough to render the unit unusable — and this includes loudspeaker calls.Thankfully though, the audio from the 3.5mm jack isn鈥檛 half as bad. The YouTube part was enjoyable only because of this鈥 in all fairness, the Ecoo E04 Plus produces some lovely audio from the 3.5mm jack!Decent battery lifeI don鈥檛 know why, but my mind keeps comparing this to the OnePlus One鈥 and that鈥檚 probably a good thing because the Ecoo E04 Plus is available invite free! (excuse me for the pun).The device is listed to have a 3,000mAh battery. More often than not, Chinese OEMs slap a greater number on the battery sticker than the actual capacity, and that does seem to be the case on the Ecoo E04 Plus also. I鈥檓 not sure about the exact real capacity. But on the other hand, the battery life delivered by whatever size the battery is, is pretty good indeed.Of course, as always, there鈥檒l be the customary 鈥榙epending on your usage鈥 part that鈥檒l apply to battery life. In general, it is very easy to go through one day on the Ecoo E04 Plus on a single charge, especially if you don鈥檛 do a lot of gaming. Even with casual gaming, one day is no daunting task.SOT (screen on time) is one of my favourite metrics to measure a phone鈥檚 battery life. On the Ecoo E04 Plus, I was returned with over 5 hours of SOT which isn鈥檛 bad by any means. 6 hours is what I would call really good, but 5 to 5 and a half hours is not far away from that.WirelessThe phone has a very good WiFi antenna. It isn鈥檛 something out of the world, but is among the better WiFi phones out there鈥 performance for me was at par (and sometimes a little better) than the Xiaomi Mi 4.GPS also works fine on the E04 Plus, but isn鈥檛 as impressive as the WiFi performance. During a recent visit to another city, the E04 Plus got easily outdone by the Xiaomi Mi 4. It doesn鈥檛 take a lot of time to get a GPS lock, but then it kind of 鈥榮kips鈥 sections on the map when you鈥檙e on the move.A camera that could鈥檝e been betterI have to admit, the Ecoo E04 Plus caught me off guard. I didn鈥檛 really expect it to be as good as it is鈥 and that鈥檚 also why I expected better camera performance from the phone. It isn鈥檛 the worst, but I think the camera app (and the underlying system) lacks some sheen.The phone uses a 16 mega-pixel sensor (pretty sure extrapolated鈥 from 8MP? 13MP?), and you generally expect a number as impressive looking as that to churn out some mind blowing photos. Unfortunately that isn鈥檛 the case with the E04 Plus. I mean, the photos 鈥榙o the job鈥? but nothing more. Also, it suffers from a lack of sharp focus like many phones that come from its home country.Another generic trait the camera seems to have is the ability to take some crazy macro shots. I mean, I have no clue why other mainstream phones aren鈥檛 able to take macros from as up close as these Chinese phones do. Kudos!Take a look at a few photos taken on the phone to see how it performs Fingerprint sensor that ACTUALLY works!Up until now, the only Chinese phone I鈥檝e tested that had a fingerprint sensor was the Elephone P5000. To sum it up in one word, the sensor was crap. The E04 Plus, however, has a MUCH better fingerprint sensor, which actually makes your phone not only a lot more secure, but also makes it convenient for you to unlock the screen.I鈥檝e had no problems with the sensor whatsoever in the prolonged use. Unwillingly, I happened to use the phone with oily hands right after a heavy meal, and the sensor still worked (although I wouldn鈥檛 recommend you doing that). There however was a little issue for a short duration once when the fingerprint reader controller seemed to stop working. A quick reboot fixed the issue, and it hasn鈥檛 reappeared since.The entire fingerprint 鈥榯hing鈥 is controlled by an app. What is cool is that the E04 Plus can learn up to 10 fingerprints, each of which can be either assigned to simply unlock the screen, or bind to an app. I usually just use my right thumb to unlock the screen (fastest way for me), but if you tend to use a particular app a lot, it wouldn鈥檛 be a bad idea to assign a finger for that app. Pretty neat!Right after the performance, the fingerprint reader is my favourite feature of the E04 Plus!Ecoo E04 Plus Review:聽ROM The E04 Plus ships with an almost untouched vanilla Android ROM. Thankfully, Chinese OEMs have realized that is the call of the hour; heavily (and often tastelessly) modded Android ROMs do more harm than good.The additions that come with the phone are in form of apps. This includes the aforementioned app that handles fingerprints and a smart wake app (for features such as double tap to wake, gestures, etc.).Ecoo E04 Plus Review:聽VerdictThe Ecoo E04 Plus is touted as the world鈥檚 cheapest 3GB RAM phone. When there鈥檚 a 鈥榗heapest xyz phone鈥 tag associated with a device, it is usually a marketing gimmick; in this case, we鈥檙e happy to report, it isn鈥檛.The E04 Plus is well built, performs like a pro and offers fingerprint security — all for under $200 shipped. Now, that is a lot of smartphone for not a lot of money!The Asus Zenfone 2 is a big deal for Asus and for smartphone fans around the world. Our review model just arrived yesterday, and here is our hands on video and first impressions.The Asus Zenfone 2 is a big deal for the Chinese smartphone market, and a phone that has the potential to really disrupt the market. Not only is it an affordable device, but it also boasts impressive hardware and almost official global availability! I see the Zenfone 2 as the Asus answer to the OnePlus One, but this isn’t a plucky startup, but a traditional PC maker which could have even more important repercusions on the smartphone market.Asus really broke the mould with the Zenfone 2, usually a phone boasting such impressive hardware at a low price is available just in China, but Asus have made the effort to release the phone in China, Taiwan, Europe, India and have more launches on the way.I received my review model from Flosmall鑱絯ith free shipping thrown in. At this price there isn’t much that can touch the Zenfone 2.If you don’t already know the specifications then here is a brief run down. The Asus Zenfone 2 boasts a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 Corning Gorilla Glass 3 display, 5 mega-pixel front camera, 13 mega-pixel rear, dual SIM LTE, micro SD card, 4GB RAM (yes 4GB), 32GB internal memory, Intel processor, and Asus’ own UI based on Android 5.0 Lollipop.That’s a lot of phone for the money!Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram The design of the Asus Zenfone 2 might not be the prettiest though. Asus have taken design elements from HTC and LTE when creating their phone, but the overall buid is good and it looks like a quality device, especially with the brushed alloy look rear panel. I’ve only had the phone since yesterday, but so far I am enjoying the device much more than I had though I would. I’ll admit that the design isn’t my favourite, and the Asus UI is a bit ugly, but installing a 3rd party launcher will solve that.Asus Zenfone 2 Photo samples Asus Zenfone 2 Hands onAsus Zenfone 2 first impressionsI believe the Zenfone 2 is a very impressive device from a company who have, up until now, struggled to break in to the phone market. Asus now have a device accessible by a large majority of phone users, at a price that is incredible for the specs on offer.If they could tap in to the developer community, and offer the phone as a lifestyle product rather than just a flagship smartphone we could really see Asus turn themselves around. If the Zenfone 2 is a sign of Asus phones to come, then I will certainly be keeping a close eye on them from now on.

The Asus Zenfone 2 is a big deal for Asus and for smartphone fans around the world. Our review model just arrived yesterday, and here is our hands on video and first impressions.The Asus Zenfone 2 is a big deal for the Chinese smartphone market, and a phone that has the potential to really disrupt the market. Not only is it an affordable device, but it also boasts impressive hardware and almost official global availability! I see the Zenfone 2 as the Asus answer to the OnePlus One, but this isn’t a plucky startup, but a traditional PC maker which could have even more important repercusions on the smartphone market.Asus really broke the mould with the Zenfone 2, usually a phone boasting such impressive hardware at a low price is available just in China, but Asus have made the effort to release the phone in China, Taiwan, Europe, India and have more launches on the way.I received my review model from Flosmall鑱絯ith free shipping thrown in. At this price there isn’t much that can touch the Zenfone 2.If you don’t already know the specifications then here is a brief run down. The Asus Zenfone 2 boasts a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 Corning Gorilla Glass 3 display, 5 mega-pixel front camera, 13 mega-pixel rear, dual SIM LTE, micro SD card, 4GB RAM (yes 4GB), 32GB internal memory, Intel processor, and Asus’ own UI based on Android 5.0 Lollipop.That’s a lot of phone for the money!Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram The design of the Asus Zenfone 2 might not be the prettiest though. Asus have taken design elements from HTC and LTE when creating their phone, but the overall buid is good and it looks like a quality device, especially with the brushed alloy look rear panel. I’ve only had the phone since yesterday, but so far I am enjoying the device much more than I had though I would. I’ll admit that the design isn’t my favourite, and the Asus UI is a bit ugly, but installing a 3rd party launcher will solve that.Asus Zenfone 2 Photo samples Asus Zenfone 2 Hands onAsus Zenfone 2 first impressionsI believe the Zenfone 2 is a very impressive device from a company who have, up until now, struggled to break in to the phone market. Asus now have a device accessible by a large majority of phone users, at a price that is incredible for the specs on offer.If they could tap in to the developer community, and offer the phone as a lifestyle product rather than just a flagship smartphone we could really see Asus turn themselves around. If the Zenfone 2 is a sign of Asus phones to come, then I will certainly be keeping a close eye on them from now on.The UMi Hammer is on sale right now, but we have been lucky enough to have a sample on test for a few weeks. Keep reading for our hands on UMi Hammer review.UMi are taking a different approach to the Android phone market. While some companies are happy to launch device after device, UMi have been slow and steady. After the release of the UMi Zero, the team behind the brand have worked on building a community, forums, alternate ROMS and even a one click flash tool called Rootjoy. Now that the pieces are in place new phones are coming!UMi Hammer Review: First ImpressionsUMi Hammer Review: DesignThe design of the UMi Hammer might appear to be similar to a few other devices on the market. It looks just like the Doogee Ibizia F2, which in turn looks like the Vivo Xshot. It’s interesting that UMi and Doogee have gone for the Xshot look, it’s a nice looking phone, a good size and only those of us in the know will realise it’s a clone of the Vivo camera phone.UMi promise the UMi Hammer to he durable, hard-hitting phone suitable for active people enjoying live. An strong alloy chassis forms the foundation of the device, while a “double glass” screens with Corning Gorilla Glass protection keep the display safe.To be honest I was a little sceptical about UMi’s claims of the Hammer being a durable phone. Even after watching a few video’s testing the strength I wasn’t convinced, it all looked a little staged. The only wat to be sure was test for myself, I wasn’t disappointed!UMi Hammer Smash TestAs you can see in the video the phone isn’t indestructible, but it will take a hell of a lot of abuse and still remain functioning. Even after all that all our test model needs is a new front panel and it will be as good as new (well except the dings and scratches). Looking around the phone there is nothing really to indicate that this is a tougher than average device. There are no rubber bumpers, there are is no鑱絙ulky protection, just a good strong chassis with tough glass and simple plastic rear.A few of you have asked if the Hammer is waterproof. UMi don’t claim it is, and I haven’t tried it, but I don’t think it will be. The plugs are standard phone plugs with no seals and the rear panel is removable to access the battery, dual SIM and SD card slot. So don’t buy this for water skiing, choose it for sky diving instead.Last few details. No the Hammer does not have back-lit navigation buttons, but it does have a very bright LED notification light.UMi Hammer Review: SpecificationsThe UMi Hammer costs $139.99 to international buyers which put’s it up against the current crop of 64bit LTE phones running Mediatek processors. Thankfully UMi have kept their specification in check and kept the hardware on par with competing models.A 5-inch HD 1280 x 720 display is more than acceptable at this cost, there is a quad-core 64bit MT6732 chipset under the hood, 2GB RAM, 16GB memory, 2250mAh battery, 13 mega-pixel main camera, 3.2 mega-pixel front, and dual LED rear flash.The MT6732 means that once Lollipop comes along we should see better performance from the Hammer, it also means 4G LTE support is native to the phone (a first for UMi). The Hammer actually supports the following networks鑱紾SM 850/900/1800/1900,鑱絎CDMA 900/1900/2100,鑱紽DD 800/1800/2600.The alloy, glass and plastic phone isn’t as thin as some with overall dimensions of鑱?44 x 71.6 x 7.9mm, and at a weight of 170g it is hardly light, but this is all the extra material add for a strong, impact ready body.UMi Hammer Review: PerformanceThe UMi Hammer has a 64bit Mediatek MT6732 quad-core chipset and 2GB RAM. Performance is good on this set up in other phones for the money, but not as high as the octacore MT6752 which is seen in slightly more expensive devices.Benchmarks are about right for a phone of this calibre. They don’t really get our heart beating, but for the money they offer solid performance, and most importantly solid real world performance.Currently the Hammer has Android 4.4 Kitkat out of the box which isn’t really optimised for a 64bit chipset. Hopefully UMi’s development team are working on an Android 5.0 Lollipop update which should eke out a little more performance, and bring with it all those lovely Lollipop transitions and animations.UMi Hammer BenchmarksGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramAntutu: 31,559Quandrant: 10,1013DMark Ice Storm Extreme: 4,956Geekbench Single Core: 726Geekbench Multi鑱紺ore: 2115Nenamark: 58.9fpsManhattan: 505.2Vellamo Metal: 1015Vellamo Multicore: 1531Vellamo Browser: 2119UMi Hammer Benchmarks Screenshots UMi Hammer Review: Network performance and connectivityThe Hammer comes with all the mod cons i.e FDD LTE, WIFI鑱?02.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. Using a Vodafone 4G SIM while in Europe the Hammer performed well. LTE connectivity was a good as our MX4 (only switching to 3G when LTE was weak) and call performance is good, although the receiver speaker is nothing to right home about.Our test version of the phone did seem to have weaker than average WIFI. It showed fewer WIFI bars than other devices at the same distance and seems to drop WIFI a little easier. This could be due to the alloy chassis of the phone, or the early pre-production nature of the phone, but it is something to be aware of.Bluetooth is there and useable when you need it and GPS lock on speeds are as fast as other MT6732 phones we have tested this year. The initial lock on was around 25 seconds, but after that first lock connection was much quicker, around 2-3 seconds (I was fortunate enough to have nothing but blue skies during the test which probably helped).UMi Hammer Review – CameraThe main camera of the UMi Hammer is a claimed 13 mega-pixel sensor. We have seen other companies make similar claims and simply interpolate the value from 8 mega-pixel to 13 mega-pixel. What ever UMi have going on though it does not really matter though as camera performance isn’t the phones strong point.Images tend to look very pale in comparison to your actual subject making photos look dreary and uninteresting. Playing with the manual settings offers a better image, but as most of us simply want to point and shoot, UMi really should optimise the automatic mode for better performance.As mentioned above, the weather during our review time was bright and blue, but you wouldn’t think this from the images captured. As you can see from the rear of the phone, there is a bright dual LED flash on the rear, it isn’t the brightest we have used, but not bad for a budge phone.UMi Hammer Photo Samples UMi Hammer Review – BatteryThe battery in my sample was a 1600mAh (according to the sticker) not the 2250mAh battery that the specifications on the UMi website claim. The battery in my phone just looks like a generic battery that has been used just for test purpose.With a quad-core processor, and HD 720p display the device isn’t as power hungry as some phones on the market, but with only 1600mAh in my sample the the hardware is more than enough to run the phone down easily in a day.Just sitting on my cupboard with WIFI connected (after my smash test) the battery finally went flat in 3 days. So with the 2250mAh you could be looking at the full 3-4 days of standby with a SIM UMi claim on the official specifications page.For my normal day to day use I can get from first thing in the morning to the end of a work day (7pm ish) on a single charge. As you may know I am pretty camera heavy, have a couple of email accounts on push and am very lazy i.e leave WIFI and GPS on constantly. I feel that the correct battery should get a light user through the day but heavy or power users will want to carry a spare battery, powerbank or charger.UMi Hammer Review: Android OSStock Android 4.4 Kitkat is what the UMi Hammer ships with. There are no custom icons or added UI, just stock Android how Google intended. UMi have added a few features for air gesture, screen gestures etc but that’s about it. While it is great to see another stock Android experience it would have been better if Lollipop came out of the box. Fingers crossed for an Android 5.0 update soon.UMi Hammer Review: ConclusionCosting $139.99 (or there abouts) the UMi Hammer is one of the cheaper phones with alloy chassis, LED notification, and LTE. It also benefits from a quad-core 64bit processor, 2GB RAM, dual LED flash and a good-looking design.With the strong, durable design, the UMi Hammer is a nice package that you don’t need to worry about dropping a few times. LTE means you can enjoy fast data, and the quad-core processor and 2GB RAM is enough for casual gaming and keeping social apps running.A longer battery life would have been nice, but perhaps that what we will get with the official 2250mAh battery, and perhaps Lollipop (if it is on the way) will also help to boost battery life too?

The UMi Hammer is on sale right now, but we have been lucky enough to have a sample on test for a few weeks. Keep reading for our hands on UMi Hammer review.UMi are taking a different approach to the Android phone market. While some companies are happy to launch device after device, UMi have been slow and steady. After the release of the UMi Zero, the team behind the brand have worked on building a community, forums, alternate ROMS and even a one click flash tool called Rootjoy. Now that the pieces are in place new phones are coming!UMi Hammer Review: First ImpressionsUMi Hammer Review: DesignThe design of the UMi Hammer might appear to be similar to a few other devices on the market. It looks just like the Doogee Ibizia F2, which in turn looks like the Vivo Xshot. It’s interesting that UMi and Doogee have gone for the Xshot look, it’s a nice looking phone, a good size and only those of us in the know will realise it’s a clone of the Vivo camera phone.UMi promise the UMi Hammer to he durable, hard-hitting phone suitable for active people enjoying live. An strong alloy chassis forms the foundation of the device, while a “double glass” screens with Corning Gorilla Glass protection keep the display safe.To be honest I was a little sceptical about UMi’s claims of the Hammer being a durable phone. Even after watching a few video’s testing the strength I wasn’t convinced, it all looked a little staged. The only wat to be sure was test for myself, I wasn’t disappointed!UMi Hammer Smash TestAs you can see in the video the phone isn’t indestructible, but it will take a hell of a lot of abuse and still remain functioning. Even after all that all our test model needs is a new front panel and it will be as good as new (well except the dings and scratches). Looking around the phone there is nothing really to indicate that this is a tougher than average device. There are no rubber bumpers, there are is no鑱絙ulky protection, just a good strong chassis with tough glass and simple plastic rear.A few of you have asked if the Hammer is waterproof. UMi don’t claim it is, and I haven’t tried it, but I don’t think it will be. The plugs are standard phone plugs with no seals and the rear panel is removable to access the battery, dual SIM and SD card slot. So don’t buy this for water skiing, choose it for sky diving instead.Last few details. No the Hammer does not have back-lit navigation buttons, but it does have a very bright LED notification light.UMi Hammer Review: SpecificationsThe UMi Hammer costs $139.99 to international buyers which put’s it up against the current crop of 64bit LTE phones running Mediatek processors. Thankfully UMi have kept their specification in check and kept the hardware on par with competing models.A 5-inch HD 1280 x 720 display is more than acceptable at this cost, there is a quad-core 64bit MT6732 chipset under the hood, 2GB RAM, 16GB memory, 2250mAh battery, 13 mega-pixel main camera, 3.2 mega-pixel front, and dual LED rear flash.The MT6732 means that once Lollipop comes along we should see better performance from the Hammer, it also means 4G LTE support is native to the phone (a first for UMi). The Hammer actually supports the following networks鑱紾SM 850/900/1800/1900,鑱絎CDMA 900/1900/2100,鑱紽DD 800/1800/2600.The alloy, glass and plastic phone isn’t as thin as some with overall dimensions of鑱?44 x 71.6 x 7.9mm, and at a weight of 170g it is hardly light, but this is all the extra material add for a strong, impact ready body.UMi Hammer Review: PerformanceThe UMi Hammer has a 64bit Mediatek MT6732 quad-core chipset and 2GB RAM. Performance is good on this set up in other phones for the money, but not as high as the octacore MT6752 which is seen in slightly more expensive devices.Benchmarks are about right for a phone of this calibre. They don’t really get our heart beating, but for the money they offer solid performance, and most importantly solid real world performance.Currently the Hammer has Android 4.4 Kitkat out of the box which isn’t really optimised for a 64bit chipset. Hopefully UMi’s development team are working on an Android 5.0 Lollipop update which should eke out a little more performance, and bring with it all those lovely Lollipop transitions and animations.UMi Hammer BenchmarksGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramAntutu: 31,559Quandrant: 10,1013DMark Ice Storm Extreme: 4,956Geekbench Single Core: 726Geekbench Multi鑱紺ore: 2115Nenamark: 58.9fpsManhattan: 505.2Vellamo Metal: 1015Vellamo Multicore: 1531Vellamo Browser: 2119UMi Hammer Benchmarks Screenshots UMi Hammer Review: Network performance and connectivityThe Hammer comes with all the mod cons i.e FDD LTE, WIFI鑱?02.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. Using a Vodafone 4G SIM while in Europe the Hammer performed well. LTE connectivity was a good as our MX4 (only switching to 3G when LTE was weak) and call performance is good, although the receiver speaker is nothing to right home about.Our test version of the phone did seem to have weaker than average WIFI. It showed fewer WIFI bars than other devices at the same distance and seems to drop WIFI a little easier. This could be due to the alloy chassis of the phone, or the early pre-production nature of the phone, but it is something to be aware of.Bluetooth is there and useable when you need it and GPS lock on speeds are as fast as other MT6732 phones we have tested this year. The initial lock on was around 25 seconds, but after that first lock connection was much quicker, around 2-3 seconds (I was fortunate enough to have nothing but blue skies during the test which probably helped).UMi Hammer Review – CameraThe main camera of the UMi Hammer is a claimed 13 mega-pixel sensor. We have seen other companies make similar claims and simply interpolate the value from 8 mega-pixel to 13 mega-pixel. What ever UMi have going on though it does not really matter though as camera performance isn’t the phones strong point.Images tend to look very pale in comparison to your actual subject making photos look dreary and uninteresting. Playing with the manual settings offers a better image, but as most of us simply want to point and shoot, UMi really should optimise the automatic mode for better performance.As mentioned above, the weather during our review time was bright and blue, but you wouldn’t think this from the images captured. As you can see from the rear of the phone, there is a bright dual LED flash on the rear, it isn’t the brightest we have used, but not bad for a budge phone.UMi Hammer Photo Samples UMi Hammer Review – BatteryThe battery in my sample was a 1600mAh (according to the sticker) not the 2250mAh battery that the specifications on the UMi website claim. The battery in my phone just looks like a generic battery that has been used just for test purpose.With a quad-core processor, and HD 720p display the device isn’t as power hungry as some phones on the market, but with only 1600mAh in my sample the the hardware is more than enough to run the phone down easily in a day.Just sitting on my cupboard with WIFI connected (after my smash test) the battery finally went flat in 3 days. So with the 2250mAh you could be looking at the full 3-4 days of standby with a SIM UMi claim on the official specifications page.For my normal day to day use I can get from first thing in the morning to the end of a work day (7pm ish) on a single charge. As you may know I am pretty camera heavy, have a couple of email accounts on push and am very lazy i.e leave WIFI and GPS on constantly. I feel that the correct battery should get a light user through the day but heavy or power users will want to carry a spare battery, powerbank or charger.UMi Hammer Review: Android OSStock Android 4.4 Kitkat is what the UMi Hammer ships with. There are no custom icons or added UI, just stock Android how Google intended. UMi have added a few features for air gesture, screen gestures etc but that’s about it. While it is great to see another stock Android experience it would have been better if Lollipop came out of the box. Fingers crossed for an Android 5.0 update soon.UMi Hammer Review: ConclusionCosting $139.99 (or there abouts) the UMi Hammer is one of the cheaper phones with alloy chassis, LED notification, and LTE. It also benefits from a quad-core 64bit processor, 2GB RAM, dual LED flash and a good-looking design.With the strong, durable design, the UMi Hammer is a nice package that you don’t need to worry about dropping a few times. LTE means you can enjoy fast data, and the quad-core processor and 2GB RAM is enough for casual gaming and keeping social apps running.A longer battery life would have been nice, but perhaps that what we will get with the official 2250mAh battery, and perhaps Lollipop (if it is on the way) will also help to boost battery life too?With all the benchmarks and photos out of the way for the upcoming UMi Hammer review, it was time to have a little fun and see just how tough the Hammer really is. Find out in our smash video.In our first hands on and impressions of the UMi Hammer I took a sturdy metal spanner to the screen to see if it would break. It didn’t, and from that moment on I decided to make it my duty to see how much punishment the UMi Hammer can actually take.For this video I decided to drop the phone from various heights to see what kind of protection the tough alloy chassis provides the Hammer. First up was a couple of waist height drops (at the start of the video) which I redid as you couldn’t actually see the phone hitting the concrete floor. After 4 waist drops I moved on to a wall drop, drops above my head and finally throwing the UMi Hammer at a wall. See the results in the following video.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramUMi Hammer Smash Test VideoThe drop from the wall which caught the corner of the screen was unfortunate for the Hammer. If it hadn’t been for that early break then I have every confidence that the screen would have stayed in one piece for longer.I’ve been fortunate enough with my time with phones to only have broken one and that was a Meizu MX3 from waist height. The screen shattered and the digitizer died, it was an expensive repair. The UMi Hammer wend through way more abuse and even with a smashed screen the phone remains functional.UMi went out to make a phone that could take knocks and drops and I feel that they have done a solid job for the money. Of course the phone will break if you torture it enough, but it will just take larger and more frequent drops to do so.

With all the benchmarks and photos out of the way for the upcoming UMi Hammer review, it was time to have a little fun and see just how tough the Hammer really is. Find out in our smash video.In our first hands on and impressions of the UMi Hammer I took a sturdy metal spanner to the screen to see if it would break. It didn’t, and from that moment on I decided to make it my duty to see how much punishment the UMi Hammer can actually take.For this video I decided to drop the phone from various heights to see what kind of protection the tough alloy chassis provides the Hammer. First up was a couple of waist height drops (at the start of the video) which I redid as you couldn’t actually see the phone hitting the concrete floor. After 4 waist drops I moved on to a wall drop, drops above my head and finally throwing the UMi Hammer at a wall. See the results in the following video.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramUMi Hammer Smash Test VideoThe drop from the wall which caught the corner of the screen was unfortunate for the Hammer. If it hadn’t been for that early break then I have every confidence that the screen would have stayed in one piece for longer.I’ve been fortunate enough with my time with phones to only have broken one and that was a Meizu MX3 from waist height. The screen shattered and the digitizer died, it was an expensive repair. The UMi Hammer wend through way more abuse and even with a smashed screen the phone remains functional.UMi went out to make a phone that could take knocks and drops and I feel that they have done a solid job for the money. Of course the phone will break if you torture it enough, but it will just take larger and more frequent drops to do so.New for 2015 is the UMi Hammer, a new device from UMi and their first to support LTE with 64bit bit SoC to date. Watch our hands on impressions to see if the Hammer really is as tough as UMi claim it to be.Rugged phones are usually those huge chunks of rubber that we see with yellow and black design and chunky finish for extra grip. They are perfect for taking out in the wilds and ensuring you don’t smash your phone to smithereens, but they are too big, bulky and unattractive for using on the street.UMi decided that their was a niche of users that needed some of the protection of a rugged phone, but in the body of something you won’t be embarrassed to be seen with. The result is the UMi Hammer.The UMi Hammer has been designed for young phone users in mind, and to that end they have carefully chosen the hardware to offer the best value, make it good-looking and have added enough impact proctection for a few trips down a set of concrete stairs.Not only is the UMi Hammer designed to be tough, but it also boast a few up to date features. The chipset is a quad-core MT6732 64bit model, there is dual SIM, LTE, micro SD card, 2GB RAM, and a 13 mega-pixel main camera with dual LED flash. Our pre-production phone came with a tiny 1600mAh battery, but the final specifications say a 2250mAh cell will come as standard.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on Telegram Android 4.4 Kitkat comes as standard, and it is a completely stock installation. With a 64bit chip though we are hoping that an Android Lollipop update will be made available, and we assume the phone will also be supported by UMi’s Rootjoy PC suite.Video: UMi Hammer Hands on first impressionsUMi haven’t confirmed the official retail price, but if we can believe online resellers the Hammer will cost around $160 which is about the same as most other phones with this level of hardware, yet I am not sure how happy I would be hitting similar priced phones with a steel adjustable spanner.How does Zopo鈥檚 latest Zopo ZP530 Tocuh stack up to rivals? Find out in our Zopo ZP53o review.It has been a very long time since we have reviewed a Zopo phone at GizChina, unsurprisingly really as we have been quite vocal about how Zopo should improve themselves. And that is what the phone maker claims to be doing.A new Zopo experienceFor the past few years international Zopo fans have been dealing with Zopo鈥檚 international team, a group hired by Zopo China to work on selling phones and supporting international fans. It didn鈥檛 go to well, and as well as upsetting fans this 鈥榠nternational鈥 team also managed to cause issues for a number of Zopo resellers around the world.Apparently that鈥檚 all changed now though. The old team are now no longer part of Zopo and have a new project, and bridges are being built again with certain Zopo resellers to resume business.So now that Zopo proper are in charge of China and international business we should see some changes, but what and when those changes will take place we are not 100% sure.Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: SpecificationsZopo have never been an innovative company so to see them following the rest of the field comes as no surprise. Just as we have seen Xiaomi, Meizu and other big brand phone makers work less on the hardware side of things and concentrate more on design and quality this is what Zopo have done.In my previous hands on I was under the impression that the Zopo 530 Touch cost $199.99 (Zopomobileshop.com should look at a slight site redesign to avoid similar confusion for customers). Obviously at $199.99 the ZP530 would be over priced, but now that I know the real price is $169.00 it does seem much better value for money.At this price the Zopo ZP530 is the same price to the Ulefone Be Pro. It has the same 64bit MT6732 processor, same LTE support, same resolution display (but on a smaller 5-inch panel) and same 8 mega-pixel main camera. The Zopo does only have 1GB RAM compared to 2GB RAM on the Ulefone, but then again the design, material and look of the ZP530 is much more up market than the Be Pro, and I have a feeling that both phones are after different customers.Zopo ZP530 Review: DesignAs already pointed out, Zopo are not an innovator. So to find a design that is similar to the iPhone 6, and near identical to the ZTE Blade S6 is hardly a surprise.It is a good-looking phone though, the side and corners are all super smooth and have a great rounded profile. The 5-inch form factor means it is comfy in your hand even for one-handed use, and the gold alloy chassis give an added touch of class to the appearance.The anodised chassis is visible on all sides and features a power button on the left, volume rocker on the right and headphone jack plus USB in the very top of the phone. There are not SIM trays as the back is removable, but before we take the rear off let鈥檚 have a quick scan across the front of the phone.2.5D glass is nothing new, but it is showing up more and more often on Chinese Android phones. This year Xiaomi, IUNI, and a few other smartphone makers have added the slightly curved glass to their phones. Well it isn鈥檛 curved really but thinner in at the edges than in the middle giving he feel of a slight rounded edge.The glass runs the full length of the phone over the top of the capacitive buttons on the chin (backlit), across the 5-inch HD display and up to the top where the a 5 mega-pixel Selfie camera is located. There is no dedicated notification LED but rather a ‘breathing’ home circle similar to Meizu and Nubia phones.Flip the phone over and we have the white (in this case) removable rear cover with a slight pattern marked across it. At the bottom there is a single speaker grill on the right (just where my hand can muffle it when in landscape), the Zopo logo, single LED flash and 8 mega-pixel main camera. The rear panel is apparently made of 9 layers with the top having an anti finger print coat, odd as my review model managed to pick up smudges and smears quite easily.The rear cover is made of a flexible but thick material and with a little more effort than usual you can get at the removable 2100mAh battery, dual LTE SIM slots and micro SD card reader for up to 64GB SD cards.At $169 the Zopo ZP530 Touch finds its self at a competitive price, with some nice hardware and a very well made body. It鈥檚 odd to see Zopo in such a situation, they are usually well under par for the money but it鈥檚 quite difficult to fault the ZP530 now I know it doesn鈥檛 cost $199.99. It certainly is one of the best made and looking phones at this price.Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: ScreenI鈥檝e already mentioned the screen on the Zopo ZP530 Touch has a 2.5D glass panel and it is a HD screen, meaning a resolution of 1280 x 720, but what else does it have on offer?In use it is a very nice screen. It reproduces pictures to represent real world images with bright and vivid colours.As for touch response, well my review model does seem to suffer from missed touches. It seems I have to press on certain apps, options the camera shutter, more than once for the phone to finally register the touch. The accuracy if the touch screen is also a little poor too. In the Play store for example I have to touch slightly abover very small icons for the phone to see what I am trying to do.Screen issues in Zopo phones are nothing new either, but at least I haven’t suffered the dreaded Ghost Touches of old (yet), and perhaps the NEW ZOPO, will solve everything with updates?Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: PerformanceIt鈥檚 odd to see a 64bit phone with just 1GB RAM as the whole point of 64bit SoC鈥檚 is that they are better at handing more RAM. Once a Lollipop update becomes available on the ZP530 Touch, we might have really seen a potent phone with 2GB RAM or more. 1GB on this phone is just a waste.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramDespite having only 1GB RAM the phone does handle all current applications and the games we tested well, just don鈥檛 go running too many apps in the background or you will bog the phone down,聽and don’t expect much from advanced graphics as this is area the Zopo struggles.Benchmarks are OK聽too, as we have found with similar MT6732 phones, but in real world 2GB RAM would have been more preferable. 1GB RAM really hinders this phone and could potentially prevent it from being more popular than it will eventually become.Zopo ZP530 BenchmarksAntutu: 31,608Quadrant: 9,304Geekbench Single-core score: 726Geekbench Multi-core score: 2,177Vellamo Metal: 936Vellamo Multicore: 1,510Vellambo Browser: 2,3053D Mark Ice Storm Extreme: 4,971Nenamark 2: 65.1fpsGFX Bench Manhattan: 507.5GFX Bench Manhattan 1080p offscreen: Out of memoryZopo ZP530 Benchmarks screenshots Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: CameraThere are $169 phones on the market today (and cheaper) with 13 mega-pixel rear cameras, but they either end up being interpolated 8 mega-pixel sensors or really poor quality units.Zopo have played it safe with an 8 mega-pixel rear sensor with F2.0 aperture. The speed of focusing and capturing a photo on the Zopo is impressive, one of the fastest Mediatek phones to date, and the image quality is pretty good too.For Zopo to opt for an 8 mega-pixel sensor is a marketing gamble (some people buy purely on spec) but they have made a good decision here and the rear camera on the ZP530 easily out performs camera鈥檚 on similar priced phones (Mlais M52, Ulefone Be Pro ETC).Being just 8 mega-pixels does mean you cannot enlarge your images as much as you might need, but if you just use your camera photos for social media sharing the results will be more often pleasing enough.A front 5 mega-pixel selfie camera performs well, but an F2.4 aperture means more light is needed to make the most of it.The camera application on the Zopo is your standard Android 4.4 Kitkat version. The features are all bog standard and include HDR, Panorama and a very basic Beauty mode for the front camera.Zopo ZP530 Touch camera samples Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: ConnectivityAs usual if you don鈥檛 have much to say then there is really nothing to complain about. This is true for the connectivity and wireless performance of the phone.In my tests, LTE, WIFI and Bluetooth 4.0 were all flawless through out my time with the device. GPS is also a lot faster and more accurate than it once was on Mediatek phones thanks to the updated SoC.Zopo ZP530 Review: Battery LifeFrom the style of the phone, specifications and even the marketing, it is plain to see that Zopo are not after the hardcore Android phone user with the ZP530 Touch. The customer who the device is aimed at is someone who want鈥檚 style over function, but with decent speed and main camera for updating social media.For it鈥檚 intended use the 2100mAh battery is ok. it is still a little on the small side, but if you just need to make it through the work day with moderate/high usage (4G browsing, mail, camera, calls, GPS) then you can get away with it. If you are planning a night on the town after work then I suggest taking a charger with you just in case.Zopo ZP530 Review: UIZopo have gone for a mostly stock Android 4.4 Kitkat system in terms of features, with a new UI tweasks to the applications icons, and the settings.聽Once applications are open they are just as Google intended they look on a Kitkat phone In the settings we do find a smartwake option, but it only currently supports double tap to wake and there are no on screen gestures. There is an ‘air gesture’ type option which should monitor hand movements above the camera. It’s a feature I have never been compelled to use, just as well as they don’t work on the ZP530.Zopo ZP530 Review: ConclusionThe Zopo ZP530 is by far the best Zopo phone that I have tested recently. The design and build are punching much higher than the retail price would suggest for the intended buyer the device is going to be a fun and stylish way to keep connected.But, it could have been much much better. We have seen other companies get 2GB RAM in to their phones at this price so why haven鈥檛 Zopo been able too? An extra 1GB RAM would have made the phone smoother day to day and would have stopped us going in to the task manager all that often.The 2100mAh battery too is on the small side. So we only have 1GB RAM and a HD display, but the phone is quite clearly marketed at people who want to be social and keep connected and that means long nights out and traveling to and from places. I鈥檓 sure a 2600mAh battery could have been fitted in to the same space, and would have given a little peace of mind for when you do head out on the town.When I came in to this review I was still under the impression that the Zopo ZP530 Touch costed $199.99, and for that price I was ready to rip in to the phone, but once I learned that the RRP is $169 I had to reconsider some of my initial thoughts and ideas (as well as rewriting much of this review).I think the ZP530 is a clear step above the rest of聽Zopo phones, and we have actually seen a vast improvement compared to previous models, and this pleases me a lot, but I also expect more.As well as the small amount of RAM and tiny battery I am concerned about updates and the issues with the display. In the past Zopo have been terrible with updates, and I鈥檒l be keeping an eye out for news of Lollipop on this phone, as it really deserves it.Zopo are certainly heading in the right direction, and if they are willing to keep their fans needs and expectations in mind we might once again see them at the top of the game. As it is though the Zopo ZP530 is close but still a little wide of hitting the mark.How does Zopo鈥檚 latest Zopo ZP530 Tocuh stack up to rivals? Find out in our Zopo ZP53o review.It has been a very long time since we have reviewed a Zopo phone at GizChina, unsurprisingly really as we have been quite vocal about how Zopo should improve themselves. And that is what the phone maker claims to be doing.A new Zopo experienceFor the past few years international Zopo fans have been dealing with Zopo鈥檚 international team, a group hired by Zopo China to work on selling phones and supporting international fans. It didn鈥檛 go to well, and as well as upsetting fans this 鈥榠nternational鈥 team also managed to cause issues for a number of Zopo resellers around the world.Apparently that鈥檚 all changed now though. The old team are now no longer part of Zopo and have a new project, and bridges are being built again with certain Zopo resellers to resume business.So now that Zopo proper are in charge of China and international business we should see some changes, but what and when those changes will take place we are not 100% sure.Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: SpecificationsZopo have never been an innovative company so to see them following the rest of the field comes as no surprise. Just as we have seen Xiaomi, Meizu and other big brand phone makers work less on the hardware side of things and concentrate more on design and quality this is what Zopo have done.In my previous hands on I was under the impression that the Zopo 530 Touch cost $199.99 (Zopomobileshop.com should look at a slight site redesign to avoid similar confusion for customers). Obviously at $199.99 the ZP530 would be over priced, but now that I know the real price is $169.00 it does seem much better value for money.At this price the Zopo ZP530 is the same price to the Ulefone Be Pro. It has the same 64bit MT6732 processor, same LTE support, same resolution display (but on a smaller 5-inch panel) and same 8 mega-pixel main camera. The Zopo does only have 1GB RAM compared to 2GB RAM on the Ulefone, but then again the design, material and look of the ZP530 is much more up market than the Be Pro, and I have a feeling that both phones are after different customers.Zopo ZP530 Review: DesignAs already pointed out, Zopo are not an innovator. So to find a design that is similar to the iPhone 6, and near identical to the ZTE Blade S6 is hardly a surprise.It is a good-looking phone though, the side and corners are all super smooth and have a great rounded profile. The 5-inch form factor means it is comfy in your hand even for one-handed use, and the gold alloy chassis give an added touch of class to the appearance.The anodised chassis is visible on all sides and features a power button on the left, volume rocker on the right and headphone jack plus USB in the very top of the phone. There are not SIM trays as the back is removable, but before we take the rear off let鈥檚 have a quick scan across the front of the phone.2.5D glass is nothing new, but it is showing up more and more often on Chinese Android phones. This year Xiaomi, IUNI, and a few other smartphone makers have added the slightly curved glass to their phones. Well it isn鈥檛 curved really but thinner in at the edges than in the middle giving he feel of a slight rounded edge.The glass runs the full length of the phone over the top of the capacitive buttons on the chin (backlit), across the 5-inch HD display and up to the top where the a 5 mega-pixel Selfie camera is located. There is no dedicated notification LED but rather a ‘breathing’ home circle similar to Meizu and Nubia phones.Flip the phone over and we have the white (in this case) removable rear cover with a slight pattern marked across it. At the bottom there is a single speaker grill on the right (just where my hand can muffle it when in landscape), the Zopo logo, single LED flash and 8 mega-pixel main camera. The rear panel is apparently made of 9 layers with the top having an anti finger print coat, odd as my review model managed to pick up smudges and smears quite easily.The rear cover is made of a flexible but thick material and with a little more effort than usual you can get at the removable 2100mAh battery, dual LTE SIM slots and micro SD card reader for up to 64GB SD cards.At $169 the Zopo ZP530 Touch finds its self at a competitive price, with some nice hardware and a very well made body. It鈥檚 odd to see Zopo in such a situation, they are usually well under par for the money but it鈥檚 quite difficult to fault the ZP530 now I know it doesn鈥檛 cost $199.99. It certainly is one of the best made and looking phones at this price.Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: ScreenI鈥檝e already mentioned the screen on the Zopo ZP530 Touch has a 2.5D glass panel and it is a HD screen, meaning a resolution of 1280 x 720, but what else does it have on offer?In use it is a very nice screen. It reproduces pictures to represent real world images with bright and vivid colours.As for touch response, well my review model does seem to suffer from missed touches. It seems I have to press on certain apps, options the camera shutter, more than once for the phone to finally register the touch. The accuracy if the touch screen is also a little poor too. In the Play store for example I have to touch slightly abover very small icons for the phone to see what I am trying to do.Screen issues in Zopo phones are nothing new either, but at least I haven’t suffered the dreaded Ghost Touches of old (yet), and perhaps the NEW ZOPO, will solve everything with updates?Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: PerformanceIt鈥檚 odd to see a 64bit phone with just 1GB RAM as the whole point of 64bit SoC鈥檚 is that they are better at handing more RAM. Once a Lollipop update becomes available on the ZP530 Touch, we might have really seen a potent phone with 2GB RAM or more. 1GB on this phone is just a waste.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramDespite having only 1GB RAM the phone does handle all current applications and the games we tested well, just don鈥檛 go running too many apps in the background or you will bog the phone down,聽and don’t expect much from advanced graphics as this is area the Zopo struggles.Benchmarks are OK聽too, as we have found with similar MT6732 phones, but in real world 2GB RAM would have been more preferable. 1GB RAM really hinders this phone and could potentially prevent it from being more popular than it will eventually become.Zopo ZP530 BenchmarksAntutu: 31,608Quadrant: 9,304Geekbench Single-core score: 726Geekbench Multi-core score: 2,177Vellamo Metal: 936Vellamo Multicore: 1,510Vellambo Browser: 2,3053D Mark Ice Storm Extreme: 4,971Nenamark 2: 65.1fpsGFX Bench Manhattan: 507.5GFX Bench Manhattan 1080p offscreen: Out of memoryZopo ZP530 Benchmarks screenshots Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: CameraThere are $169 phones on the market today (and cheaper) with 13 mega-pixel rear cameras, but they either end up being interpolated 8 mega-pixel sensors or really poor quality units.Zopo have played it safe with an 8 mega-pixel rear sensor with F2.0 aperture. The speed of focusing and capturing a photo on the Zopo is impressive, one of the fastest Mediatek phones to date, and the image quality is pretty good too.For Zopo to opt for an 8 mega-pixel sensor is a marketing gamble (some people buy purely on spec) but they have made a good decision here and the rear camera on the ZP530 easily out performs camera鈥檚 on similar priced phones (Mlais M52, Ulefone Be Pro ETC).Being just 8 mega-pixels does mean you cannot enlarge your images as much as you might need, but if you just use your camera photos for social media sharing the results will be more often pleasing enough.A front 5 mega-pixel selfie camera performs well, but an F2.4 aperture means more light is needed to make the most of it.The camera application on the Zopo is your standard Android 4.4 Kitkat version. The features are all bog standard and include HDR, Panorama and a very basic Beauty mode for the front camera.Zopo ZP530 Touch camera samples Zopo ZP530 Touch Review: ConnectivityAs usual if you don鈥檛 have much to say then there is really nothing to complain about. This is true for the connectivity and wireless performance of the phone.In my tests, LTE, WIFI and Bluetooth 4.0 were all flawless through out my time with the device. GPS is also a lot faster and more accurate than it once was on Mediatek phones thanks to the updated SoC.Zopo ZP530 Review: Battery LifeFrom the style of the phone, specifications and even the marketing, it is plain to see that Zopo are not after the hardcore Android phone user with the ZP530 Touch. The customer who the device is aimed at is someone who want鈥檚 style over function, but with decent speed and main camera for updating social media.For it鈥檚 intended use the 2100mAh battery is ok. it is still a little on the small side, but if you just need to make it through the work day with moderate/high usage (4G browsing, mail, camera, calls, GPS) then you can get away with it. If you are planning a night on the town after work then I suggest taking a charger with you just in case.Zopo ZP530 Review: UIZopo have gone for a mostly stock Android 4.4 Kitkat system in terms of features, with a new UI tweasks to the applications icons, and the settings.聽Once applications are open they are just as Google intended they look on a Kitkat phone In the settings we do find a smartwake option, but it only currently supports double tap to wake and there are no on screen gestures. There is an ‘air gesture’ type option which should monitor hand movements above the camera. It’s a feature I have never been compelled to use, just as well as they don’t work on the ZP530.Zopo ZP530 Review: ConclusionThe Zopo ZP530 is by far the best Zopo phone that I have tested recently. The design and build are punching much higher than the retail price would suggest for the intended buyer the device is going to be a fun and stylish way to keep connected.But, it could have been much much better. We have seen other companies get 2GB RAM in to their phones at this price so why haven鈥檛 Zopo been able too? An extra 1GB RAM would have made the phone smoother day to day and would have stopped us going in to the task manager all that often.The 2100mAh battery too is on the small side. So we only have 1GB RAM and a HD display, but the phone is quite clearly marketed at people who want to be social and keep connected and that means long nights out and traveling to and from places. I鈥檓 sure a 2600mAh battery could have been fitted in to the same space, and would have given a little peace of mind for when you do head out on the town.When I came in to this review I was still under the impression that the Zopo ZP530 Touch costed $199.99, and for that price I was ready to rip in to the phone, but once I learned that the RRP is $169 I had to reconsider some of my initial thoughts and ideas (as well as rewriting much of this review).I think the ZP530 is a clear step above the rest of聽Zopo phones, and we have actually seen a vast improvement compared to previous models, and this pleases me a lot, but I also expect more.As well as the small amount of RAM and tiny battery I am concerned about updates and the issues with the display. In the past Zopo have been terrible with updates, and I鈥檒l be keeping an eye out for news of Lollipop on this phone, as it really deserves it.Zopo are certainly heading in the right direction, and if they are willing to keep their fans needs and expectations in mind we might once again see them at the top of the game. As it is though the Zopo ZP530 is close but still a little wide of hitting the mark.It has been a while since Ecoo was the most talked about maker here at鑱紾izChina. The company’s first phone, i.e., the Ecoo E01 Focus was, at one point, known as the world’s cheapest 1080p octa-core phone.The Aurora was announced earlier this year, but in a 2GB RAM variant. It still made a lot of sense, because not a lot of MediaTek MT6752 64-bit octa-core phones were available for under US$200 back then. Ecoo took their own sweet time in shipping the phone, but it is regarded as one of the better ones if you’re looking for the best bang for your buck. A few weeks back, an upgraded E04 Aurora was announced; with the same specifications, the phone got an added gig of RAM to bring the total to a respectable 3GB.Geekbuying sent one over to us for review, and after spending a couple of days with the device, I’m happy to say I’m impressed. The best part about the device is the fingerprint sensor, which works near-flawlessly!A quick recap over the specifications: the Ecoo E04 Aurora has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, 1.7GHz octa-core 64-bit MediaTek MT6752 processor, 3GB RAM, 16GB on-board storage, dual SIM, 8 mega-pixel front camera, 16 mega-pixel rear camera, 3000mAh removable battery and a fingerprint sensor.The phone has impressed in almost every aspect. One niggle (which might be more than just ‘little’ for you OCD victims) is that there’s an unusually thick black strip below the screen, about double the size of the rest of the strip.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe textured rear of the device gives it not only a nice look but also makes the phone鑱絞rippy and comfortable to hold. Performance too seems top-notch, as we’ve seen with other MT6752 phones like the JiaYu S3, iOcean Rock, Gionee Elife S7 and more.We haven’t really spent a lot of time with the camera yet, but from what we can tell already, the listed 16 mega-pixel resolution is a bit of an optimistic move. We’re pretty certain it’s an interpolated value, perhaps taken up from 13 mega-pixel.Ecoo E04 Aurora 3GB Gallery Battery life so far seems pretty good, and the phone hasn’t shown signs of heating up. The MT6752 is starting to build a sort of a reputation for being one of the most power efficient MediaTek chips out there; that combined with the 3000mAh battery of the E04 Aurora, we’re looking at a battery life of more than one average day.Overall the phone looks and feels like a quality device… one that a company with global ambitions would make. The curved glass over the screen and the lovely (not exactly an adjective usually associated with fingerprint scanners) fingerprint scanner give the phone some extra value.This is only a very quick hands on post, if you’re interested, stay tuned for the full review which will come next week. Meanwhile, feel free to comment below about anything that you would like to have tested on the phone, and we’ll try our best to include it in next week’s review!It has been a while since Ecoo was the most talked about maker here at鑱紾izChina. The company’s first phone, i.e., the Ecoo E01 Focus was, at one point, known as the world’s cheapest 1080p octa-core phone.The Aurora was announced earlier this year, but in a 2GB RAM variant. It still made a lot of sense, because not a lot of MediaTek MT6752 64-bit octa-core phones were available for under US$200 back then. Ecoo took their own sweet time in shipping the phone, but it is regarded as one of the better ones if you’re looking for the best bang for your buck. A few weeks back, an upgraded E04 Aurora was announced; with the same specifications, the phone got an added gig of RAM to bring the total to a respectable 3GB.Geekbuying sent one over to us for review, and after spending a couple of days with the device, I’m happy to say I’m impressed. The best part about the device is the fingerprint sensor, which works near-flawlessly!A quick recap over the specifications: the Ecoo E04 Aurora has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, 1.7GHz octa-core 64-bit MediaTek MT6752 processor, 3GB RAM, 16GB on-board storage, dual SIM, 8 mega-pixel front camera, 16 mega-pixel rear camera, 3000mAh removable battery and a fingerprint sensor.The phone has impressed in almost every aspect. One niggle (which might be more than just ‘little’ for you OCD victims) is that there’s an unusually thick black strip below the screen, about double the size of the rest of the strip.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe textured rear of the device gives it not only a nice look but also makes the phone鑱絞rippy and comfortable to hold. Performance too seems top-notch, as we’ve seen with other MT6752 phones like the JiaYu S3, iOcean Rock, Gionee Elife S7 and more.We haven’t really spent a lot of time with the camera yet, but from what we can tell already, the listed 16 mega-pixel resolution is a bit of an optimistic move. We’re pretty certain it’s an interpolated value, perhaps taken up from 13 mega-pixel.Ecoo E04 Aurora 3GB Gallery Battery life so far seems pretty good, and the phone hasn’t shown signs of heating up. The MT6752 is starting to build a sort of a reputation for being one of the most power efficient MediaTek chips out there; that combined with the 3000mAh battery of the E04 Aurora, we’re looking at a battery life of more than one average day.Overall the phone looks and feels like a quality device… one that a company with global ambitions would make. The curved glass over the screen and the lovely (not exactly an adjective usually associated with fingerprint scanners) fingerprint scanner give the phone some extra value.This is only a very quick hands on post, if you’re interested, stay tuned for the full review which will come next week. Meanwhile, feel free to comment below about anything that you would like to have tested on the phone, and we’ll try our best to include it in next week’s review!

A word to all would be Chinese phone makers, build your devices with killer hardware at a killer price and you will be on to a winner. That鈥檚 exactly what Mlais have done with the M52 and we鈥檝e take a good long look.When I first head that Mlais were back and aiming themselves squarely at the international market it barely registered. I mean there are hundreds of Chinese phone makers which have given up on the domestic market to concentrate on the rest of the world, what would Mlais do that would be so different?Then they released the Mlais M52 and we all started to listen.Mlais M52 Review: UnboxingMlais M52 Review: SpecificationMlais have been very clever and exceptionally lucky with the timing of the Mlais M52 launch. If Mlais had tried a device like this last year it just wouldn鈥檛 have worked, well it just wouldn鈥檛 have been possible not at $159.99 anyway!A quick read through the specifications of the M52 reveals an octacore 64bit processor, 2GB RAM, 13 mega-pixel main camera, 8 mega-pixel front camera, dual SIM, SD card support, LTE, a large battery and 5.5-inch HD display! Yes, all of that for just $159.99!The 64bit chip that is kicking around inside the M52 is one of our favourite chipsets to date, the Mediatek MT6752. We love this SoC for its 64bit construction, native LTE support, low-cost but mainly because this octacore chip blows the Qualcomm equivalent out of the ocean! It seriously is that good (plus these new 64bit chips have amazing GPS performance!).With a 64bit processor on board the Mlais M52 should really be running Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box, it isn鈥檛 though but the update is on the way and scheduled for a release on the 15th April (just 5 days away). Still, with Kitkat as standard we were getting Antutu scores of well over 42,000 points and we have seen higher! What Lollipop will bring should be very special. And did I mention this phablet is only $159.99?Mlais M52 Review: Design and constructionMlais have been clever with the design of their phablet too. Instead of concentrating on uber thin bezels, fancy glass and alloy materials or way out design, they have kept it all familiar and simple. So familiar that the M52 looks a lot like a certain 5.5-inch Xiaomi phone.If you look at current design trends for thinner and thinner bodies and narrower overall widths you could pick apart the M52 for being a little thicker and wider than other devices, but why would you when it feels so comfortable and well made?The design doesn鈥檛 seem to cut any corners either, we still have capacitive buttons along the chin and yes they are backlit. There is a notification light at the top, and yes it is an RGB unit (so you can choose the colour you prefer).Plastics have been chosen for the construction of the M52, but not cheap creaky plastic, but good quality material with smooth rounded edges. With so many phones heading towards glass and alloy it is easy to rule out plastic, but when done correctly you end up with a hard-wearing聽and solid phone (just look at the Meizu M1 Note and the iPhone 5C). Taking a tour around the exterior of the M52 we find no odd joins or badly fitted components, and all the usual parts are where we expect to find them. The headphone jack and USB are in the top of the phone, power button on the right and volume rocker on the left.On the rear we have a large speaker grill (although there is only a single speaker behind there), single LED flash and rear 13 mega-pixel main camera.There are no SIM or SD card trays on the Mlais as the rear is removable so you can get at the replaceable battery, dual SIM trays and memory expansion bay. Even poking around on the inside of the M52 everything is neat and really well put together. As you can see in the photos there are 3 colour options to choose from for the Mlais M52. I was sent the white, blue and pink (red?) covers and the blue has fared very well living in the bottom of my backpack for over a week while traveling (hence the delay in getting the review up, sorry!). I鈥檓 still unsure if production phones get all the covers, but if not I鈥檓 sure they will be very cheap to buy after market. Mlais also provided me with a flip cover with viewing window to see the time, or control my music without having to get at the full screen. Overall there is nothing to complain about in terms of design, construction or build. It鈥檚 a very well but together phone.Mlais M52 Review: ScreenAt 5.5-inches we have a lot of screen on tap, and it makes the M52 comparable (in screen real estate) to many of the current crop of 2015 phones. Usually when we get to above 5-inch we see manufacturers opting for higher resolution 1080 or even 2K panels on their phones, obviously this isn鈥檛 possible at a sub $200 price so we have a 720p HD panel here.This is not a complaint at all! Even at 5.5-inch a 1280 x 720 panel is acceptable and only the very picky user will point out that they can see pixels when they are an inch away from the display. If you are going from a 1080 phone to this then yes you might see a difference in clarity but it will be hardly worth mentioning.As for the screen on the Mlais M52, well it is a fine panel. It鈥檚 bright enough most of the time and the viewing angle are perfect for sharing photos and films with people around you. Only outdoors in very bight light do you notice a lack of contrast.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramTouch sensitivity is perfect too, there are no issues with ghost touching or unrecognised taps. It all works as you expect it should.Mlais M52 Review: PerformanceAs mentioned at the start of this review the M52 has an incredible processing package that allows it to perform everyday tasks without complaint. Even gaming and continuous benchmarks don鈥檛 run the phone down.Plenty of customers who have bought the M52 are reporting Antutu scores of 44,000+ which isn鈥檛 far behind the Meizu MX4 which was announced as the Antutu champion for 2014 (based on an average of scores), yet the Mlais is a couple of $100s less tan the MX4. You could buy 2 Mlais M52 and still have money left for the price of an MX4!Of course having just the pixels of a 720p display helps in some ways, with a screen looking as good as this I think Mlais made the right choice going for a lower res panel for a lower price and higher performance.As usual we ran a full suite of benchmarks of the phone during our review. The results and screenshots of each are below:Mlais M52 BenchmarksAntutu: 42,594Geekbench Single Core: 819Geekbench Multi-core: 3972Nenamark 2: 61.2fps3D Mark Ice Storm Extreme: 6840Quadrant: 9698GFX bench Manhattan: 711.0GFX bench 1080p Manhattan offscreen: 359.7GFX bench T-rex: 1412GFX bench 1080p T-rex offscreen: 880.4Vellamo metal: 1188Vellamo Multicore: 1851Vellamo Browser: 2793Mlais M52 Benchmarks Screenshots Mlais M52 Review: CameraOk, so I have been basically drooling over this phone, so you are expecting much of the same for the camera aren鈥檛 you. Well I鈥檓 sorry to disappoint you but the camera and image processing on the M52 is the achilles heel聽of the phone.We all know by now that mega-pixels aren鈥檛 everything, and that one 13 mega-pixel sensor won鈥檛 peform as well as another. So, although 13 mega-pixels looks good in the spec sheet, in real life the camera on the M52 is average at best.In reality Mlais could have give the M52 a better performing 8 mega-pixel sensor and offered better image quality, but then they would have probably found the phone difficult to market if they had.Is the camera terrible? No it is not, but it could be a hell of a lot better. If you are out in bright conditions on sunny days then you are going to more than likely be pretty happy with the images the Mlais M52 is capable of, but once you start trying to shoot in anything but perfect conditions the dreaded noise begins to creep in.Mlais M52 photo samples Mlais M52 Review: Battery lifeMlais claim that the battery in the M52 is a 3200mAh battery. Pretty huge and a lot to get excited about especially if you are a power-hungry users and like to run plenty of apps in the background.It鈥檚 quite difficult to tell if a battery is as large as a manufacture tells us, and while we have heard reports of the M52 battery being smaller than it states (2800mAh claims one reseller), we are still seeing pretty good battery life never-the-less. Screen on time of about 6 hours+ is what we were seeing which is around the same as the iPhone 6+.Mlais M52 Review: GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth, LTESpecs for the connectivity of the M52 include Wifi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and AGPS, and support for 2G, 3G and 4G-LTE networks (GSM 850/900/1800/1900Mhz, WCDMA: 850/00/1900/2100Mhx and FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600).Everything here works flawlessly. With a plastic body there is nothing to interfere with the WIFI signal so I have a nice strong signal, and FDD-LTE worked across my trip in the UK and Europe last week! All good stuff.Mlais M52 Review: OS and UIAgain I have no complaints here. Android 4.4.4 Kitkat comes out of the box and that鈥檚 exactly what you get. There are no fancy skins and no custom UI going on, you just get a native Android user experience. When Android 5.0 Lollipop comes along we can also expect the same Vanilla style install and enjoy the nice new transitions and animations which make the latest version of Android so desirable to have. It if comes as聽bloatfree as Kitkat does, performance should continue to be as good as we have seen so far. Although mostly stock there are a few additions. We have a few screen gesture controls built-in which you can toggle on and off, including the much-loved double tap to wake. There are also settings to change the notification light the colour you like.Mlais M52 Review: ConclusionWhen I first read the specs of the Mlais M52 I was pretty excited, but sceptical too. I wanted the phone to be as good as the specifications suggested, but deep down inside I was worried that I would discover some deep dark secret lurking in the hardware.So have I been impressed or has my heart been broken by this Chinese phablet? To be honest I don鈥檛 think I needed to ask that. The Mlais M52 is one of the best value Android smartphones I have used, full stop!For the price of the phone you are getting a good-looking and well made handset with powerful hardware, 64bit processor and can look forward to an Android 5.0 Lollipop OTA in just 5 days time. How many other phones for $159.99 pack so much punch?Ok so the rear speaker quality isn鈥檛 the greatest and the cameras struggle in low-light, but there are $300 phones with the same issues, but they don鈥檛 offer that latest Android, dual SIM LTE, 64bit processor and removable battery.Blackview sent over their flagship Blackview Omega to take a look at. The phone features a really well made body using glass and a very well finished alloy chassis. A 5-inch FHD display, octacore processor and 2GB RAM are all great features too and performace is better than some phones with similar processors.However with a MT6592 SoC rather than the newer MT6752 the Omega struggles with phones of a similar price, especially as it lacks LTE and isn’t a 64bit phone.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThat said Blackview鑱絘re working with online resellers to offer the Omega at a presale price of $189.99 which includes free shipping. A鑱?10 coupon (BVOMEGAC) is needed for the offer and is valid until 27th March, after which the price will increase to $199.99 with free shipping and 32GB SD card.Blackview Omega Video Review

With Summer right around the corner we want to be out in the wilds as much as you and to document what we get up to we will be using Chinese cameras like the SJCAM SJ5000. Watch our unboxing below.Last week it was the Xiaomi Yi Action Camera that we wre focusing on (full review very soon), so what better time to bring in a camera from a more established action camera maker to compare? For this we needed a device already on the market that has amassed a great following, so of course our choice was an SJCAM.I opted for the SJCAM 5000 as at the time of writing Coolicool didn’t have a more up to date version, but rest assured I’ll also get an SJ6000 to test soon also. The SJ5000 really is a remarkable piece of kit, not only does it pack in some high-end features at a low-price, but the number of accessories the camera ships with is just insane! I counted 14 packets and accessories in the box of my SJCAM SJ5000, if you were to buy a GoPro and buy this many additional mounts separately you could easily spend another $150+, and what’s even better is the mounts in the SJ5000 are compatible with GoPro mounts.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramUnlike the Xiaomi Yi the SJ5000 also ships with a protective case which really is a must for extreme sports and keeping the lens protected from stones, knocks and scrapes. The case also means you can use the camera in the rain and even underwater. Specifications for the SJCAM SJ5000 include a 14 mega-pixel sensor, 2-inch LCD display for previewing video and setting up the camera angle, 1080p video recording, WIFI, 170 degree wide-angle lens, 900mAh battery and a claimed 90min battery life. 鑱紻imensions for the camera unit (without case) are 61 x 42.4 x 25mm at a weight of 74g (with the battery).SJCAM SJ5000 UnboxingAs with the Xiaomi Yi Action camera I plan to take the SJ5000 out while mounting biking this week and capture some footage. Luckily (I think) the weather is a little wet so I can test the waterproof capabilities of the case too.If you are looking at a midrange flagship Android phone from China, then the iOcean MT6752 Rock and JiaYu S3 are likely candidates for you. To make life a little easier here is a hands on comparison of both phones.JiaYu launched their S3 earlier this year and the phone has been an instant hit with fans so Chinese phones, JiaYu and good quality devices in general. Shortly after JiaYu launched the S3, iOcean brought their MT6752 Rock on the market with similar hardware but quirky design and styling. Of the two phones which one is better for you? Watch our hands on comparison to find out.iOcean MT6752 Rock vs JiaYu S3 video comparisoniOcean MT6752 Rock vs JiaYu S3 video comparison: Which to choose?With both phones packing similar specifications it really comes down to just a few details as to which I personally recommend you buy.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe iOcean MT6752 Rock comes with 3GB RAM as standard, is slightly thinner and has a 14 mega-pixel rear camera, it also has a more original design but it comes down to personal preference as to if you actually like the look of it or not.The JiaYu S3 is the cleaner, more simple looking phone, it also has a larger 3000mAh battery, shorter and narrower body, cleaner looking UI, dual LED flash and proven 13 mega-pixel Sony IMX214 sensor.After spending many weeks with both phone I can happily say that both flagship devices offer high-end performance and for gaming and everyday use there really isn’t much more that you could want for. Looking at the other features though and I would say that the UI and finish of the ROM on the JiaYu S3 just seems a little more polished, plus the camera on the S3 performs better than the iOcean based on current ROM versions.

Battery life is the topic of concern for most smartphone users and even more so these days with manufacturers building thinner and thinner devices, cutting down the available space for a proper battery more and more. The paradox of all this is that only a minority of smartphone users even wants that development. Most are totally fine with thicker devices in exchange for a large battery. Luckily more and more manufacturers start to realize exactly that, resulting in the launch of more and more devices often described at “battery monsters”. Gionee, THL, Lenovo, and just since recently Elephone offer such devices as well. The latter one is the manufacturer we’ve had a device from in the test, and it’s called the Elephone P5000.Elephone P5000 Review: SpecsThe Elephone P5000 is one of the rising manufacturers newest creations, boasting one of the largest batteries that have ever been built into a smartphone. It’s a massive 5,350mAh cell, promising days of battery life. Wanting to provide a benefit over competitors the P5000 even does support fast-charging, eliminating “the wait” you might are used to from previous battery monsters. Unfortunately the other specs might give some of you mixed feelings with an outdated Mediatek MT6592 1.7GHz octa-core SoC, 16GB of memory, no LTE support and a polycarbonate body. Luckily other components seem quite balanced being 2GB of RAM, dual-SIM slots, one micro SD slot, NFC support, a 5-inch 1080p display, a fingerprint sensor, and 16 / 8MP cameras.Elephone P5000 Review: Unboxing, Design, BuildThe Elephone P5000 got delivered in two boxes this time. One larger pack contains the main box and another one housing the 2.5A wall charger for the handset. Unfortunately, the wall charger is the biggest fail we’ve ever experienced with a Chinese phone. It comes with an EU plug but Elephone failed in terms of size. It simply doesn’t fit into a wall socket, making the use of a different USB charger necessary. Other accessories you get with the Elephone P5000 are a micro USB cable, a screen protector, one mini Android OTG adaptor and the usual documentation. The design of the Elephone P5000 is quite pleasant in our opinion. It’s simple yet elegant and even though it doesn’t feature a single piece of metal feels really nice and solid thanks to a very high build quality. The front does remind us a little towards the Samsung Galaxy S5, which the physical home button housing the fingerprint sensor. What we liked is the fact that this phone does offer a status LED, which still too many phones don’t these days. The front and rear of the phone are black, while the frame is chrome plated. It might seem like the Elephone P5000 does feature stereo speakers when looking at the lower frame, but that’s sadly not the case. It’s a single speaker and the second opening only houses the microphone. The right frame houses the volume and on/ off switches, the upper frame the 3.5mm headphone hack and one micro USB OTG port. The rear is covered by a black, matte cover with a rubberized finish, which does feel very nice and adds a decent amount of grip. The frame of the handset and the edges of the cover are rounded to make the phone appear slimmer than it is at 11mm.The back cover can be removed to gain access to the normal sized SIM slots of which the P5000 does feature two, as well as the micro SD slot. One also can spot the battery which takes the majority of space for itself. Unfortunately the cell can’t be removed. It is protected by a solid metal body and screwed tightly into the phone which essentially means that you will need to disassemble the whole device to replace it.Elephone P5000 Review: DisplayElephone is keeping the manufacturer of the P5000’s 5-inch 1080p IPS OGS panel with Gorilla Glass protection a secret but we believe it is made by LG. Quality is typical for LG panels and so are the viewing angles with the slightly reddish tint when looking at it from the bottom or top. All in all this screen is what we call perfect. Colors, contrast, brightness, pixel density, touch panel – it all is top-notch and it can’t be done any better except by using some OLED panel. It’s a real pleasure to the eyes, perfect for pictures and other multimedia content. Elephone P5000 Review:鑱絊oftware & PerformanceThe Elephone P5000 is running the usual 4.4.2 ROM which is the basis for all MT6592 devices with some Elephone modifications on top. Some actually claim the Elephone ROM to look like MIUI, which is something we don’t agree with. The only similarity between the Elephone ROM and MIUI are rounded icons but everything else is looking stock Android. The ROM has been beefed up a little with useful features such as off-screen gestures that are working very reliable and have been made fail-proof so you don’t initiate any unwanted actions in your pocket. The performance has been very satisfying throughout the whole review period and we didn’t encounter any crashes. Of course you notice that this handset is making use of a previous generation MTK chipset, but the MT6592 is still more than enough for anyone not into playing the latest games, especially when paired with a 2GB of RAM. Elephone P5000 Review: Wireless PerformanceReception quality appeared to be good with the Elephone P5000 which we believe is mainly due to the large antennas Elephone built inside this device. Reception of 2G and 3G signals has been above average though not at high-end level during our tests. Phone call quality was very satisfying. Wi-Fi performance has been top-notch with no connection losses throughout the whole building. NFC did also work very well and without any need of perfect alignment thanks to a comparably large antenna in the back cover. GPS performance has been acceptable as well considering this handset is making use of an old Mediatek SoC. Accuracy has been at 2 meters during our tests with cold-fix times of 10 – 12 seconds.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramElephone P5000 Review: Audio QualityThe Elephone P5000’s Hi-Fi performance has been a let-down for us. The design is promising stereo speakers which obviously is not the case. There is one small single speaker built into the phone that does sound very crappy due to distortions going on at higher volume levels. There also is no base playback at all, which makes audio experience even worse. Attaching headphones does improve the overall situation but also doesn’t provide the best quality. It is ok, but not overly balanced and clear.Elephone P5000 Review: CameraCamera is another part the Elephone P5000 managed to surprise us with. Usually, Elephones don’t provide cameras with a decent picture quality, but this time they somehow managed to do. The 16 mega pixel rear shooter takes totally usable pictures with good colors and depth of field. It’s of course not coming close to e.g. the Meizu MX4, yet makes a great everyday camera that you always carry with you. Getting into low-light conditions results in the camera generating some noise, but this can be compensated using the LED flash which actually is bright enough to light up mid-sized rooms. 1080p videos are also recorded in a decent quality and offer good audio quality as well. The only serious flaw we stumbled upon is the focus, which sometimes needs up to 5 seconds to adjust. The front camera makes up for a decent selfie shooter, assuming they are taken under daylight. Elephone P5000 Review: BatteryAnd there we hit the most important part of our Elephone P5000 review, that being battery of course. The massive 5,350mAh Li-Ion monster inside of there is promising a very long battery life, and it doesn’t stop there as it certainly delivers. Power-using this phone with 5 e-mail accounts and 3 social media accounts synchronizing constantly resulted in an easy 2 days of battery life for us. And that’s without cutting back on 3D gaming, running Dead Trigger 2 for at least one hour every evening! We are pretty sure that the average user will reach at least a full 3 days of battery life, while some might even hit the 4 or 5 days. There’s reason to complain though, and that’s because we believed Elephone didn’t make use of the full potential this huge battery does offer. Why? Simply because the Elephone P5000 only reached 9 hours and 25 minutes of screen-on time in the PCMark battery benchmark. Remember back to the Colorfly G708 slate, which reached close to 8 hours with a similar SoC and larger screen at only 3,000mAh of battery capacity. Now for hardware optimizations it definitely is too late, but there still can be improved a lot on the software side, which we hope is exactly what Elephone will do with future OTA updates, unlocking a larger junk of monster. And what’s with the promised fast charging? Well, Elephone actually claims that the battery can be charger to 70% within 30 minutes on their website. What sound like nonsense really is. No battery would survive the amount of amperes that would need to be pumped into the cell to charge it that fast. Still, fast charging is there and it is working well. Charging from 20% to 100% only takes 1 hours and 45 minutes, which is quite amazing considering the size of the battery. So in the end charging time is amazing, while Elephone’s lie definitely is not.Remains one thing to talk about, and that’s the non-replaceable battery. We’ve heard quite a few folks complaining about that, but actually there is no need to. You have to consider the fact that today’s battery cells are specified with around 800 cycles. But using up all of them doesn’t mean that your battery will be dead afterwards. It only means that a certain degree of the originally specified capacity is gone, which on average are a 20 – 30%. Now this means after 800 cycles you will be left with 70 – 80% of the original capacity, which in case of the Elephone P5000 still would be at least 3,745mAh, a lot more than most other phones provide. Now think about the fact how long one charging cycle does last. Lets assume the average user will re-charge the battery after 3 days. This means that you will use up roughly 122 cycles per year, which basically can be considered as nothing. Of course this calculation is very basic and doesn’t represent the reality, but it is enough to tell that this battery will outlast the phone itself, so stop worrying and start using!Elephone P5000 Review: VerdictThe Elephone P5000 is a very solid phone that for sure isn’t high-end but doesn’t have much flaws as well. It’s one of those few Chinese phones you simply use without having to worry about something. Screen, reception quality, camera, battery life – this is what the Elephone P5000 does very good in. Yet we have to say, that it is a little expensive. On average you pay $220 for the Elephone P5000, which really sounds like a lot for a phone not even using the next generation Mediatek processors. And indeed, it might be too much to spend for anyone who doesn’t really need such a huge battery. But those who do might well be willing to pay this amount of money, and they do get a very solid device that has been worth the money. In the end it once again depends on what you need, and those who need get our green light on the Elephone P5000.Battery life is the topic of concern for most smartphone users and even more so these days with manufacturers building thinner and thinner devices, cutting down the available space for a proper battery more and more. The paradox of all this is that only a minority of smartphone users even wants that development. Most are totally fine with thicker devices in exchange for a large battery. Luckily more and more manufacturers start to realize exactly that, resulting in the launch of more and more devices often described at “battery monsters”. Gionee, THL, Lenovo, and just since recently Elephone offer such devices as well. The latter one is the manufacturer we’ve had a device from in the test, and it’s called the Elephone P5000.Elephone P5000 Review: SpecsThe Elephone P5000 is one of the rising manufacturers newest creations, boasting one of the largest batteries that have ever been built into a smartphone. It’s a massive 5,350mAh cell, promising days of battery life. Wanting to provide a benefit over competitors the P5000 even does support fast-charging, eliminating “the wait” you might are used to from previous battery monsters. Unfortunately the other specs might give some of you mixed feelings with an outdated Mediatek MT6592 1.7GHz octa-core SoC, 16GB of memory, no LTE support and a polycarbonate body. Luckily other components seem quite balanced being 2GB of RAM, dual-SIM slots, one micro SD slot, NFC support, a 5-inch 1080p display, a fingerprint sensor, and 16 / 8MP cameras.Elephone P5000 Review: Unboxing, Design, BuildThe Elephone P5000 got delivered in two boxes this time. One larger pack contains the main box and another one housing the 2.5A wall charger for the handset. Unfortunately, the wall charger is the biggest fail we’ve ever experienced with a Chinese phone. It comes with an EU plug but Elephone failed in terms of size. It simply doesn’t fit into a wall socket, making the use of a different USB charger necessary. Other accessories you get with the Elephone P5000 are a micro USB cable, a screen protector, one mini Android OTG adaptor and the usual documentation. The design of the Elephone P5000 is quite pleasant in our opinion. It’s simple yet elegant and even though it doesn’t feature a single piece of metal feels really nice and solid thanks to a very high build quality. The front does remind us a little towards the Samsung Galaxy S5, which the physical home button housing the fingerprint sensor. What we liked is the fact that this phone does offer a status LED, which still too many phones don’t these days. The front and rear of the phone are black, while the frame is chrome plated. It might seem like the Elephone P5000 does feature stereo speakers when looking at the lower frame, but that’s sadly not the case. It’s a single speaker and the second opening only houses the microphone. The right frame houses the volume and on/ off switches, the upper frame the 3.5mm headphone hack and one micro USB OTG port. The rear is covered by a black, matte cover with a rubberized finish, which does feel very nice and adds a decent amount of grip. The frame of the handset and the edges of the cover are rounded to make the phone appear slimmer than it is at 11mm.The back cover can be removed to gain access to the normal sized SIM slots of which the P5000 does feature two, as well as the micro SD slot. One also can spot the battery which takes the majority of space for itself. Unfortunately the cell can’t be removed. It is protected by a solid metal body and screwed tightly into the phone which essentially means that you will need to disassemble the whole device to replace it.Elephone P5000 Review: DisplayElephone is keeping the manufacturer of the P5000’s 5-inch 1080p IPS OGS panel with Gorilla Glass protection a secret but we believe it is made by LG. Quality is typical for LG panels and so are the viewing angles with the slightly reddish tint when looking at it from the bottom or top. All in all this screen is what we call perfect. Colors, contrast, brightness, pixel density, touch panel – it all is top-notch and it can’t be done any better except by using some OLED panel. It’s a real pleasure to the eyes, perfect for pictures and other multimedia content. Elephone P5000 Review:鑱絊oftware & PerformanceThe Elephone P5000 is running the usual 4.4.2 ROM which is the basis for all MT6592 devices with some Elephone modifications on top. Some actually claim the Elephone ROM to look like MIUI, which is something we don’t agree with. The only similarity between the Elephone ROM and MIUI are rounded icons but everything else is looking stock Android. The ROM has been beefed up a little with useful features such as off-screen gestures that are working very reliable and have been made fail-proof so you don’t initiate any unwanted actions in your pocket. The performance has been very satisfying throughout the whole review period and we didn’t encounter any crashes. Of course you notice that this handset is making use of a previous generation MTK chipset, but the MT6592 is still more than enough for anyone not into playing the latest games, especially when paired with a 2GB of RAM. Elephone P5000 Review: Wireless PerformanceReception quality appeared to be good with the Elephone P5000 which we believe is mainly due to the large antennas Elephone built inside this device. Reception of 2G and 3G signals has been above average though not at high-end level during our tests. Phone call quality was very satisfying. Wi-Fi performance has been top-notch with no connection losses throughout the whole building. NFC did also work very well and without any need of perfect alignment thanks to a comparably large antenna in the back cover. GPS performance has been acceptable as well considering this handset is making use of an old Mediatek SoC. Accuracy has been at 2 meters during our tests with cold-fix times of 10 – 12 seconds.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramElephone P5000 Review: Audio QualityThe Elephone P5000’s Hi-Fi performance has been a let-down for us. The design is promising stereo speakers which obviously is not the case. There is one small single speaker built into the phone that does sound very crappy due to distortions going on at higher volume levels. There also is no base playback at all, which makes audio experience even worse. Attaching headphones does improve the overall situation but also doesn’t provide the best quality. It is ok, but not overly balanced and clear.Elephone P5000 Review: CameraCamera is another part the Elephone P5000 managed to surprise us with. Usually, Elephones don’t provide cameras with a decent picture quality, but this time they somehow managed to do. The 16 mega pixel rear shooter takes totally usable pictures with good colors and depth of field. It’s of course not coming close to e.g. the Meizu MX4, yet makes a great everyday camera that you always carry with you. Getting into low-light conditions results in the camera generating some noise, but this can be compensated using the LED flash which actually is bright enough to light up mid-sized rooms. 1080p videos are also recorded in a decent quality and offer good audio quality as well. The only serious flaw we stumbled upon is the focus, which sometimes needs up to 5 seconds to adjust. The front camera makes up for a decent selfie shooter, assuming they are taken under daylight. Elephone P5000 Review: BatteryAnd there we hit the most important part of our Elephone P5000 review, that being battery of course. The massive 5,350mAh Li-Ion monster inside of there is promising a very long battery life, and it doesn’t stop there as it certainly delivers. Power-using this phone with 5 e-mail accounts and 3 social media accounts synchronizing constantly resulted in an easy 2 days of battery life for us. And that’s without cutting back on 3D gaming, running Dead Trigger 2 for at least one hour every evening! We are pretty sure that the average user will reach at least a full 3 days of battery life, while some might even hit the 4 or 5 days. There’s reason to complain though, and that’s because we believed Elephone didn’t make use of the full potential this huge battery does offer. Why? Simply because the Elephone P5000 only reached 9 hours and 25 minutes of screen-on time in the PCMark battery benchmark. Remember back to the Colorfly G708 slate, which reached close to 8 hours with a similar SoC and larger screen at only 3,000mAh of battery capacity. Now for hardware optimizations it definitely is too late, but there still can be improved a lot on the software side, which we hope is exactly what Elephone will do with future OTA updates, unlocking a larger junk of monster. And what’s with the promised fast charging? Well, Elephone actually claims that the battery can be charger to 70% within 30 minutes on their website. What sound like nonsense really is. No battery would survive the amount of amperes that would need to be pumped into the cell to charge it that fast. Still, fast charging is there and it is working well. Charging from 20% to 100% only takes 1 hours and 45 minutes, which is quite amazing considering the size of the battery. So in the end charging time is amazing, while Elephone’s lie definitely is not.Remains one thing to talk about, and that’s the non-replaceable battery. We’ve heard quite a few folks complaining about that, but actually there is no need to. You have to consider the fact that today’s battery cells are specified with around 800 cycles. But using up all of them doesn’t mean that your battery will be dead afterwards. It only means that a certain degree of the originally specified capacity is gone, which on average are a 20 – 30%. Now this means after 800 cycles you will be left with 70 – 80% of the original capacity, which in case of the Elephone P5000 still would be at least 3,745mAh, a lot more than most other phones provide. Now think about the fact how long one charging cycle does last. Lets assume the average user will re-charge the battery after 3 days. This means that you will use up roughly 122 cycles per year, which basically can be considered as nothing. Of course this calculation is very basic and doesn’t represent the reality, but it is enough to tell that this battery will outlast the phone itself, so stop worrying and start using!Elephone P5000 Review: VerdictThe Elephone P5000 is a very solid phone that for sure isn’t high-end but doesn’t have much flaws as well. It’s one of those few Chinese phones you simply use without having to worry about something. Screen, reception quality, camera, battery life – this is what the Elephone P5000 does very good in. Yet we have to say, that it is a little expensive. On average you pay $220 for the Elephone P5000, which really sounds like a lot for a phone not even using the next generation Mediatek processors. And indeed, it might be too much to spend for anyone who doesn’t really need such a huge battery. But those who do might well be willing to pay this amount of money, and they do get a very solid device that has been worth the money. In the end it once again depends on what you need, and those who need get our green light on the Elephone P5000.

The Huawei Honor 6 Plus boasts a sleek design and interesting dual camera arrangement on the rear. Let鈥檚 see it鈥檚 like in the flesh though in a hands on and first impressions.Huawei really excited us with their great range of phones last year. It seemed they had every base covered. from affordable to high-end, and now even the camera-centric route is covered with the Huawei Honor 6 Plus.If you were to take a quick look at the new Huawei Honor 6 Plus in comparison to the standard Honor 6 you would be forgiven that there is very little difference between the two phones. The both feature stylish bodies, available in white or black, and they both run a Hisilicon processor, but it鈥檚 on the rear things get a little different.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe Huawei Honor 6 Plus boasts 3 x 8 mega-pixel cameras, 1 on the front and 2 on the rear. The two rear cameras on the rear are which really set the Honor 6 Plus apart from the rest, but is this actually a feature or just a gimmick? We鈥檒l answer that question in our full review coming soon. For the article is just a taster of the new Huawei device.Huawei Honor 6 Plus specifications[table id=191 /]Huawei Honor 6 Plus hands on and first impressionsHuawei Honor 6 Plus photo gallery Huawei Honor 6 Plus review coming soonWe are already well underway with out Huawei Honor 6 Plus review which we plan to post shortly after the full written and video review of the Oppo N3 later this week. We鈥檒l keep posting updates and plan to post a camera showdown between the Honor 6 Plus against the Meizu MX4 Pro, Oppo N3 and Vivo Xshot.The Huawei Honor 6 Plus boasts a sleek design and interesting dual camera arrangement on the rear. Let鈥檚 see it鈥檚 like in the flesh though in a hands on and first impressions.Huawei really excited us with their great range of phones last year. It seemed they had every base covered. from affordable to high-end, and now even the camera-centric route is covered with the Huawei Honor 6 Plus.If you were to take a quick look at the new Huawei Honor 6 Plus in comparison to the standard Honor 6 you would be forgiven that there is very little difference between the two phones. The both feature stylish bodies, available in white or black, and they both run a Hisilicon processor, but it鈥檚 on the rear things get a little different.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramThe Huawei Honor 6 Plus boasts 3 x 8 mega-pixel cameras, 1 on the front and 2 on the rear. The two rear cameras on the rear are which really set the Honor 6 Plus apart from the rest, but is this actually a feature or just a gimmick? We鈥檒l answer that question in our full review coming soon. For the article is just a taster of the new Huawei device.Huawei Honor 6 Plus specifications[table id=191 /]Huawei Honor 6 Plus hands on and first impressionsHuawei Honor 6 Plus photo gallery Huawei Honor 6 Plus review coming soonWe are already well underway with out Huawei Honor 6 Plus review which we plan to post shortly after the full written and video review of the Oppo N3 later this week. We鈥檒l keep posting updates and plan to post a camera showdown between the Honor 6 Plus against the Meizu MX4 Pro, Oppo N3 and Vivo Xshot.We get to grips with the Cheerson CX10, a $16 quad-copter than fits easily in the palm of your hand!Quad-copter popularity is spinning out of control! There are now more flying hobby drones than ever with models to suit every flyer and budget. The Cheerson CX10 is a fun little drone for flying around in your home and it won鈥檛 break the bank either!Cheerson is one of the better known Chinese manufacturer of hobby quads, and the CX10 is actually the same mini drone as the SKEYE Nano Drone, but costs %50 less!Currently on sale for just $15.99 (normal price $18.99), the CX10 is a great entry to the world of quadcopter flying, and thanks to the record-breaking tiny size of the drone you can safely fly it in your living room without having to worry about crashing.Cheerson CX10 ReviewMy CX10 arrived today in the mail, I had actually forgotten it was coming and was puzzled with the tiny package presented to me at the post office. Upon opening the box the metallic gold colour brought my memory flooding back, I had actually ordered the CX10 before Christmas and wanted to use it as a flying Christmas Tree decoration (I鈥檓 being serious), but I suppose I鈥檒l have to wait until next year now.In the box with the minute quad-copter is a small 4 channel 2.4G controller, a USB cable for charging and a set of 4 spare blades incase you damage those on the quad.Remember to pick up a couple of batteries for the controller as the 2 x AAA required are not included. I did my usual trick of taking them from the TV remote for a quick play around.Charging the Cheerson CX10 can be performed either through the USB of your computer or via a USB wall charger (you can use the one that came with your phone). I have only tried charging through my USB port and the LED light indicating the drone is fully charged goes out in around 15 minutes.Before attempting to fly the CX10 here is a little advice. First double-check the base of the blades are not binding on the body, as the little motors can sometimes struggle if there is excessive friction causing a crash (also check this if you do manage to crash, chances are you will). Turn on the controller first then the drone and make sure you have plenty of space to manoeuvre.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramIf the CX10 sees the controller the 4 LEDs (2 x blue and 2 x red) will flash on the drone and it will also beep. Push up on the throttle (the right stick on my model) will produce another beep and then you are ready to fly, and crash many many times.For the size of the thing, 40 x 40 x 22mm the Cheerson CX10 is surprisingly powerful. The little motors whirl at a terrific rate and it sounds quite aggressive and powerful, in a small and cute way.If this is your first time flying a quad-copter then you will probably find controlling the CX10 a little tricky to begin with, but with surprisingly accurate controls, trim adjustment and built-in 6 axis gyro and 4 channel control you will soon get the swing of things.Since this little quad arrived we have been charging and flying it around home all evening, and after around the 5th charge I鈥檓 getting the hang of it, if the battery could last longer than 5 minutes I鈥檓 sure it wouldn鈥檛 have taken quite so long to master.Cheerson CX10 Flight VideoCheerson CX10 Review ConclusionI鈥檓 pretty impressed with the Cheerson CX10, I didn鈥檛 have any sort of expectation when it arrived, and I鈥檝e found the mini quad to be well made, manoeuvrable and durable. Apparently this little drone is also capable of flips and other stunts, but I鈥檒l leave those until I get more comfortable.It鈥檚 great fun around the house and once you get use to it you could set up obstacle courses and challenge friends to fly around it. Once you do get a little more comfortable with the CX10 do be careful of the fast spinning blades, without guards they can give a nasty nip if you get to close to them.The Cheerson CX10 is certainly a great little top for beginners, Children (but keep them away from the blades) or even a seasoned quad-copter pilot. Great fun, small size and very affordable too.I finally had some time this week to put together the Meizu MX4 Pro review as a video. Audio, performance, camera’s and Flyme are all covered inside!I was lucky enough to be at the launch of the Meizu MX4 Pro in Beijing last year, and although I had posted a first impressions video of the phone, and a full Meizu MX4 Pro written review, I had trouble to finally get around to making a video review.Early this week though the opportunity arose and sat down for a few hours and uploaded the below Meizu MX4 Pro video review. Also, as requested I have shown the front facing camera, made an audio test for the external speaker and also gone over some of the unique features of Flyme 4.1.Watch The Meizu MX4 Pro ReviewGizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramMeizu MX4 Pro – ConclusionOverall I’ve been very impressed with the Meizu MX4 Pro, it is a high-end phone with some very nice security features and flagship hardware. Flyme 4.1 really shines too, and I’m impressed with Meizu’s efforts to enable easy one-handed operation.Where to buy a Meizu MX4 Pro?So far the only issue with the Meizu MX4 Pro, for international readers (those of you outside China), is where to get the phone at an affordable price. In China the MX4 Pro starts at just 2499 Yuan ($402), where as on Meizu’s official Meizumart site the price starts from鑱絘n incredible $579!There are also official European resellers who sell the MX4 Pro (and other Meizu products) such as Topresellerstore.com, whose price is again high at $649, do offer the phone from within Europe and with a 24 month warranty.

What a stellar year 2014 was! Great phones, amazing news and some of the best reviews we have published so far, but which GizChina phone review did you enjoy the most this past year?2014 started off on a high with some great phone reviews from Oppo, the surprisingly good iNew V3 , Zopo ZP998 the first octacore Mediatek phone and of course the launch of OnePlus. To look back at the year here is a run down of all the GizChina phone reviews of 2014.Reviews are in date order, click the links to re-read our 2015 reviews:Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramTHL 100S reviewZopo ZP998 ReviewJiake P8 ReviewOppo N1 ReviewiNew V3 ReviewMeizu MX3 ReviewGooPhone N3 ReviewJiaYu S2 ReviewOppo Find 7a ReviewiOcean G7 ReviewHuawei Honor 3X ReviewiOcean X8 ReviewXiaomi Redmi 1s ReviewDOOGEE DG800 Valencia ReviewJiaYu G5S ReviewiMan i3 ReviewElephone P2000 ReviewOppo Find 7 ReviewVivo Xshot ReviewOnePlus One ReviewTHL 4400 ReviewXiaomi Mi3 ReviewAsus Zenphone 5 ReviewUMi C1 ReviewiNew V8 ReviewHuawei Honor 6 ReviewTHL 5000 ReviewMeizu MX4 ReviewIUNI U3 ReviewXiaomi Mi4 ReviewDOOGEE DG580 ReviewECOO Focus E01 ReviewCubot S168 ReviewUMi Zero ReviewTHL W200 ReviewMeizu MX4 Pro ReviewiNew V3 Plus ReviewKingzone N3 ReviewDOOGEE DG580 ReviewNo.1 Mi4 ReviewWhich phone review did you enjoy the most? Which helped you with the a phone purchase and what are you looking forward to for the coming year?What a stellar year 2014 was! Great phones, amazing news and some of the best reviews we have published so far, but which GizChina phone review did you enjoy the most this past year?2014 started off on a high with some great phone reviews from Oppo, the surprisingly good iNew V3 , Zopo ZP998 the first octacore Mediatek phone and of course the launch of OnePlus. To look back at the year here is a run down of all the GizChina phone reviews of 2014.Reviews are in date order, click the links to re-read our 2015 reviews:Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramTHL 100S reviewZopo ZP998 ReviewJiake P8 ReviewOppo N1 ReviewiNew V3 ReviewMeizu MX3 ReviewGooPhone N3 ReviewJiaYu S2 ReviewOppo Find 7a ReviewiOcean G7 ReviewHuawei Honor 3X ReviewiOcean X8 ReviewXiaomi Redmi 1s ReviewDOOGEE DG800 Valencia ReviewJiaYu G5S ReviewiMan i3 ReviewElephone P2000 ReviewOppo Find 7 ReviewVivo Xshot ReviewOnePlus One ReviewTHL 4400 ReviewXiaomi Mi3 ReviewAsus Zenphone 5 ReviewUMi C1 ReviewiNew V8 ReviewHuawei Honor 6 ReviewTHL 5000 ReviewMeizu MX4 ReviewIUNI U3 ReviewXiaomi Mi4 ReviewDOOGEE DG580 ReviewECOO Focus E01 ReviewCubot S168 ReviewUMi Zero ReviewTHL W200 ReviewMeizu MX4 Pro ReviewiNew V3 Plus ReviewKingzone N3 ReviewDOOGEE DG580 ReviewNo.1 Mi4 ReviewWhich phone review did you enjoy the most? Which helped you with the a phone purchase and what are you looking forward to for the coming year?

Despite being called an iPhone lookalike, the Xiaomi Mi 4 has done pretty well on the market. Xiaomi have always put practicality ahead of on paper specifications, so naturally, the Mi 4 doesn鈥檛 have the 鈥榦ne killer feature鈥? say for example a 2K display. To cash in on the popularity, many Chinese OEMs such as No.1, Zeaplus, Doogee, etc. have cloned the Mi 4, with each one offering slightly different specifications from the other. Most of these clones also sell for $100-150, so they鈥檙e not particularly 鈥榖udget鈥? but not expensive either.Here, we鈥檒l discuss the No.1 Mi4, its pros and cons. You might have heard of No.1 before, they鈥檙e a company notorious for making clones of quite a lot of popular devices. The No.1 Mi4 sells for around the $150 mark, and has the usual specifications of a budget quad-core. Most phones with the specifications sheet of the No.1 Mi4 can be had for under $100, but the No.1 Mi4 promises some great build quality. Let us see if it lives up to the promises in the No.1 Mi4 review!TL;DRThe No.1 Mi4 is the phone to go for if you鈥檙e on a limited budget and want a well built device. However, like every other phone, there are some shortcomings. This includes a screen that鈥檚 sometimes brighter than it should be, light leaks in various areas, and poor RAM availability due to resource hungry software. Pros, including solid GPS performance and a decently fast CPU, outweigh the cons though, but that is when you鈥檙e willing to spend a premium to get a better-than-average built phone.Show HideSpecifications[table id=186 /]No.1 Mi4 Review: In the boxIn the Xiaomi inspired retail box of the No.1 Mi4, you get:the No.1 Mi4 smartphone1x screen protector1x charging adapter (rated 5.3V 1A)1x micro USB to USB data/charging cable1x user manual1x SIM tray ejection toolNo.1 also ship another box with some accessories including another screen protector and a couple of cases, but for some reason our sample did not come with this accessory set.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽Build and DesignRight of the bat, it is virtually impossible to distinguish the No.1 Mi4 from the original Xiaomi Mi 4. But once you take the device in your hands, you鈥檙e very much able to tell in between the devices. Make no mistake, the No.1 Mi4 is made up of some good quality material, but like we discussed in the hands-on post of this one, the way of putting these materials together isn鈥檛 as sophisticated as it is on the original Mi 4.The phone has a reassuring feel to it, thanks to the metal frame around it. Like the Xiaomi Mi 4, the power and volume keys are laden in metal; however, at least on the unit we tested, there was a lot of play on the power button which brought down the experience by a bit. Everyone loves to have a nice and 鈥榗licky鈥 button, especially when it鈥檚 the power button we鈥檙e talking about – it鈥檚 going to be pressed all the time. This was clearly a manufacturing defect than a standard, but we thought it was worthy of being pointed out.Another thing that we didn鈥檛 particularly like was the SIM tray. Again, it is made of metal and all that, but once you stick a SIM in it, pushing it back into place it quite a task. It took us quite a while before realizing that there was an offset of a few mm that had to be made up by force to put the SIM tray in its place.Like the Xiaomi Mi 4, the No.1 Mi4 too has a notification LED right below the capacitive buttons. There鈥檚 again misalignment here — the capacitive buttons are slightly skewed towards the right side, while the notification LED seems to be in its right place. Of course this doesn鈥檛 have any functional implications, but then it does leave a bit of a bad taste. Speaking of the notification LED, funnily enough, it lights up each time the capacitive buttons light up. We鈥檙e not sure if this is a software error or its plain backlight bleeding, but other experiences (about which you shall read soon) make us believe it鈥檚 the latter.The device suffers from a lot of light bleeding, but thankfully none of that reflects on the screen (which is surprisingly good). Light bleeding was experienced in the following areas:through the speaker grill: the screen doesn鈥檛 appear to have a gasket to prevent light leaks. This means that the backlight is visible in certain areas through the speaker grill.right edge of the chassis: again, lack of a proper gasket means there鈥檚 a slight bit of light that peeps through near the volume buttons.rear of the phone (notification LED light leak): this one鈥檚 new. The notification LED seems to be pretty strong on this one, which is why the light from the LED can be seen pass through the rear of the phone!Also, the phone feels a couple mm thicker than the Xiaomi Mi 4.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽DisplayNo complaints here鈥 almost. The No.1 Mi4 uses a 5-inch 720p display, which in itself, is a very good quality panel. The panel is bright enough — in fact, extremely bright — so that usability outdoors is no problem whatsoever. However, this comes at a price — the display is, at times, brighter than you would want. A common solution to this problem is this awesome app we know as Screen Filter; however, it does not work with the No.1 Mi4 for some reason. This most certainly has to do with the software running on the No.1 Mi4, which is Android KitKat forked so much that it鈥檇 pass off as original most times.That being said, although the display is a treat to look at most of the time, things do go southward a bit if you鈥檙e a lover of natural picture. The panel is quite a bit on the cold side, which means there鈥檚 a fair bit of blue which you have to get used to in order to start liking the No.1 Mi4鈥檚 display. This is exaggerated whenever the phone is kept next to another, perhaps a more expensive phone鈥 or for that matter, the Xiaomi Mi 4 itself.While you can鈥檛 really complain about the panel鈥檚 quality much keeping in mind the price, this is definitely something that can bother a majority of the users, especially those that tend to have a lot of inertia associated with their phones.While the light leak through the right edge isn鈥檛 the consequence of a faulty display panel, it does amount to a bit of a bad experience, especially in the dark. A light leak from the chassis of the phone isn鈥檛 something that enriches the experience when you鈥檙e in bed, watching the last YouTube of the day.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽CameraLately, we鈥檝e seen quite a lot of phones from China that are made to look extremely good on paper, but fail to disappoint in real life. This usually includes a fairly crappy camera that is waste of time and labour and material except when you鈥檙e in the sunniest of surroundings. These fail to focus well, have a crappy dynamic range and are painfully slow. Thankfully, the No.1 Mi4 isn鈥檛 any of that.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramAlthough the sensor on the No.1 Mi4 is far from the standards set by the Xiaomi Mi 4鈥檚 13 mega-pixel shooter, it does take some decent photos. Having a lot of light certainly helps though, but that鈥檚 the case with almost every other smartphone camera out there. Something that can get annoying though, is that the No.1 Mi4 uses the same camera sounds as its inspiration, but it constantly (in the literal sense!) tries to find focus. This results in a very frustrating experience most often, with the phone constantly beeping.Once you do get used to it though, it gets better. You鈥檙e now able to take nice snaps, with an amazing ability to take macro pictures. This is something we鈥檝e noticed on a lot of Chinese phones鈥 the ability to take macro shots is generally better than other mainstream phones.During the time we spent with the phone, it was general consensus that it be used in HDR most of the time. HDR on most budget phones like this one isn鈥檛 as exaggerated as it is on other phones, and therefore usable in more situations.Unfortunately though, the camera is near unusable in completely dark conditions. This is perhaps the result of flash not synchronized/targeted on the right place, but whatever it is, the final outcome isn鈥檛 a pretty sight.Take a look at some samples from the camera, in both HDR and non-HDR, and then in the dark. No.1 Mi4 Review:聽Performance, ROM & UIWhere do we begin about the ROM. No.1 have not only cloned the Mi 4, but they鈥檝e done a mighty fine job at reproducing the MIUI ROM itself. The UI is a straight lift from MIUI V5, which many of you Xiaomi users might still have running on your phone. The system includes some actual MIUI apps, for example the cleaner app, messaging app, gallery app, file explorer and more. You have to give it to No.1 to actually making the No.1 Mi4 feel like a Xiaomi phone, not only look like it.Needless to say, the launcher is straight from MIUI as well. It works very well with the MediaTek MT6582 SoC on the No.1 Mi4, which is perhaps the result of Xiaomi trying to optimize the launcher for its express package (which is also available on Google Play).Thanks to Xiaomi鈥檚 effort into making MIUI, the No.1 Mi4 doesn鈥檛 really feel like a $150 phone most of the time. It is only when the bottleneck of having just 1GB RAM comes into play that you realize it is a budget clone, not a flagship from the previous year. You鈥檝e got the gist — it鈥檚 a lovely UI and stable ROM, but we鈥檙e not giving the full credit to No.1 for this for obvious reasons. Things like higher-than-average brightness at the lowest setting and a resource-heavy ROM take two points off from what is otherwise a very usable setup.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽Battery Battery life on the No.1 Mi4聽The official No.1 website lists the No.1 Mi4 to have a 2250mAh battery, while reseller stores have it listed with an 1800mAh one. As a general rule, we鈥檇 like to go with the lesser of anything, when there鈥檚 more than one number listed for the same spec — 1800mAh in this case. Regardless, it is the real life performance that matters, which is what we鈥檒l discuss here.The phone can take you through one day of usage, on an average. We鈥檝e seen this on a lot of MediaTek MT6582 powered phones, and the No.1 Mi4 is no different. Screen on time can vary between 3.5 hours and 4.5 hours, depending how and when you use the phone. In this case, the phone was used as a primary device, which means there鈥檚 always a lot of data syncing going on thanks to the sheer number of accounts one has on various platforms these days.A screen with possibly lower brightness indoors could probably help, and this is something we鈥檙e hoping comes with future firmware updates from the company.Bear in mind though, if you鈥檙e one of those users that switch to 2G networks when not making use of your data plan, the No.1 Mi4 requires accessing a special menu. To do that, download the 鈥楳TK Engineering Mode鈥 app, and click on Android Settings – Phone information and then select your preferred network type.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽GPS Performance OutdoorsThere鈥檚 a general conception that MediaTek powered phones lack proper GPS functionality. It is only a myth, and you know it — it all depends on what peripheral hardware the phone manufacturer supplies. IndoorsIn this case, we鈥檙e happy to report that GPS works very well. Outdoors, the No.1 Mi4 found a 3D fix in mere 5 seconds, accurate up to 11 feet. Indoors, it took a little longer (15 seconds) to find a 2D fix, and then soon a 3D fix with accuracy of up to 17 feet.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽OtherThere are a few other things about the phone that need mentions. This includes the IR Blaster — we have not been able to make it work yet. We鈥檙e pretty certain it鈥檚 a software problem, because we鈥檝e been testing the No.1 Note 4 too lately, and the IR blaster on that one works pretty flawlessly (in fact, better than the Xiaomi Mi 4). So, we hope No.1 release a fix for this soon.Moving on, we really like the vibration motor No.1 have used on the Mi4. Most budget phones, let alone the cloned ones, come with super crappy motors which have a low frequency, making the entire phone rattle when they go off. On the other hand, the vibration motor used on the No.1 Mi4 is precise and high-frequency.The notification LED, as we spoke earlier, is leaves a lot to be desired. It appears as though the LED works only in digital mode, i.e., it is either on or off, no fading to its peak brightness and then going down. Doesn鈥檛 have a functional effect, but a dimming/fading effect on a notification LED always makes it look better. Also, like mentioned earlier, it can be too bright at times.We鈥檝e spoken plenty about the display, which is nice and bright. However, the digitizer doesn鈥檛 seem to have any sort of an oleophobic coating. In other words, the screen is a fingerprint magnet. Again, no functional consequences but it just doesn鈥檛 feel great to look at a smudged panel.There鈥檚 an apparent lack of attention to detail, which sort of takes away an otherwise exceptional build quality experience. This includes a power button that suffers from a lot of play (and lack of feedback), and general offsetting in putting together the phone — all of which we鈥檝e mentioned in the build section.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽VerdictThe No.1 Mi4 is a surprisingly well built phone, but you realize it鈥檚 a clone as soon as you鈥檝e spent a couple of minutes with it. Speaking about the phone per se — disregarding the fact that it is a clone — it is well worth the $150 price tag (or thereabouts). You get a phone that looks decent, performs well and is built like a tank. It does have its moments when you compare it with other MT6582 phones out there, but for that you pay about $60 on top (other MT6582 phones are now around $90 or lower).A welcome feature is the software, which is closer to MIUI than you (or Xiaomi) can imagine. However, like we鈥檝e said before, this does take a toll on the hardware more often than not — there鈥檚 a limitation of just 1GB RAM.In general, the No.1 Mi4 has impressed, like almost the entire comradeship of Mi 4 wannabes. We鈥檙e now hoping to see software updates, albeit infrequent, from No.1.Despite being called an iPhone lookalike, the Xiaomi Mi 4 has done pretty well on the market. Xiaomi have always put practicality ahead of on paper specifications, so naturally, the Mi 4 doesn鈥檛 have the 鈥榦ne killer feature鈥? say for example a 2K display. To cash in on the popularity, many Chinese OEMs such as No.1, Zeaplus, Doogee, etc. have cloned the Mi 4, with each one offering slightly different specifications from the other. Most of these clones also sell for $100-150, so they鈥檙e not particularly 鈥榖udget鈥? but not expensive either.Here, we鈥檒l discuss the No.1 Mi4, its pros and cons. You might have heard of No.1 before, they鈥檙e a company notorious for making clones of quite a lot of popular devices. The No.1 Mi4 sells for around the $150 mark, and has the usual specifications of a budget quad-core. Most phones with the specifications sheet of the No.1 Mi4 can be had for under $100, but the No.1 Mi4 promises some great build quality. Let us see if it lives up to the promises in the No.1 Mi4 review!TL;DRThe No.1 Mi4 is the phone to go for if you鈥檙e on a limited budget and want a well built device. However, like every other phone, there are some shortcomings. This includes a screen that鈥檚 sometimes brighter than it should be, light leaks in various areas, and poor RAM availability due to resource hungry software. Pros, including solid GPS performance and a decently fast CPU, outweigh the cons though, but that is when you鈥檙e willing to spend a premium to get a better-than-average built phone.Show HideSpecifications[table id=186 /]No.1 Mi4 Review: In the boxIn the Xiaomi inspired retail box of the No.1 Mi4, you get:the No.1 Mi4 smartphone1x screen protector1x charging adapter (rated 5.3V 1A)1x micro USB to USB data/charging cable1x user manual1x SIM tray ejection toolNo.1 also ship another box with some accessories including another screen protector and a couple of cases, but for some reason our sample did not come with this accessory set.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽Build and DesignRight of the bat, it is virtually impossible to distinguish the No.1 Mi4 from the original Xiaomi Mi 4. But once you take the device in your hands, you鈥檙e very much able to tell in between the devices. Make no mistake, the No.1 Mi4 is made up of some good quality material, but like we discussed in the hands-on post of this one, the way of putting these materials together isn鈥檛 as sophisticated as it is on the original Mi 4.The phone has a reassuring feel to it, thanks to the metal frame around it. Like the Xiaomi Mi 4, the power and volume keys are laden in metal; however, at least on the unit we tested, there was a lot of play on the power button which brought down the experience by a bit. Everyone loves to have a nice and 鈥榗licky鈥 button, especially when it鈥檚 the power button we鈥檙e talking about – it鈥檚 going to be pressed all the time. This was clearly a manufacturing defect than a standard, but we thought it was worthy of being pointed out.Another thing that we didn鈥檛 particularly like was the SIM tray. Again, it is made of metal and all that, but once you stick a SIM in it, pushing it back into place it quite a task. It took us quite a while before realizing that there was an offset of a few mm that had to be made up by force to put the SIM tray in its place.Like the Xiaomi Mi 4, the No.1 Mi4 too has a notification LED right below the capacitive buttons. There鈥檚 again misalignment here — the capacitive buttons are slightly skewed towards the right side, while the notification LED seems to be in its right place. Of course this doesn鈥檛 have any functional implications, but then it does leave a bit of a bad taste. Speaking of the notification LED, funnily enough, it lights up each time the capacitive buttons light up. We鈥檙e not sure if this is a software error or its plain backlight bleeding, but other experiences (about which you shall read soon) make us believe it鈥檚 the latter.The device suffers from a lot of light bleeding, but thankfully none of that reflects on the screen (which is surprisingly good). Light bleeding was experienced in the following areas:through the speaker grill: the screen doesn鈥檛 appear to have a gasket to prevent light leaks. This means that the backlight is visible in certain areas through the speaker grill.right edge of the chassis: again, lack of a proper gasket means there鈥檚 a slight bit of light that peeps through near the volume buttons.rear of the phone (notification LED light leak): this one鈥檚 new. The notification LED seems to be pretty strong on this one, which is why the light from the LED can be seen pass through the rear of the phone!Also, the phone feels a couple mm thicker than the Xiaomi Mi 4.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽DisplayNo complaints here鈥 almost. The No.1 Mi4 uses a 5-inch 720p display, which in itself, is a very good quality panel. The panel is bright enough — in fact, extremely bright — so that usability outdoors is no problem whatsoever. However, this comes at a price — the display is, at times, brighter than you would want. A common solution to this problem is this awesome app we know as Screen Filter; however, it does not work with the No.1 Mi4 for some reason. This most certainly has to do with the software running on the No.1 Mi4, which is Android KitKat forked so much that it鈥檇 pass off as original most times.That being said, although the display is a treat to look at most of the time, things do go southward a bit if you鈥檙e a lover of natural picture. The panel is quite a bit on the cold side, which means there鈥檚 a fair bit of blue which you have to get used to in order to start liking the No.1 Mi4鈥檚 display. This is exaggerated whenever the phone is kept next to another, perhaps a more expensive phone鈥 or for that matter, the Xiaomi Mi 4 itself.While you can鈥檛 really complain about the panel鈥檚 quality much keeping in mind the price, this is definitely something that can bother a majority of the users, especially those that tend to have a lot of inertia associated with their phones.While the light leak through the right edge isn鈥檛 the consequence of a faulty display panel, it does amount to a bit of a bad experience, especially in the dark. A light leak from the chassis of the phone isn鈥檛 something that enriches the experience when you鈥檙e in bed, watching the last YouTube of the day.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽CameraLately, we鈥檝e seen quite a lot of phones from China that are made to look extremely good on paper, but fail to disappoint in real life. This usually includes a fairly crappy camera that is waste of time and labour and material except when you鈥檙e in the sunniest of surroundings. These fail to focus well, have a crappy dynamic range and are painfully slow. Thankfully, the No.1 Mi4 isn鈥檛 any of that.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramAlthough the sensor on the No.1 Mi4 is far from the standards set by the Xiaomi Mi 4鈥檚 13 mega-pixel shooter, it does take some decent photos. Having a lot of light certainly helps though, but that鈥檚 the case with almost every other smartphone camera out there. Something that can get annoying though, is that the No.1 Mi4 uses the same camera sounds as its inspiration, but it constantly (in the literal sense!) tries to find focus. This results in a very frustrating experience most often, with the phone constantly beeping.Once you do get used to it though, it gets better. You鈥檙e now able to take nice snaps, with an amazing ability to take macro pictures. This is something we鈥檝e noticed on a lot of Chinese phones鈥 the ability to take macro shots is generally better than other mainstream phones.During the time we spent with the phone, it was general consensus that it be used in HDR most of the time. HDR on most budget phones like this one isn鈥檛 as exaggerated as it is on other phones, and therefore usable in more situations.Unfortunately though, the camera is near unusable in completely dark conditions. This is perhaps the result of flash not synchronized/targeted on the right place, but whatever it is, the final outcome isn鈥檛 a pretty sight.Take a look at some samples from the camera, in both HDR and non-HDR, and then in the dark. No.1 Mi4 Review:聽Performance, ROM & UIWhere do we begin about the ROM. No.1 have not only cloned the Mi 4, but they鈥檝e done a mighty fine job at reproducing the MIUI ROM itself. The UI is a straight lift from MIUI V5, which many of you Xiaomi users might still have running on your phone. The system includes some actual MIUI apps, for example the cleaner app, messaging app, gallery app, file explorer and more. You have to give it to No.1 to actually making the No.1 Mi4 feel like a Xiaomi phone, not only look like it.Needless to say, the launcher is straight from MIUI as well. It works very well with the MediaTek MT6582 SoC on the No.1 Mi4, which is perhaps the result of Xiaomi trying to optimize the launcher for its express package (which is also available on Google Play).Thanks to Xiaomi鈥檚 effort into making MIUI, the No.1 Mi4 doesn鈥檛 really feel like a $150 phone most of the time. It is only when the bottleneck of having just 1GB RAM comes into play that you realize it is a budget clone, not a flagship from the previous year. You鈥檝e got the gist — it鈥檚 a lovely UI and stable ROM, but we鈥檙e not giving the full credit to No.1 for this for obvious reasons. Things like higher-than-average brightness at the lowest setting and a resource-heavy ROM take two points off from what is otherwise a very usable setup.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽Battery Battery life on the No.1 Mi4聽The official No.1 website lists the No.1 Mi4 to have a 2250mAh battery, while reseller stores have it listed with an 1800mAh one. As a general rule, we鈥檇 like to go with the lesser of anything, when there鈥檚 more than one number listed for the same spec — 1800mAh in this case. Regardless, it is the real life performance that matters, which is what we鈥檒l discuss here.The phone can take you through one day of usage, on an average. We鈥檝e seen this on a lot of MediaTek MT6582 powered phones, and the No.1 Mi4 is no different. Screen on time can vary between 3.5 hours and 4.5 hours, depending how and when you use the phone. In this case, the phone was used as a primary device, which means there鈥檚 always a lot of data syncing going on thanks to the sheer number of accounts one has on various platforms these days.A screen with possibly lower brightness indoors could probably help, and this is something we鈥檙e hoping comes with future firmware updates from the company.Bear in mind though, if you鈥檙e one of those users that switch to 2G networks when not making use of your data plan, the No.1 Mi4 requires accessing a special menu. To do that, download the 鈥楳TK Engineering Mode鈥 app, and click on Android Settings – Phone information and then select your preferred network type.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽GPS Performance OutdoorsThere鈥檚 a general conception that MediaTek powered phones lack proper GPS functionality. It is only a myth, and you know it — it all depends on what peripheral hardware the phone manufacturer supplies. IndoorsIn this case, we鈥檙e happy to report that GPS works very well. Outdoors, the No.1 Mi4 found a 3D fix in mere 5 seconds, accurate up to 11 feet. Indoors, it took a little longer (15 seconds) to find a 2D fix, and then soon a 3D fix with accuracy of up to 17 feet.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽OtherThere are a few other things about the phone that need mentions. This includes the IR Blaster — we have not been able to make it work yet. We鈥檙e pretty certain it鈥檚 a software problem, because we鈥檝e been testing the No.1 Note 4 too lately, and the IR blaster on that one works pretty flawlessly (in fact, better than the Xiaomi Mi 4). So, we hope No.1 release a fix for this soon.Moving on, we really like the vibration motor No.1 have used on the Mi4. Most budget phones, let alone the cloned ones, come with super crappy motors which have a low frequency, making the entire phone rattle when they go off. On the other hand, the vibration motor used on the No.1 Mi4 is precise and high-frequency.The notification LED, as we spoke earlier, is leaves a lot to be desired. It appears as though the LED works only in digital mode, i.e., it is either on or off, no fading to its peak brightness and then going down. Doesn鈥檛 have a functional effect, but a dimming/fading effect on a notification LED always makes it look better. Also, like mentioned earlier, it can be too bright at times.We鈥檝e spoken plenty about the display, which is nice and bright. However, the digitizer doesn鈥檛 seem to have any sort of an oleophobic coating. In other words, the screen is a fingerprint magnet. Again, no functional consequences but it just doesn鈥檛 feel great to look at a smudged panel.There鈥檚 an apparent lack of attention to detail, which sort of takes away an otherwise exceptional build quality experience. This includes a power button that suffers from a lot of play (and lack of feedback), and general offsetting in putting together the phone — all of which we鈥檝e mentioned in the build section.No.1 Mi4 Review:聽VerdictThe No.1 Mi4 is a surprisingly well built phone, but you realize it鈥檚 a clone as soon as you鈥檝e spent a couple of minutes with it. Speaking about the phone per se — disregarding the fact that it is a clone — it is well worth the $150 price tag (or thereabouts). You get a phone that looks decent, performs well and is built like a tank. It does have its moments when you compare it with other MT6582 phones out there, but for that you pay about $60 on top (other MT6582 phones are now around $90 or lower).A welcome feature is the software, which is closer to MIUI than you (or Xiaomi) can imagine. However, like we鈥檝e said before, this does take a toll on the hardware more often than not — there鈥檚 a limitation of just 1GB RAM.In general, the No.1 Mi4 has impressed, like almost the entire comradeship of Mi 4 wannabes. We鈥檙e now hoping to see software updates, albeit infrequent, from No.1.

Users of the iPhone have accused Xiaomi of being ‘inspired’ by the iPhone design for the Xiaomi Mi 4. Regardless, the phone continues to do well in China, and is on the verge of launching in other countries. It turns out a large section of the people don’t really mind the Mi 4 looking a bit like another phone; No. 1 decided to take this opportunity to build its own clone. Not of the iPhone, but of the Mi 4. Many of you might already know about the up and coming company from China, they’re already quite popular for making a lot of clones. But the No.1 Mi4 is perhaps their best shot at clone making yet.The phone retails for around the US$150 mark via resellers. It comes with a mind-blowingly similar design; mind blowing not because of the degree of similarity, but because of the fact that it sells for such a low price. It has a solid metal frame around the edges, which although doesn’t feel as polished as the original thing, gives the phone a rather US$300+ look and feel. To top off the cloning, the No.1 Mi4 also gets鑱絫he much talked about IR blaster feature.Most other US$150 Chinese phones of today would probably give you 2GB of RAM and perhaps even an octa-core processor. However, the No.1 Mi4 comes with the quad-core MediaTek MT6582 and 1GB of RAM. Perhaps a trade-off many would be happy to make! And, in my books, the MT6582 is a much better SoC in general than the MT6592; I’m sure many of our readers would agree too.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramPicture GalleryNo.1 Mi4 Xiaomi Mi 4 vs. No.1 Mi4 So, besides the quad-core processor and 1GB RAM, the鑱絅o.1 Mi4 has a 5-inch display; it’s however knocked down from the Xiaomi Mi 4’s 1080p resolution to 720p. To鑱絅o.1’s credit, the difference is hardly noticeable. Now, the Mi 4 comes with a really nice display panel, and No.1 would’ve had a hard time sourcing the 5-inch 720p panel that they eventually ship the鑱絅o.1 Mi4 with.The rest of the design is literally 1:1, save for the logo (of course). No.1 have gone for the shiny plastic logo on the back as Xiaomi, and in real life it doesn’t look as bad as you think to have ‘No.1’ in place of ‘Mi’. However, not everything in the garden is rosy. There’s a few things that do differentiate the No1. Mi4 from the original thing, and if not on the outset, these are noticeable up close.For one, there’s quite a lot of light leak on the capacitive buttons below. So much so that it gives you the impression that the notification LED is lit as well! Also, No.1 certainly haven’t used a diffuser to distribute the amount of light that glows from the button cut-outs, making certain sections look brighter than other ones. Light leak isn’t limited to the capacitive buttons; there’s a little leak from the display’s backlight panel as well, which appears to come through from the right edge of the phone.In a nutshell, there are always some trade-offs that need to be made to build a phone. In this case, No.1 have gone for some high-grade material; however, the high grade doesn’t reflect on the precision in which the materials are put together.Users of the iPhone have accused Xiaomi of being ‘inspired’ by the iPhone design for the Xiaomi Mi 4. Regardless, the phone continues to do well in China, and is on the verge of launching in other countries. It turns out a large section of the people don’t really mind the Mi 4 looking a bit like another phone; No. 1 decided to take this opportunity to build its own clone. Not of the iPhone, but of the Mi 4. Many of you might already know about the up and coming company from China, they’re already quite popular for making a lot of clones. But the No.1 Mi4 is perhaps their best shot at clone making yet.The phone retails for around the US$150 mark via resellers. It comes with a mind-blowingly similar design; mind blowing not because of the degree of similarity, but because of the fact that it sells for such a low price. It has a solid metal frame around the edges, which although doesn’t feel as polished as the original thing, gives the phone a rather US$300+ look and feel. To top off the cloning, the No.1 Mi4 also gets鑱絫he much talked about IR blaster feature.Most other US$150 Chinese phones of today would probably give you 2GB of RAM and perhaps even an octa-core processor. However, the No.1 Mi4 comes with the quad-core MediaTek MT6582 and 1GB of RAM. Perhaps a trade-off many would be happy to make! And, in my books, the MT6582 is a much better SoC in general than the MT6592; I’m sure many of our readers would agree too.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramPicture GalleryNo.1 Mi4 Xiaomi Mi 4 vs. No.1 Mi4 So, besides the quad-core processor and 1GB RAM, the鑱絅o.1 Mi4 has a 5-inch display; it’s however knocked down from the Xiaomi Mi 4’s 1080p resolution to 720p. To鑱絅o.1’s credit, the difference is hardly noticeable. Now, the Mi 4 comes with a really nice display panel, and No.1 would’ve had a hard time sourcing the 5-inch 720p panel that they eventually ship the鑱絅o.1 Mi4 with.The rest of the design is literally 1:1, save for the logo (of course). No.1 have gone for the shiny plastic logo on the back as Xiaomi, and in real life it doesn’t look as bad as you think to have ‘No.1’ in place of ‘Mi’. However, not everything in the garden is rosy. There’s a few things that do differentiate the No1. Mi4 from the original thing, and if not on the outset, these are noticeable up close.For one, there’s quite a lot of light leak on the capacitive buttons below. So much so that it gives you the impression that the notification LED is lit as well! Also, No.1 certainly haven’t used a diffuser to distribute the amount of light that glows from the button cut-outs, making certain sections look brighter than other ones. Light leak isn’t limited to the capacitive buttons; there’s a little leak from the display’s backlight panel as well, which appears to come through from the right edge of the phone.In a nutshell, there are always some trade-offs that need to be made to build a phone. In this case, No.1 have gone for some high-grade material; however, the high grade doesn’t reflect on the precision in which the materials are put together.

MediaTek triggered quite a revolution with the quad-core MT6589 series of chipsets. Xiaomi鈥檚 Hongmi is perfect testimony to how the chipset (a higher clocked version of it, actually) turned tables; the Hongmi was made available at 鈥榡ust鈥 $130 which was quite a sensation back then. MediaTek has come out with many new chipsets since then, but is the quad-core MediaTek MT6589T still relevant? To answer that, we tested the THL W200 from last year. Retailing at a little over $100 now, the THL W200 is again another 鈥榖udget鈥 phone. However, it has a few things going its way when compared to other, newer phones. A beautiful design and sturdy build are a couple of the traits that the W200 displays in general use.Lets dig that, and a lot more in the THL W200 review!TL;DR The THL W200 is more than a year old, and comes with the turbo version of MediaTek鈥檚 first ever quad-core chip — the MT6589T. The lack of refinement on the chipset shows, but there鈥檚 still a lot of worth buying the phone right now, considering that it sells only for $110. However, it would probably be a better idea to get an MT6582 powered phone if you鈥檙e looking for performance / stability rather than build and form.Show HideTHL W200 Review: Specifications [table id=175 /]THL W200 Review:聽In the boxThe THL W200 ships in a plain white box, something similar to what iNew ship their phones in. Here’s what you get in it:screen protectoruser’s manualearphonesUSB to micro USB cablechargerTHL W200 smartphoneTHL W200 Review:聽Design, buildMost phones in or around the $100 range are either blatant clones, or generic, rounded rectanlges. However, the W200 is scores much, much higher on design terms than these other devices. Partly, the reason behind that is the fact that we鈥檙e looking at a phone that鈥檚 more than a year old, which means it has suffered numerous price cuts, which bring it to the $100 range.The device feels extremely good in the hand. This is because of its slightly curved back, and the fact that it has reasonably slim bezels. Specifications state that the body of the phone is 8mm thick, and although I didn鈥檛 have a Vernier Caliper handy, it did feel like 8-8.5mm more or less. There鈥檚 a lot of quality in the phone, at least on the exterior. It certainly doesn鈥檛 feel like a $110 phone! The yellow colour also gave the phone an eccentric appeal. I鈥檝e never used any phone which wasn鈥檛 black or white, and I never thought I would too. However, the THL W200鈥檚 yellow did manage to catch my fancy, but I鈥檓 just not sure how long it would be like that.For build, I鈥檇 rate the phone 10/10, considering the price. No squeaky back, no tacky frame鈥 like I mentioned before, it just doesn鈥檛 feel like a $110 phone (and to be honest, it isn鈥檛). Take a look at some pictures below. THL W200 Review:聽DisplayThe phone has a 5-inch 720p panel which is pretty beautiful to look at. It is a bit towards the saturated side, akin to AMOLED displays. However, it does have an extremely good picture quality, which reflects the overall hardware quality that THL has fused to make the W200. The screen is fairly bright as well, so readability in direct sunlight isn鈥檛 much of a problem either. The 720p resolution does suffice, unless you鈥檙e a sucker for not being able to discern between pixels with a microscope in hand.Besides the sturdy build build and lovely design, the very attractive looking display is the phone鈥檚 best feature. In a nutshell, it has great viewing angles, high brightness and a lovely picture quality, almost everything and then more you can expect from a $110 phone.THL W200 Review:聽PerformanceThe general performance of the W200 is up to the standards set by the MediaTek MT6582. General in the sense, transitions between various UI elements, etc. However, once you start firing up apps, it鈥檚 a completely different story. There鈥檚 a lot of difference between how this phone handles general UI and apps, which is a bit of a shame. When I first took it out of the box, I almost couldn鈥檛 fathom why MediaTek chose to make the MT6582. However, I realized once apps on the phone ran pretty slow. It certainly does feel like a 2013 phone and not one from this year.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramIf you use plan to use your phone for anything more than WhatsApp and WeChat, I鈥檇 strongly recommend getting the budget Cubot S168, which actually sells for lesser. The only downside would be the low-ish display resolution.1GB of RAM is a bit of a bottleneck. 1GB RAM phones run quite a bit better on the MediaTek MT6582 as opposed to the MT6589 or even the MT6589T, as in this case. We鈥檙e not sure why that is, but the W200 isn鈥檛 the best performing $110 phone out there. Switching from app to app is pretty slow, and that doesn’t add to the multitasking abilities of the phone. If you have more than two tabs open on Chrome, it’s highly likely that the ones in the background get cached. This is just one example of an otherwise poor multitasking system.THL W200 Review:聽Camera The THL W200 packs a decent 8 mega-pixel camera. While many budget phones now have 13 mega-pixel shooters, the W200 is pretty much on par in terms of picture quality. Focus is decently fast as well, which is always a desirable trait. You probably won鈥檛 feel the need for a camera with a greater number of pixels if you don鈥檛 often put your photos on your computer/TV for viewing.The app can sometimes be slow, which is sporadic. However, I noticed a trend of sorts here; the camera is usually slow-ish when you move from dark to bright surroundings, or vice versa. The sensor itself it a very able one in bright areas, and doesn鈥檛 do too bad in low light conditions as well. HDR is something you could make use of on the phone to get better results.THL W200 Review:聽UIAgain, largely unchanged from stock like a lot of other Chinese phones. What鈥檚 good about the W200 is that even the icons aren鈥檛 force rounded, like say how they are on the Ecoo Focus. This, in my opinion, looks much better than force rounded icons which can sometimes be a mess.If you鈥檙e into customizations and the likes, you鈥檙e probably out of luck with 3rd party ROMs built from scratch. However, rooting the phone is extremely simple, and you can make use of one of the best Xposed modules out there after that — GravityBox — to give your phone a whole new look and feel.Rooting the W200: To root the device, simply download and install Framaroot, and select 鈥榠nstall SuperSU鈥 and bam. To install Xposed modules, you first need to install the Xposed modules framework, which you can easily find with a Google search.THL W200 Review:聽Battery lifeThe W200 doesn鈥檛 do very well with regards to battery. The MT6589 was MediaTek鈥檚 first ever quad-core chip, and the lack of refinement shows. The device doesn鈥檛 do more than 3:30-3:50min screen on time, which is a bit of a shame. Most other quad-core MT6582 phones get close to 5 hours of screen on, which is a lot more acceptable. Depending on your style of usage, the W200 may or may not last a day.THL W200 Review:聽Other points to noteAgain, there鈥檚 a notification LED on the phone which seems to work only when it indicates that the phone is being charged. We鈥檝e encountered this on a lot of Chinese phones this year, and we can鈥檛 really fathom why the company would want to have it that way. Also, the device runs Android v4.2 Jelly Bean out of the box, which if not ancient, is certainly old enough now.THL W200 Review:聽VerdictProsSuperb buildPriceCameraDisplayConsBattery lifePoor multitaskingDefunct notification LEDAndroid Jelly BeanThe THL W200 is an extremely well constructed phone on the outside. It comes with a quad-core processor, the older MediaTek MT6589T and 1GB of RAM to make for an entry-level smartphone in this day and age. While the device is sufficiently fast and snappy while you鈥檙e playing with its general UI, things start to get messy as more 3rd party apps start showing up. The camera is pretty usable (which goes to show that camera tech hasn鈥檛 changed all that much in the last year or so), especially with its decently powerful HDR feature. However, the phone suffers from rather poor multitasking thanks to the ageing processor. While the hardware, on the exterior, is top notch considering the $110 price, you鈥檇 probably be better off getting a phone running on the newer MT6582 chip, perhaps something like a Cubot S168.MediaTek triggered quite a revolution with the quad-core MT6589 series of chipsets. Xiaomi鈥檚 Hongmi is perfect testimony to how the chipset (a higher clocked version of it, actually) turned tables; the Hongmi was made available at 鈥榡ust鈥 $130 which was quite a sensation back then. MediaTek has come out with many new chipsets since then, but is the quad-core MediaTek MT6589T still relevant? To answer that, we tested the THL W200 from last year. Retailing at a little over $100 now, the THL W200 is again another 鈥榖udget鈥 phone. However, it has a few things going its way when compared to other, newer phones. A beautiful design and sturdy build are a couple of the traits that the W200 displays in general use.Lets dig that, and a lot more in the THL W200 review!TL;DR The THL W200 is more than a year old, and comes with the turbo version of MediaTek鈥檚 first ever quad-core chip — the MT6589T. The lack of refinement on the chipset shows, but there鈥檚 still a lot of worth buying the phone right now, considering that it sells only for $110. However, it would probably be a better idea to get an MT6582 powered phone if you鈥檙e looking for performance / stability rather than build and form.Show HideTHL W200 Review: Specifications [table id=175 /]THL W200 Review:聽In the boxThe THL W200 ships in a plain white box, something similar to what iNew ship their phones in. Here’s what you get in it:screen protectoruser’s manualearphonesUSB to micro USB cablechargerTHL W200 smartphoneTHL W200 Review:聽Design, buildMost phones in or around the $100 range are either blatant clones, or generic, rounded rectanlges. However, the W200 is scores much, much higher on design terms than these other devices. Partly, the reason behind that is the fact that we鈥檙e looking at a phone that鈥檚 more than a year old, which means it has suffered numerous price cuts, which bring it to the $100 range.The device feels extremely good in the hand. This is because of its slightly curved back, and the fact that it has reasonably slim bezels. Specifications state that the body of the phone is 8mm thick, and although I didn鈥檛 have a Vernier Caliper handy, it did feel like 8-8.5mm more or less. There鈥檚 a lot of quality in the phone, at least on the exterior. It certainly doesn鈥檛 feel like a $110 phone! The yellow colour also gave the phone an eccentric appeal. I鈥檝e never used any phone which wasn鈥檛 black or white, and I never thought I would too. However, the THL W200鈥檚 yellow did manage to catch my fancy, but I鈥檓 just not sure how long it would be like that.For build, I鈥檇 rate the phone 10/10, considering the price. No squeaky back, no tacky frame鈥 like I mentioned before, it just doesn鈥檛 feel like a $110 phone (and to be honest, it isn鈥檛). Take a look at some pictures below. THL W200 Review:聽DisplayThe phone has a 5-inch 720p panel which is pretty beautiful to look at. It is a bit towards the saturated side, akin to AMOLED displays. However, it does have an extremely good picture quality, which reflects the overall hardware quality that THL has fused to make the W200. The screen is fairly bright as well, so readability in direct sunlight isn鈥檛 much of a problem either. The 720p resolution does suffice, unless you鈥檙e a sucker for not being able to discern between pixels with a microscope in hand.Besides the sturdy build build and lovely design, the very attractive looking display is the phone鈥檚 best feature. In a nutshell, it has great viewing angles, high brightness and a lovely picture quality, almost everything and then more you can expect from a $110 phone.THL W200 Review:聽PerformanceThe general performance of the W200 is up to the standards set by the MediaTek MT6582. General in the sense, transitions between various UI elements, etc. However, once you start firing up apps, it鈥檚 a completely different story. There鈥檚 a lot of difference between how this phone handles general UI and apps, which is a bit of a shame. When I first took it out of the box, I almost couldn鈥檛 fathom why MediaTek chose to make the MT6582. However, I realized once apps on the phone ran pretty slow. It certainly does feel like a 2013 phone and not one from this year.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramIf you use plan to use your phone for anything more than WhatsApp and WeChat, I鈥檇 strongly recommend getting the budget Cubot S168, which actually sells for lesser. The only downside would be the low-ish display resolution.1GB of RAM is a bit of a bottleneck. 1GB RAM phones run quite a bit better on the MediaTek MT6582 as opposed to the MT6589 or even the MT6589T, as in this case. We鈥檙e not sure why that is, but the W200 isn鈥檛 the best performing $110 phone out there. Switching from app to app is pretty slow, and that doesn’t add to the multitasking abilities of the phone. If you have more than two tabs open on Chrome, it’s highly likely that the ones in the background get cached. This is just one example of an otherwise poor multitasking system.THL W200 Review:聽Camera The THL W200 packs a decent 8 mega-pixel camera. While many budget phones now have 13 mega-pixel shooters, the W200 is pretty much on par in terms of picture quality. Focus is decently fast as well, which is always a desirable trait. You probably won鈥檛 feel the need for a camera with a greater number of pixels if you don鈥檛 often put your photos on your computer/TV for viewing.The app can sometimes be slow, which is sporadic. However, I noticed a trend of sorts here; the camera is usually slow-ish when you move from dark to bright surroundings, or vice versa. The sensor itself it a very able one in bright areas, and doesn鈥檛 do too bad in low light conditions as well. HDR is something you could make use of on the phone to get better results.THL W200 Review:聽UIAgain, largely unchanged from stock like a lot of other Chinese phones. What鈥檚 good about the W200 is that even the icons aren鈥檛 force rounded, like say how they are on the Ecoo Focus. This, in my opinion, looks much better than force rounded icons which can sometimes be a mess.If you鈥檙e into customizations and the likes, you鈥檙e probably out of luck with 3rd party ROMs built from scratch. However, rooting the phone is extremely simple, and you can make use of one of the best Xposed modules out there after that — GravityBox — to give your phone a whole new look and feel.Rooting the W200: To root the device, simply download and install Framaroot, and select 鈥榠nstall SuperSU鈥 and bam. To install Xposed modules, you first need to install the Xposed modules framework, which you can easily find with a Google search.THL W200 Review:聽Battery lifeThe W200 doesn鈥檛 do very well with regards to battery. The MT6589 was MediaTek鈥檚 first ever quad-core chip, and the lack of refinement shows. The device doesn鈥檛 do more than 3:30-3:50min screen on time, which is a bit of a shame. Most other quad-core MT6582 phones get close to 5 hours of screen on, which is a lot more acceptable. Depending on your style of usage, the W200 may or may not last a day.THL W200 Review:聽Other points to noteAgain, there鈥檚 a notification LED on the phone which seems to work only when it indicates that the phone is being charged. We鈥檝e encountered this on a lot of Chinese phones this year, and we can鈥檛 really fathom why the company would want to have it that way. Also, the device runs Android v4.2 Jelly Bean out of the box, which if not ancient, is certainly old enough now.THL W200 Review:聽VerdictProsSuperb buildPriceCameraDisplayConsBattery lifePoor multitaskingDefunct notification LEDAndroid Jelly BeanThe THL W200 is an extremely well constructed phone on the outside. It comes with a quad-core processor, the older MediaTek MT6589T and 1GB of RAM to make for an entry-level smartphone in this day and age. While the device is sufficiently fast and snappy while you鈥檙e playing with its general UI, things start to get messy as more 3rd party apps start showing up. The camera is pretty usable (which goes to show that camera tech hasn鈥檛 changed all that much in the last year or so), especially with its decently powerful HDR feature. However, the phone suffers from rather poor multitasking thanks to the ageing processor. While the hardware, on the exterior, is top notch considering the $110 price, you鈥檇 probably be better off getting a phone running on the newer MT6582 chip, perhaps something like a Cubot S168.Ecoo’s known for their budget full HD offering, the Ecoo Focus, which we also reviewed some days back. The 5.2-inch screen phone is basically a replica of the Samsung Galaxy S5, and doesn’t score high on design. It also comes with just 1GB RAM, which simply doesn’t cut it for a lot of buyers these days.The Shining Pro is Ecoo’s second smartphone. The design is a bit more original this time, but it still has a bit of Vivo in it if you look closely. Specifications wise though, the Shining Pro has the upper hand over the Focus, with a larger screen (albeit with a lower resolution), greater RAM, and more on-board storage.The phone feels substantial in the hands, naturally. It also has a good heft to it, but this unfortunately doesn’t really translate into great build quality. On the other hand, the Ecoo Focus definitely impressed with a great build quality. On the Shining Pro, Ecoo have gone for chamfered edges, which do look good from a distance but up close, are a bit tacky.The same applies to the power and volume buttons. You can hear rattling sounds that come out when you shake the phone, which is not at all a good sign. I hope this is a one-off case and the retail version of the device does better. Which it should, because there’s only a couple of chamfered edges that feel tacky, while the rest are nicely in place.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramOn the software side though, the phone is pretty slick and fast; more so than the Focus. This could be because of the lower resolution (720p vs 1080p), and the fact that the Shining Pro packs a good 2GB of RAM. Apps loaded much faster, and the effect is also seen on the camera app where the phone is quite a lot faster than the Focus. Another relief is that the Shining Pro runs Android v4.4 KitKat out of the box, unlike the Focus which is still on v4.2 Jelly Bean.The camera itself looks decent, again better than the Focus. We’ll be posting camera samples and the likes in the full review which will come in a few days. Speaking of the camera though, the lens does bulge out which makes it prone to scratches and the likes, so you’ve got to be careful in laying the Shining Pro down, even though there’s a little metal lip around the lens itself (Vivo style).The phone has a 2650mAh battery which seems to be holding up surprisingly well. Besides the battery,鑱絫he phone can hold two SIMs (normal + micro) and a memory card.Ecoo’s known for their budget full HD offering, the Ecoo Focus, which we also reviewed some days back. The 5.2-inch screen phone is basically a replica of the Samsung Galaxy S5, and doesn’t score high on design. It also comes with just 1GB RAM, which simply doesn’t cut it for a lot of buyers these days.The Shining Pro is Ecoo’s second smartphone. The design is a bit more original this time, but it still has a bit of Vivo in it if you look closely. Specifications wise though, the Shining Pro has the upper hand over the Focus, with a larger screen (albeit with a lower resolution), greater RAM, and more on-board storage.The phone feels substantial in the hands, naturally. It also has a good heft to it, but this unfortunately doesn’t really translate into great build quality. On the other hand, the Ecoo Focus definitely impressed with a great build quality. On the Shining Pro, Ecoo have gone for chamfered edges, which do look good from a distance but up close, are a bit tacky.The same applies to the power and volume buttons. You can hear rattling sounds that come out when you shake the phone, which is not at all a good sign. I hope this is a one-off case and the retail version of the device does better. Which it should, because there’s only a couple of chamfered edges that feel tacky, while the rest are nicely in place.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramOn the software side though, the phone is pretty slick and fast; more so than the Focus. This could be because of the lower resolution (720p vs 1080p), and the fact that the Shining Pro packs a good 2GB of RAM. Apps loaded much faster, and the effect is also seen on the camera app where the phone is quite a lot faster than the Focus. Another relief is that the Shining Pro runs Android v4.4 KitKat out of the box, unlike the Focus which is still on v4.2 Jelly Bean.The camera itself looks decent, again better than the Focus. We’ll be posting camera samples and the likes in the full review which will come in a few days. Speaking of the camera though, the lens does bulge out which makes it prone to scratches and the likes, so you’ve got to be careful in laying the Shining Pro down, even though there’s a little metal lip around the lens itself (Vivo style).The phone has a 2650mAh battery which seems to be holding up surprisingly well. Besides the battery,鑱絫he phone can hold two SIMs (normal + micro) and a memory card.

We review the UMi Zero, a mid-range phone dressed as a flagship with a wallet friendly price tag!FYI This is a review of a pre-production version of the UMi Zero. Since writing this review we have also been sent a final production model and will post a separate review of it in the coming days.The UMI Zero caught聽the attention of phone users all over the world with a radical new design, and use of premium materials. When the UMi Zero was in the planning stages, UMi went for a new approach from the phone itself, to even the packaging and accessories. The result is a truly unique handset, a mid-range phone with high-end features and looks!UMI Zero Review: Packaging Having received hundreds of Chinese phones for review, I was quite surprised when the UMi Zero arrived in it’s large packaging. The box is much more luxurious than most Chinese phones at this price, and really set you in a quality frame of mind. The packaging contains the 5-inch UMi Zero, screen protector, screen cleaner, USB, Texas instruments fast charger and ‘Z’ shaped protective bumper! A good haul in a great looking box.UMI Zero Review: Design The UMI Zero is a 5-incher boasting a beautifully crafted, black 鈥渟tealth-design鈥? The metal body looks and feels outstanding, and the Gorilla Glass 3 panels on both sides deliver that little extra everyone is looking for in a mobile device. The build quality is outstanding at any price but considering the Zero costs only $200 it is even more impressive.Everything fits together nicely, there are no loose parts, no large gaps, not a single flaw. From the design and construction of the phone alone you would easily think that the Zero could be sold for double the asking price if it came from another manufacturer. UMI didn鈥檛 lie when calling this a 鈥渟uper body鈥? The slim metal chassis measures only 6.4mm and weighs a feathery 145g. All very impressive! UMI Zero Review: Super AMOLED Display Another killer feature of the UMi Zero is its display. Yes, it is a 5-inch FHD 1920 x 1080 panel, but the real stand out feature is the fact it is a SUPER AMOLED panel! This is the same screen technology used on high-end Samsung phones, and certainly not what we expected from a $200 Chinese device.An OLED panel consists of many small LEDs. Every sub-pixel represents an LED, which means there is no need for back illumination. The result: Intense and crisp colors, a very high contrast only few LCD panels can reach, and a true black, which sometimes makes it impossible to distinguish the screen from the phones black frame in the dark.Sure AMOLED display’s are not everyone’s cup of tea, but at this price the screen is an amazing addition to a superb looking phone.UMI Zero Review: Performance & SystemAs mentioned at the start of the review, this version of the phone is a pre-production sample with pre-production firmware. This might be the reason for the lower than expected benchmarks. The Zero uses an octacore MT6592T chipset, the ‘T’ meaning it is the faster 2.0Ghz option, but even still this is a little behind the times considering more modern phones are getting newer 64bit processors. Oddly even the faster clock speed, gaming performance was lower than expected and certain games (Dead Trigger 2 for example) were a little laggy at times. Sure this could be the pre-production hardware and optimisation, but for your reference here are the benchmarks I managed:BenchmarkResultAntutu30.5153D Mark Icestorm Unlimited7.2913D Mark Icestorm Extrem4.9993D Mark Icestorm7.215Anomaly 2142.960Vellamo Browser Test2.073Vellamo Metal Test1.370Vellamo Multicore Test888What we also noticed about the Android 4.4 KitKat ROM is, that it鈥檚 mostly a vanilla ROM. But we were missing a few features during the test, the most important one being off-screen gestures. KitKat does support聽these out of the box, but the UMI Zero doesn鈥檛 have them. This really is a pity which will hopefully be fixed with the final firmware. UMI promised a lot of features, including the possibility of installing various custom ROMs like MIUI with just a single tap, which we haven鈥檛 seen yet on the device.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramUMI Zero Review: MultimediaThere鈥檚 no need telling you about how amazing 1080p movies look on the gorgeous Super AMOLED panel, right? So how about audio? Well this isn’t quite up to the same standard as the high-end build and looks. It would haven been great to see UMi pack some nice audio equipment in the Zero’s chassis, but I guess there wasn’t much room in the budget for that. Sound quality is nothing to write home about on the built-in speaker, while it is better through headphones, but lacks some serious bass.UMI Zero Review: Reception QualityThe UMi Zero represents the first time the company have made an all metal body, and as we all know, metal isn’t all that great when it comes to signal strength. Don’t get us wrong the reception of calls is pretty good, but 3G signals and WIFI is much weaker than on a similar plastic bodied phone. There were times during the review that we had no 3G signal at all which could become annoying.GPS was working surprisingly well with our review unit. We鈥檝e got a first fix within seconds, and that鈥檚 even possible inside the building at the window. The sat-count was at 9 most of the time, the accuracy reaching up to 2m.UMI Zero Review: Camera UMI advertised the Zero to feature a 13 mega pixel rear shooter coming from Sony and 8 mega pixels for the phones front. Pre-production versions of the phone came with an F2.2 aperture, but what is odd is that a firmware updated changed that number to F1.8. This is rather odd behaviour, and after reaching out to UMi they guarantee that production version will have a genuine aperture size of F1.8. Let’s hope that this is the case.As far as the quality goes we鈥檝e not been disappointed considering the price the Zero is sold for. It鈥檚 by far not anything you would call high-end, but it鈥檚 pretty usable. Besides a high noise production the camera produces聽quite sharp shots with nice colors. The dual-LED flash is usable, but nothing for those big rooms.UMI Zero Review: BatteryThe UMI Zero allegedly boasts a 2,780mAh battery. It鈥檚 hard to say if this is true or not, as the battery life isn鈥檛 significantly longer than with other phone. You鈥檒l get over a聽day, but don鈥檛 expect any wonders. This might be up to the bad optimization though, so please wait for feedback of users who got the final product.One outstanding feature of the UMI Zero is it鈥檚 capability of using fast charging. The technology comes from Texas Instruments and聽uses a聽special 2.4A charger with a special Micro USB cable. It is able to charge the battery by聽1% / minute. This means you鈥檒l be ready to go after just a little over one hour, if you acquired the habit of re-charging your phones at 20%. But please, be careful and don鈥檛 touch the plug attached to the charger when charging the phone while actually using it. The metal on there acts as a type of聽heat-sink and reaches up to 108掳C – we鈥檙e not exaggerating! This doesn鈥檛 do any harm to the material, but would to your finger so be careful. UMI Zero Review: ConclusionIf you are looking for a flagship phone with Snapdragon beating performance then this is not the phone for you. If however you are in the market for a mid-range phone and performance with the build quality and looks of a high-end phone then the UMi Zero is a great device. For the quality the Zero is simply outstanding and, at this time, extremely hard to beat!There are issues but many should be fixed with the final firmware on production models, and it is a shame the phone uses and older CPU which cannot support LTE, but I suppose we can’t get it all at such a great聽price.We review the UMi Zero, a mid-range phone dressed as a flagship with a wallet friendly price tag!FYI This is a review of a pre-production version of the UMi Zero. Since writing this review we have also been sent a final production model and will post a separate review of it in the coming days.The UMI Zero caught聽the attention of phone users all over the world with a radical new design, and use of premium materials. When the UMi Zero was in the planning stages, UMi went for a new approach from the phone itself, to even the packaging and accessories. The result is a truly unique handset, a mid-range phone with high-end features and looks!UMI Zero Review: Packaging Having received hundreds of Chinese phones for review, I was quite surprised when the UMi Zero arrived in it’s large packaging. The box is much more luxurious than most Chinese phones at this price, and really set you in a quality frame of mind. The packaging contains the 5-inch UMi Zero, screen protector, screen cleaner, USB, Texas instruments fast charger and ‘Z’ shaped protective bumper! A good haul in a great looking box.UMI Zero Review: Design The UMI Zero is a 5-incher boasting a beautifully crafted, black 鈥渟tealth-design鈥? The metal body looks and feels outstanding, and the Gorilla Glass 3 panels on both sides deliver that little extra everyone is looking for in a mobile device. The build quality is outstanding at any price but considering the Zero costs only $200 it is even more impressive.Everything fits together nicely, there are no loose parts, no large gaps, not a single flaw. From the design and construction of the phone alone you would easily think that the Zero could be sold for double the asking price if it came from another manufacturer. UMI didn鈥檛 lie when calling this a 鈥渟uper body鈥? The slim metal chassis measures only 6.4mm and weighs a feathery 145g. All very impressive! UMI Zero Review: Super AMOLED Display Another killer feature of the UMi Zero is its display. Yes, it is a 5-inch FHD 1920 x 1080 panel, but the real stand out feature is the fact it is a SUPER AMOLED panel! This is the same screen technology used on high-end Samsung phones, and certainly not what we expected from a $200 Chinese device.An OLED panel consists of many small LEDs. Every sub-pixel represents an LED, which means there is no need for back illumination. The result: Intense and crisp colors, a very high contrast only few LCD panels can reach, and a true black, which sometimes makes it impossible to distinguish the screen from the phones black frame in the dark.Sure AMOLED display’s are not everyone’s cup of tea, but at this price the screen is an amazing addition to a superb looking phone.UMI Zero Review: Performance & SystemAs mentioned at the start of the review, this version of the phone is a pre-production sample with pre-production firmware. This might be the reason for the lower than expected benchmarks. The Zero uses an octacore MT6592T chipset, the ‘T’ meaning it is the faster 2.0Ghz option, but even still this is a little behind the times considering more modern phones are getting newer 64bit processors. Oddly even the faster clock speed, gaming performance was lower than expected and certain games (Dead Trigger 2 for example) were a little laggy at times. Sure this could be the pre-production hardware and optimisation, but for your reference here are the benchmarks I managed:BenchmarkResultAntutu30.5153D Mark Icestorm Unlimited7.2913D Mark Icestorm Extrem4.9993D Mark Icestorm7.215Anomaly 2142.960Vellamo Browser Test2.073Vellamo Metal Test1.370Vellamo Multicore Test888What we also noticed about the Android 4.4 KitKat ROM is, that it鈥檚 mostly a vanilla ROM. But we were missing a few features during the test, the most important one being off-screen gestures. KitKat does support聽these out of the box, but the UMI Zero doesn鈥檛 have them. This really is a pity which will hopefully be fixed with the final firmware. UMI promised a lot of features, including the possibility of installing various custom ROMs like MIUI with just a single tap, which we haven鈥檛 seen yet on the device.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramUMI Zero Review: MultimediaThere鈥檚 no need telling you about how amazing 1080p movies look on the gorgeous Super AMOLED panel, right? So how about audio? Well this isn’t quite up to the same standard as the high-end build and looks. It would haven been great to see UMi pack some nice audio equipment in the Zero’s chassis, but I guess there wasn’t much room in the budget for that. Sound quality is nothing to write home about on the built-in speaker, while it is better through headphones, but lacks some serious bass.UMI Zero Review: Reception QualityThe UMi Zero represents the first time the company have made an all metal body, and as we all know, metal isn’t all that great when it comes to signal strength. Don’t get us wrong the reception of calls is pretty good, but 3G signals and WIFI is much weaker than on a similar plastic bodied phone. There were times during the review that we had no 3G signal at all which could become annoying.GPS was working surprisingly well with our review unit. We鈥檝e got a first fix within seconds, and that鈥檚 even possible inside the building at the window. The sat-count was at 9 most of the time, the accuracy reaching up to 2m.UMI Zero Review: Camera UMI advertised the Zero to feature a 13 mega pixel rear shooter coming from Sony and 8 mega pixels for the phones front. Pre-production versions of the phone came with an F2.2 aperture, but what is odd is that a firmware updated changed that number to F1.8. This is rather odd behaviour, and after reaching out to UMi they guarantee that production version will have a genuine aperture size of F1.8. Let’s hope that this is the case.As far as the quality goes we鈥檝e not been disappointed considering the price the Zero is sold for. It鈥檚 by far not anything you would call high-end, but it鈥檚 pretty usable. Besides a high noise production the camera produces聽quite sharp shots with nice colors. The dual-LED flash is usable, but nothing for those big rooms.UMI Zero Review: BatteryThe UMI Zero allegedly boasts a 2,780mAh battery. It鈥檚 hard to say if this is true or not, as the battery life isn鈥檛 significantly longer than with other phone. You鈥檒l get over a聽day, but don鈥檛 expect any wonders. This might be up to the bad optimization though, so please wait for feedback of users who got the final product.One outstanding feature of the UMI Zero is it鈥檚 capability of using fast charging. The technology comes from Texas Instruments and聽uses a聽special 2.4A charger with a special Micro USB cable. It is able to charge the battery by聽1% / minute. This means you鈥檒l be ready to go after just a little over one hour, if you acquired the habit of re-charging your phones at 20%. But please, be careful and don鈥檛 touch the plug attached to the charger when charging the phone while actually using it. The metal on there acts as a type of聽heat-sink and reaches up to 108掳C – we鈥檙e not exaggerating! This doesn鈥檛 do any harm to the material, but would to your finger so be careful. UMI Zero Review: ConclusionIf you are looking for a flagship phone with Snapdragon beating performance then this is not the phone for you. If however you are in the market for a mid-range phone and performance with the build quality and looks of a high-end phone then the UMi Zero is a great device. For the quality the Zero is simply outstanding and, at this time, extremely hard to beat!There are issues but many should be fixed with the final firmware on production models, and it is a shame the phone uses and older CPU which cannot support LTE, but I suppose we can’t get it all at such a great聽price.

We go hands on with DOOGEE鈥檚 latests, the DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 in this unboxing and hands on video and first impressions.The DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 came about at around the same time as the UMi Zero, and many were under the impression that both phones were from the same manufacturer, however with them both here with me now I can tell you that they are in fact very different phones.DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 – UnboxingThe DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 comes in a natural cardboard box with simple DOOGEE Logo, line drawing of the Turbo 2 and specifications on the rear in numerous languages. It is clear that DOOGEE are looking at international markets only with the Turbo 2 as I have been unable to find any Chinese on the box, instructions or even in the phone.The box gives basic details of the phone saying it has a 5-inch 1920 x 1080 display, FHD resolution, 2GB RAM, 16GB memory, 1.7Ghz processor, 18 mega-pixel rear camera and 8 mega-pixel front. The truth is the camera are more likely a 13 mega-pixel rear and 5 mega-pixel front. Inside the box there is an envelope containing tempered glass protectors for the front and rear of the phone, USB cable, earphones, EU charger and micro SIM tray remove, and of course the DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 phone.DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 – Unboxing and hands on videoDOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 –聽Photo Gallery DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 comparison with UMi ZeroIf you are under the impression that the DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 and UMi Zero are the same phone then think again. As soon as you see both phone in the flesh and get them in your hands the differences are apparent.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramFirst up the DOOGEE DG900 has an all plastic construction, where as the body of the UMi Zero is alloy. The screen on the UMi also sits flush with the body where as the DG900 has a recessed bezel essentially pushing the screen further out and making the phone appear bulky in your hand, although the thickness of the two phones are similar.The specifications on both phones are different聽also, with the UMi having a more powerful processor and fast charging capabilities. Personally the UMi feels like a premium product, even compared to much more expensive phones, where as the DOOGEE is a little lacking and needs some serious polish to get it near the same standard. DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 – First ImpressionsWhat I like about the DG900 is that it comes with tempered glass front and rear protectors. These are often bought as accessories so to get them free is a real bonus, and that鈥檚 really where my praise of the phone ends.The design is nice but compared to similar phones is lacking and overall it feels much聽lower quality than devices of a similar price. The 5 inch display feels a lot smaller than it should due to huge black lines, the white bezel and the gold body which all add up to make an effective bezel thickness a few mm wider than it should be.DOOGEE鈥檚 trademark rear touch panel is a nice feature, but is it really something we need on a 5-inch phone? I would have much prefered they left it out and instead use another feature, a front facing flash for example.I鈥檒l put the DOOGEE DG900 Turbo 2 through a full review so keep posted for that. For those of you interested in ordering the phone it is on sale now for $230 through online E-commerce site Gearbest, but in my opinion you would be better off saving $30 and buying the all alloy UMi Zero.Every year or so, there pops up a radical device from the intriguing Chinese market. Only difference is that there have been about half a dozen of those in 2014! Starting with the Vivo Xplay 3S (world鈥檚 first 2K phone), the OPPO Find 7 (2K, 50MP capable camera), the OnePlus One (erm鈥 do I need to say anything?), and a handful other devices including the Xiaomi Redmi 1S, Huawei Honor 6, etc., we鈥檝e seen a lot of action from China. However, it鈥檚 usually the tier-1 brands that manage to stay in the news, for reasons good and bad. Ecoo, an infant startup from the very country, thought that ought to be changed, and started this journey with the Ecoo Focus E01. The company has a couple other models in the works, but none as radical as the Focus, for the plain reason that the Focus is arguably the world鈥檚 most affordable octa-core full HD smartphone, with prices hovering under the $150 range.That makes for quite a deal, at least on paper: a 5.2 inch full HD display, an octa-core processor and a gig of RAM, all for (quite a bit) less than $200. The question is, though, that how well this translates into real life. And that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e here to answer in the Ecoo Focus review!TL;DR聽The Focus is one hell of a bargain on paper, quite a lot of which does translate into real world usage as well. However, there are a few gripes with the phone, none of which take away the crown of being possibly the best budget full HD phone out there. This includes a rather shallow sounding rear speaker, slow-ish camera and a hit-or-a-miss LED notification light. Other than that, the Ecoo Focus E01 is a storm trooper among new phones that show up every other day with decent performance abilities, and a full day battery!Click here to readHideEcoo Focus Review: Specifications[table id=172 /]Ecoo Focus Review:聽Design and BuildFrom聽the outset, the Focus is a Samsung Galaxy S5 lookalike. This is something we aren鈥檛 huge fans of, since we usually favour original designs (which China鈥檚 been producing aplenty these days). Right from the overall design language, to the corrugated rear, the Ecoo Focus takes inspiration from the Galaxy S5. And this is putting it mildly, some would call it blatant plagiarism. There have been other affordable phones with more original, if not stand-out, designs this year. That鈥檚 where the Focus loses points.Fortunately though, Ecoo haven鈥檛 cut costs on the build. The phone is extremely sturdy before you consider the price tag; and when you do, it only gets better. The Focus seems better built to us than quite a lot of other budget phones, including the Xiaomi Redmi 1S. This is despite the fact that the Focus has only a plastic frame.There鈥檚 a little lip around the corners of the touchscreen to ensure a drop doesn鈥檛 leave you with a broken screen. While we鈥檝e been fortunate enough to not have experienced a drop, it does seem like the Focus would live through some of those without a lot of fuss.That was for the general look and feel of the device. Let鈥檚 get specific now. The top of the front of the Focus makes home for an earpiece, the usual set of sensors (proximity, light), besides the 2 mega-pixel front camera. The placement of all of these is pretty much identical to that on the Galaxy S5.Below the 5.2-inch 1080p screen, you鈥檒l find the elliptical home button (minus the fingerprint reader of course). To top off the phoney Galaxy S5 looks, Ecoo engineers also added the chamfered silver coloured edged to the button. Well done, we say!Moving to the left edge, there鈥檚 just the volume buttons to be seen amid a whole lot of nothing. Exactly opposite, symmetrically as well as literally, sits the power/wake button on the right which is about half as long as the volume buttons鈥 tab. All of these (including the home button) provide tactile feedback and never leave you guessing as to whether the button press got registered or not.The top and bottom make home for a 3.5mm audio jack and a micro USB port respectively. The latter is also joined by a mic, which the Focus seems to have just one (no secondary mic for noise cancellation)The peculiar rear (thanks to the corrugated case) is where the phone鈥檚 8 mega-pixel rear camera (and mono LED flash), Ecoo logo, and mono speaker grill sit ( which is a little disappointing but more on this later). The rear also has a few words of inspiration imprinted next to the regulatory logos, which reads 鈥淈i>Aspire after breakthrough鈥? So there鈥檚 a poet in there somewhere in the Ecoo team, we鈥檙e confident…Taking the rear off is fairly simple, but having long nails always helps. The cover itself is of the bendy sort, so it鈥檚 far from brittle and will live as long as you wish to keep the phone with you. Beneath that, you find the battery (rated 2450mAh), and three slots, each of which accept – a regular sized SIM, a micro SIM and a microSD card. Again, you鈥檙e left satisfied thanks to a sturdy build which is apparent even in this part of the phone. Like most other MediaTek budget phones, you find antennae in their 3D-print avatar on the Focus.The overall footprint of the Ecoo Focus is extremely acceptable, and it also makes the phone usable in one hand. It is only slightly longer and slightly wider than the Xiaomi Mi 4 which has a 5-inch screen. So yeah, we鈥檝e probably said this before, but Ecoo have done a decent job with the build on the Focus. 聽Ecoo Focus Review:聽DisplayMost other 1080p phones cost north of the $200 mark. Ecoo claim that the 5.2-inch panel on the Focus comes from LG, and while it鈥檚 hard to ascertain the level of truth in that claim, we can assure you that it is a decent panel. That said, you鈥檙e probably better off with a 720p display, for the MT6592 isn鈥檛 the best at driving a 1080p display. However, if you don鈥檛 ask for more than 2-3 apps running in the background at any given time, you probably can afford a 1080p/MT6592 combo, which the Focus happens to be as well.The 5.2-inch screen means that there鈥檚 a pixel density of 423 ppi, well above the discernable limit of 300 pixels as famously declared by Apple bosses. However, the screen isn鈥檛 as vibrant say as the Xiaomi Mi 4, and the high number of pixels take a toll on the overall brightness of the unit. Fortunately, it is bright enough to be used in outdoors in direct sunlight. If there鈥檚 a couple of things that I could change on the Focus鈥 display, they鈥檇 certainly be a panel which is more vibrant, and one that doesn鈥檛 suffer from backlight bleeding. Speaking of backlight bleeding, lower half of the display does suffer from that, with the amount being just shy of what you would call substantial. Nonetheless, it鈥檚 been a while since we鈥檝e encountered a phone display with backlight bleeding of this magnitude. Although it certainly doesn鈥檛 affect the viewing experience on a light background, the lack of proper quality control shows when there鈥檚 a darker scene, with blacks bearing the most of the brunt.Again, that鈥檚 something we would say when we鈥檙e unaware of the price. At just $150 it is hard to complain, but then we鈥檙e human!聽Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramEcoo Focus Review:聽PerformanceThe MT6592 is known as the world鈥檚 first octa-core mobile SoC. To accomplish that feat, MediaTek probably missed a couple tricks which could make the experience better. Paired with 1GB of RAM, the Focus makes for a decent entry-level to mid-range device. But like we鈥檝e mentioned before, the Focus is at its best when you鈥檙e not using more than 2-3 apps at one time. Fire up a couple more and things start changing face, for the worse in most cases.We tried running Asphalt Overdrive on the Focus, and it handled the game very well with hardly any stutters or loss in frames. That said, the short stint with the game did leave the device a few % down on the battery tank.Performance of the Focus isn鈥檛 very different from other MT6592, or for that matter, MT6582 powered phones. It鈥檚 only when the app is designed to take advantage of the flurry of cores that you see the level of performance that you would otherwise expect. So, in very clear terms, the MT6592 SoC is far from a flagship chip and is more of one that sits between entry-level and mid-range.Benchmarks though, tell a completely different story. Scores on the AnTuTu platform are close to Snapdragon 800 territorry, but there鈥檚 quite some difference between real life performance between the two SoCs as a lot of our readers might already know. Take a look at the scores in the pictures below. Ecoo Focus Review:聽CameraAffordable phones from China like this one have a very interesting and desirable quality in their cameras: they鈥檙e macro kings. The Focus is no different, and although focus (as in, camera tech) isn鈥檛 as fast as you would鈥檝e liked (tbh it鈥檚 pretty slow鈥?, it focuses sharply and sometimes on objects that are perilously close to the phone. This results in an awesome macro with a lovely background defocus effect, aka bokeh. However, like menioned before, focus is pretty slow, agonizingly so at times.The sensor itself does a very respectable job nonetheless in producing some quality pictures. It鈥檚 only an 8 mega-pixel sensor, so you don鈥檛 nearly get the number of pixels that you usually see in a smartphone of today; but it does the job nonetheless. You only need to have patience as a virtue.Take a look at some pictures and judge for yourself.In a nutshell, the camera on the Focus is quite a capable sensor. Not too many pixels, but an able performer nonetheless. 聽Ecoo Focus Review:聽UI and Usability Thankfully, folks at Ecoo didn鈥檛 aim to replicate the TouchWiz UI from the Galaxy S5. It鈥檚 largely stock AOSP, but with a minor tweaks here and there. This means that general transitions from screen to screen are fairly snappy. However, switching between apps, especially the resource hungry ones at those, can be a time taking experience at times. Using the GPU to render the screen at all times seems to improve this by a bit; transitions and moving from app to app feels snappier, but at the cost of battery. And that鈥檚 something you probably can鈥檛 afford on smartphone of this age (yet).Although Ecoo left the UI untouched almost, they did take the app icons for a spin. This time, the inspiration is MIUI/iOS, with all icons having rounded edges. We鈥檙e far from fans of these cheesy UI elements, which is why Nova Launcher was installed right out of the box for a closer-to-stock Android look and feel.For the record, the Focus also supports 鈥榓ir gesture鈥 controls, meaning you can wave your palm in front of the screen to interact with the phone鈥 but only with certain apps. This includes the stock launcher, Gallery, etc., but as you would鈥檝e guessed this feature is more of a gimmick more than anything else. To make matters worse, it works only in one direction, regardless of where you move your palm. So it is safe to say that the air gesture feature is worth giving a miss.You can use the Scheduled Power On/Off mode on the device鈥檚 settings app to set a power on/off schedule for the Ecoo. We鈥檙e big fans of this feature, since it can really come in handy for people who don鈥檛 need to have their phone on all night. It鈥檚 funny how the well known makers don鈥檛 include this feature while almost every MediaTek powered phone from China comes with it.Ecoo Focus Review:聽Battery Life The initial few cycles on the Focus left us disappointed, returning only about 3 hours of screen on time. Screen on time, or SOT as it is informally known as, is a good metric to measure a phone鈥檚 battery life. Of course, there are a lot of other variables that aren鈥檛 apparent with this metric, but well it鈥檚 the closest to the complete picture.Coming back to the Focus, things started getting better after 4-5 charging/discharging cycles. The phone now returns between 4 and 5 hours of SOT, depedning on the usage pattern. Please note that there were virtually no games played on the Focus during the testing period, besides a couple score minutes of Asphalt Overdrive. We did however consume a lot of video (YouTube, local files).Most users have 3-3.5 hours of SOT on an average day is what we understand, and going by that basis, the Ecoo easily holds up for a day.Ecoo Focus Review:聽Other Points to NoteAlthough the Ecoo Focus does have a notification LED light, it seems to work only when the phone is plugged. And by this we don鈥檛 mean that it notifies whenever an app generates a notification; it only glows red when connected to the charger. We aren鈥檛 certain if this is a hardware issue or a software bug, but we certainly hope it鈥檚 the latter.Another thing that we鈥檇 like to mention is the speaker, which is fairly low-volume. A couple of times I managed to miss calls with the phone kept right next to me on the couch. So a worthy advice to all future owners of the Focus: always keep the phone face down if you don鈥檛 want to miss out on your calls and other notifications.Also, running Android v4.2 Jelly Bean out of the box really doesn’t make sense in this day and age. With Lollipop becoming more popular each passing day, Ecoo will want to publish a v4.4 KitKat ROM at least, in the near future. We also had to change the IMEI to get the phone working, this might or might not be the case with other users in different countries.Ecoo Focus Review:聽VerdictProsPrice!High resolution聽displayBattery lifeConsNotification LEDLoudspeakerAndroid v4.2If you live by the saying that the first impression is the last impression, you might not be a very happy user of the Focus. This is because you need to give the device some time, for things like the battery to get calibrated properly, and for you to get used to how it all works.We didn鈥檛 really expect the camera to be as good as it is. Also, the ever improving battery life was a pleasant surprise. If Ecoo manage to iron out the couple of issues we mentioned before, including the largely defunct notification LED, the loudspeaker volume and backlight bleeding on the display, the Focus could very much set a benchmark for low cost, high-sih performance smartphone in the Chinese industry.Do let us know what you think about the Focus after reading our review. Also, feel free to drop any questions/doubts that you might have about the device, we鈥檒l try our best to have them answered.

Every year or so, there pops up a radical device from the intriguing Chinese market. Only difference is that there have been about half a dozen of those in 2014! Starting with the Vivo Xplay 3S (world鈥檚 first 2K phone), the OPPO Find 7 (2K, 50MP capable camera), the OnePlus One (erm鈥 do I need to say anything?), and a handful other devices including the Xiaomi Redmi 1S, Huawei Honor 6, etc., we鈥檝e seen a lot of action from China. However, it鈥檚 usually the tier-1 brands that manage to stay in the news, for reasons good and bad. Ecoo, an infant startup from the very country, thought that ought to be changed, and started this journey with the Ecoo Focus E01. The company has a couple other models in the works, but none as radical as the Focus, for the plain reason that the Focus is arguably the world鈥檚 most affordable octa-core full HD smartphone, with prices hovering under the $150 range.That makes for quite a deal, at least on paper: a 5.2 inch full HD display, an octa-core processor and a gig of RAM, all for (quite a bit) less than $200. The question is, though, that how well this translates into real life. And that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e here to answer in the Ecoo Focus review!TL;DR聽The Focus is one hell of a bargain on paper, quite a lot of which does translate into real world usage as well. However, there are a few gripes with the phone, none of which take away the crown of being possibly the best budget full HD phone out there. This includes a rather shallow sounding rear speaker, slow-ish camera and a hit-or-a-miss LED notification light. Other than that, the Ecoo Focus E01 is a storm trooper among new phones that show up every other day with decent performance abilities, and a full day battery!Click here to readHideEcoo Focus Review: Specifications[table id=172 /]Ecoo Focus Review:聽Design and BuildFrom聽the outset, the Focus is a Samsung Galaxy S5 lookalike. This is something we aren鈥檛 huge fans of, since we usually favour original designs (which China鈥檚 been producing aplenty these days). Right from the overall design language, to the corrugated rear, the Ecoo Focus takes inspiration from the Galaxy S5. And this is putting it mildly, some would call it blatant plagiarism. There have been other affordable phones with more original, if not stand-out, designs this year. That鈥檚 where the Focus loses points.Fortunately though, Ecoo haven鈥檛 cut costs on the build. The phone is extremely sturdy before you consider the price tag; and when you do, it only gets better. The Focus seems better built to us than quite a lot of other budget phones, including the Xiaomi Redmi 1S. This is despite the fact that the Focus has only a plastic frame.There鈥檚 a little lip around the corners of the touchscreen to ensure a drop doesn鈥檛 leave you with a broken screen. While we鈥檝e been fortunate enough to not have experienced a drop, it does seem like the Focus would live through some of those without a lot of fuss.That was for the general look and feel of the device. Let鈥檚 get specific now. The top of the front of the Focus makes home for an earpiece, the usual set of sensors (proximity, light), besides the 2 mega-pixel front camera. The placement of all of these is pretty much identical to that on the Galaxy S5.Below the 5.2-inch 1080p screen, you鈥檒l find the elliptical home button (minus the fingerprint reader of course). To top off the phoney Galaxy S5 looks, Ecoo engineers also added the chamfered silver coloured edged to the button. Well done, we say!Moving to the left edge, there鈥檚 just the volume buttons to be seen amid a whole lot of nothing. Exactly opposite, symmetrically as well as literally, sits the power/wake button on the right which is about half as long as the volume buttons鈥 tab. All of these (including the home button) provide tactile feedback and never leave you guessing as to whether the button press got registered or not.The top and bottom make home for a 3.5mm audio jack and a micro USB port respectively. The latter is also joined by a mic, which the Focus seems to have just one (no secondary mic for noise cancellation)The peculiar rear (thanks to the corrugated case) is where the phone鈥檚 8 mega-pixel rear camera (and mono LED flash), Ecoo logo, and mono speaker grill sit ( which is a little disappointing but more on this later). The rear also has a few words of inspiration imprinted next to the regulatory logos, which reads 鈥淈i>Aspire after breakthrough鈥? So there鈥檚 a poet in there somewhere in the Ecoo team, we鈥檙e confident…Taking the rear off is fairly simple, but having long nails always helps. The cover itself is of the bendy sort, so it鈥檚 far from brittle and will live as long as you wish to keep the phone with you. Beneath that, you find the battery (rated 2450mAh), and three slots, each of which accept – a regular sized SIM, a micro SIM and a microSD card. Again, you鈥檙e left satisfied thanks to a sturdy build which is apparent even in this part of the phone. Like most other MediaTek budget phones, you find antennae in their 3D-print avatar on the Focus.The overall footprint of the Ecoo Focus is extremely acceptable, and it also makes the phone usable in one hand. It is only slightly longer and slightly wider than the Xiaomi Mi 4 which has a 5-inch screen. So yeah, we鈥檝e probably said this before, but Ecoo have done a decent job with the build on the Focus. 聽Ecoo Focus Review:聽DisplayMost other 1080p phones cost north of the $200 mark. Ecoo claim that the 5.2-inch panel on the Focus comes from LG, and while it鈥檚 hard to ascertain the level of truth in that claim, we can assure you that it is a decent panel. That said, you鈥檙e probably better off with a 720p display, for the MT6592 isn鈥檛 the best at driving a 1080p display. However, if you don鈥檛 ask for more than 2-3 apps running in the background at any given time, you probably can afford a 1080p/MT6592 combo, which the Focus happens to be as well.The 5.2-inch screen means that there鈥檚 a pixel density of 423 ppi, well above the discernable limit of 300 pixels as famously declared by Apple bosses. However, the screen isn鈥檛 as vibrant say as the Xiaomi Mi 4, and the high number of pixels take a toll on the overall brightness of the unit. Fortunately, it is bright enough to be used in outdoors in direct sunlight. If there鈥檚 a couple of things that I could change on the Focus鈥 display, they鈥檇 certainly be a panel which is more vibrant, and one that doesn鈥檛 suffer from backlight bleeding. Speaking of backlight bleeding, lower half of the display does suffer from that, with the amount being just shy of what you would call substantial. Nonetheless, it鈥檚 been a while since we鈥檝e encountered a phone display with backlight bleeding of this magnitude. Although it certainly doesn鈥檛 affect the viewing experience on a light background, the lack of proper quality control shows when there鈥檚 a darker scene, with blacks bearing the most of the brunt.Again, that鈥檚 something we would say when we鈥檙e unaware of the price. At just $150 it is hard to complain, but then we鈥檙e human!聽Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramEcoo Focus Review:聽PerformanceThe MT6592 is known as the world鈥檚 first octa-core mobile SoC. To accomplish that feat, MediaTek probably missed a couple tricks which could make the experience better. Paired with 1GB of RAM, the Focus makes for a decent entry-level to mid-range device. But like we鈥檝e mentioned before, the Focus is at its best when you鈥檙e not using more than 2-3 apps at one time. Fire up a couple more and things start changing face, for the worse in most cases.We tried running Asphalt Overdrive on the Focus, and it handled the game very well with hardly any stutters or loss in frames. That said, the short stint with the game did leave the device a few % down on the battery tank.Performance of the Focus isn鈥檛 very different from other MT6592, or for that matter, MT6582 powered phones. It鈥檚 only when the app is designed to take advantage of the flurry of cores that you see the level of performance that you would otherwise expect. So, in very clear terms, the MT6592 SoC is far from a flagship chip and is more of one that sits between entry-level and mid-range.Benchmarks though, tell a completely different story. Scores on the AnTuTu platform are close to Snapdragon 800 territorry, but there鈥檚 quite some difference between real life performance between the two SoCs as a lot of our readers might already know. Take a look at the scores in the pictures below. Ecoo Focus Review:聽CameraAffordable phones from China like this one have a very interesting and desirable quality in their cameras: they鈥檙e macro kings. The Focus is no different, and although focus (as in, camera tech) isn鈥檛 as fast as you would鈥檝e liked (tbh it鈥檚 pretty slow鈥?, it focuses sharply and sometimes on objects that are perilously close to the phone. This results in an awesome macro with a lovely background defocus effect, aka bokeh. However, like menioned before, focus is pretty slow, agonizingly so at times.The sensor itself does a very respectable job nonetheless in producing some quality pictures. It鈥檚 only an 8 mega-pixel sensor, so you don鈥檛 nearly get the number of pixels that you usually see in a smartphone of today; but it does the job nonetheless. You only need to have patience as a virtue.Take a look at some pictures and judge for yourself.In a nutshell, the camera on the Focus is quite a capable sensor. Not too many pixels, but an able performer nonetheless. 聽Ecoo Focus Review:聽UI and Usability Thankfully, folks at Ecoo didn鈥檛 aim to replicate the TouchWiz UI from the Galaxy S5. It鈥檚 largely stock AOSP, but with a minor tweaks here and there. This means that general transitions from screen to screen are fairly snappy. However, switching between apps, especially the resource hungry ones at those, can be a time taking experience at times. Using the GPU to render the screen at all times seems to improve this by a bit; transitions and moving from app to app feels snappier, but at the cost of battery. And that鈥檚 something you probably can鈥檛 afford on smartphone of this age (yet).Although Ecoo left the UI untouched almost, they did take the app icons for a spin. This time, the inspiration is MIUI/iOS, with all icons having rounded edges. We鈥檙e far from fans of these cheesy UI elements, which is why Nova Launcher was installed right out of the box for a closer-to-stock Android look and feel.For the record, the Focus also supports 鈥榓ir gesture鈥 controls, meaning you can wave your palm in front of the screen to interact with the phone鈥 but only with certain apps. This includes the stock launcher, Gallery, etc., but as you would鈥檝e guessed this feature is more of a gimmick more than anything else. To make matters worse, it works only in one direction, regardless of where you move your palm. So it is safe to say that the air gesture feature is worth giving a miss.You can use the Scheduled Power On/Off mode on the device鈥檚 settings app to set a power on/off schedule for the Ecoo. We鈥檙e big fans of this feature, since it can really come in handy for people who don鈥檛 need to have their phone on all night. It鈥檚 funny how the well known makers don鈥檛 include this feature while almost every MediaTek powered phone from China comes with it.Ecoo Focus Review:聽Battery Life The initial few cycles on the Focus left us disappointed, returning only about 3 hours of screen on time. Screen on time, or SOT as it is informally known as, is a good metric to measure a phone鈥檚 battery life. Of course, there are a lot of other variables that aren鈥檛 apparent with this metric, but well it鈥檚 the closest to the complete picture.Coming back to the Focus, things started getting better after 4-5 charging/discharging cycles. The phone now returns between 4 and 5 hours of SOT, depedning on the usage pattern. Please note that there were virtually no games played on the Focus during the testing period, besides a couple score minutes of Asphalt Overdrive. We did however consume a lot of video (YouTube, local files).Most users have 3-3.5 hours of SOT on an average day is what we understand, and going by that basis, the Ecoo easily holds up for a day.Ecoo Focus Review:聽Other Points to NoteAlthough the Ecoo Focus does have a notification LED light, it seems to work only when the phone is plugged. And by this we don鈥檛 mean that it notifies whenever an app generates a notification; it only glows red when connected to the charger. We aren鈥檛 certain if this is a hardware issue or a software bug, but we certainly hope it鈥檚 the latter.Another thing that we鈥檇 like to mention is the speaker, which is fairly low-volume. A couple of times I managed to miss calls with the phone kept right next to me on the couch. So a worthy advice to all future owners of the Focus: always keep the phone face down if you don鈥檛 want to miss out on your calls and other notifications.Also, running Android v4.2 Jelly Bean out of the box really doesn’t make sense in this day and age. With Lollipop becoming more popular each passing day, Ecoo will want to publish a v4.4 KitKat ROM at least, in the near future. We also had to change the IMEI to get the phone working, this might or might not be the case with other users in different countries.Ecoo Focus Review:聽VerdictProsPrice!High resolution聽displayBattery lifeConsNotification LEDLoudspeakerAndroid v4.2If you live by the saying that the first impression is the last impression, you might not be a very happy user of the Focus. This is because you need to give the device some time, for things like the battery to get calibrated properly, and for you to get used to how it all works.We didn鈥檛 really expect the camera to be as good as it is. Also, the ever improving battery life was a pleasant surprise. If Ecoo manage to iron out the couple of issues we mentioned before, including the largely defunct notification LED, the loudspeaker volume and backlight bleeding on the display, the Focus could very much set a benchmark for low cost, high-sih performance smartphone in the Chinese industry.Do let us know what you think about the Focus after reading our review. Also, feel free to drop any questions/doubts that you might have about the device, we鈥檒l try our best to have them answered.We review the Tronsmart T2000, a simple to use streaming dongle and competent Chromecast rival.Over the past few years the popularity in Android TV boxes has boomed, yet the most feature is often to simple stream content from other devices, and there is a better alternative! Streaming dongles, like Google’s very own Chromecast, have become big business, and while they don’t offer the apps that a regular Android dongle or box might, they are very simple to use.For聽鈧?5 the Tronsmart T2000 is a great way to stream your Google devices to your TV. Tronsmart might be new to the Chromecast scene but they are one of the major players in bringing Android to your living-room and already had major success with their Android boxes. So let’s see if there know how has converted to a decent Chromecast like experience.Tronsmart T2000 ReviewTronsmart T2000 Review :聽In the boxUsually a USB dongle doesn’t come with much out of the box, but we were happily surprised by the Tronsmsart T2000. In the box there is a nice quick start guide, USB cable and even a HDMI extension cord. The inclusion of a HDMI wire is actually really great news as not everyone has space for a dongle in the back of their TV (especially if you have yours mounted to a wall). The USB cable is there for powering the device, and the Tronsmart T2000 can also support USB memory sticks and offers MHL for wired keyboards etc.Tronsmart T2000 Review :聽Design The Tronsmart T2000 is a black HDMI 聽measuring in at 9.5cm with 聽a width of 3.25cm. The height is just 11mm, which is fairly slim in our opinion. The body is made from black plastic, with an EZCast Pro branding on the top – nothing special. A small transparent line runs聽around the stick, which houses a status LED. On one side is a micro USB plug, which acts as a power supply port. There is a small switch next to it, which enables you to switch from power supply only mode to MHL mode. The Tronsmart T2000 is FCC and CE certified. And that鈥檚 pretty much it, there isn鈥檛 anything else to discover.Tronsmart T2000 Review: Interface & HardwareWhen comparing the hardware to a modern Chinese smartphone, the specs aren’t that exciting, but remember the Tronsmart T2000 is only for streaming at 1080p and that doesn’t need the latest hardware. Inside the black body is a single core processor, 256mb RAM and 128MB memory, enough of it’s intended use and enough for the OS (which appears to be based on Linux). Getting this聽tech-toy working is fairly simple. Plug it into your TV, give it some power through the USB port and you will see the main screen of the stick, showing you its Wi-Fi SSID and password. Install the EZCast Pro App to your phone, tablet or laptop and connect to the stick using the app. Afterwards it will prompt you to set-up the Tronsmart T2000. The most important step is to connect the stick to your local Wi-Fi router, else the device connected to the stick won鈥檛 have any internet access. This means, the stick will act not only as a streaming dongle, but as a Wi-Fi repeater as well. Once connected, you can also check if there is any firmware update available for your Tronsmart T2000. It can be updated easily through OTA.Gizchina News of the week Join GizChina on TelegramTronsmart T2000 Review : FeaturesThe Tronsmart T2000 supports a large variety of playback options, a huge benefit of this device over the Google Chromecast. The EZCast Pro app, is compatible with Windows, Android, iOS and Mac OS X, and allows you聽to stream web pages, pictures, music, videos, documents and even streaming content from sites like YouTube and Vimeo to your television. If you are using a Mac or any iOS device which supports Apple AirPlay, you can use this feature as well to stream videos, music and pictures, or even your whole computer stream to your TV. Mirroring the screen also works with the internal Miracast and DLNA features of Android.So the Tronsmsart T2000 offers you a whole host of streaming options and will work with many different products, but just how well does it perform?Streaming a 1080p video from YouTube or the local storage over to the stick is perfectly smooth, without any lags and with great audio and video quality. Not everything聽works so聽smoothly however! Fullscreen mirroring is a struggle for the Tronsmart T2000, it works but its quite slow and not suitable for gaming or watching a movie. There are also issues with using AirPlay and streaming from a Mac resulting with significant input lag.Of course these few bugs can be fixed with updates in the future, so just because they are present now, it doesn鈥檛 mean they will be there forever. In fact during the review period of roughly 2 weeks we鈥檝e got two updates which improved the performance a little each time.Tronsmart T2000 Reive:聽ConclusionDespite the issues the Tronsmart T2000 is actually a useful and (to a certain degree) amazing little piece of kit for just 鈧?2 / $40. Is it better than the Google Chromecast? Well, this probably depends on what you need. If you need a lot of features in an affordable and simple HDMI dongle, go for the Tronsmart T2000. If your main interest is simple multimedia streaming, go for Google鈥檚 Chromecast. It really is that simple and there鈥檚 nothing more to say about it.