No.1 is a company known for its clones and we have seen as well as reviewed several of those clones in the past few months. Today, we take a look at the new No.1 Note 4. As the name suggests, its the clone of the recently announced Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and features the same design as the Samsung flagship. However, like all other clones in the market, apart from the design, most of the hardware and software features from the original model do not make it to the clone. But then these phones are available to purchase online for dirt cheap, which makes them attractive to customers looking for a cheap knock off. No.1 Note 4 features the same 5.7-inch display as the Galaxy Note 4 and comes with a stylus too, unlike other devices in its price range.
Check out our No.1 Note 4 review for a detailed look at the device.
UNBOXING
The No.1 Note 4 comes in the same white colored box as every other No.1 device that we have seen recently. Once you open the box, you’ll find essential items like the charging adapter, USB cable, user manual in English and the phone itself. There are no headphones or rear case for the phone inside the box.
DESIGN
Like the name suggests, the No.1 Note 4 takes inspiration from the Galaxy Note 4. So, the device is huge in size and measures 153.5×78.6×8.5mm, thanks to the monster 5.7-inch screen up front. This is exactly the same size as the original Note 4 which has the same measurements. To be honest is an impressive feat considering this is just a knock off and retails for a very cheap price tag.
Moving on, the front display measures 5.7-inches. There is a camera as well as a few sensors on top of the display, while at the bottom you have the traditional Samsung home button along with other capacitive buttons. The back features a leather like finish. There is a 13MP rear camera on top with LED flash just below it. Around the middle of the rear panel is the No.1 logo and around the bottom, you have two small openings for the speaker grill.
On the top left side lies the volume rocker buttons and on the right is the power button. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack on top + infrared port and a MicroUSB slot with dual microphones at the bottom. Like in the original Note 4, this clone also features the famous S pen which is neatly tucked into its opening at the bottom. The S Pen gets out and gets in pretty smoothly, so it looks like the opening is perfectly built to place it inside the phone.
The phone does have a removable back cover. Once you open it up, you’ll see a thin but long battery along with ports for a SIM card slot and a MicroSD card slot. Let me remind you, this phone supports just one SIM card unlike most other Chinese smartphones which support dual SIM cards. This is not a big issue for me since I just use one SIM card always, but for you this may be a deal breaker.
DISPLAY
The No.1 Note 4 comes with a 5.7-inch display with a resolution of just 1280 x 720 pixels. On the other hand the Samsung device came with 2K resolution on the same size. However, for everyday use, the display doesn’t look too bad. The overall looks of the UI is similar to the Samsung TouchWiz on Note 4 which gives us a feel of the original flagship, even though this is just a cheap knock off.
The first time you’ll boot up the device, you’ll see a lot of bright blue colors everywhere, which looks quite good on the large 5.7-inch display. Like we said earlier, the Touch Wiz like UI makes you feel that you are using a Samsung device. The display produces colors quite well and was bright enough to be used outdoors. So, even though it comes with a low resolution for such a large screen, you shouldn’t worry too much. You can easily fulfill your entertainment needs on the device like watching movies or playing games on its large screen display.
HARDWARE & PERFORMANCE
Despite its size and design, the No.1 4 is not a fast performing device. But it’s good enough for your basic every day usage. The phone comes with a Mediatek MT6582 quad-core processor with Mali-400MP GPU, 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage. This isn’t the fastest processor out there in the market and you’ll know that once you see the AnTuTu benchmark results.
In the benchmark test, the device got a score of 18,999. However, there were some times that the scores dipped to around 18,000. So, on an average, you can expect the scores to range from 16,500 to 18,000. As you can see, this isn’t a very impressive score as we have seen devices, which score above 20,000 in the AnTuTu test.
But in the real world usage, the phone did not lag much and the overall UI loaded pretty quickly. Opening up apps was easy and unless it was a very heavy graphic intensive app or a game, it worked perfectly with very little visible lags. Multi-tasking can be an issue sometimes and the limited 1GB onboard doesn’t really help the cause as well. However, if you limit the open apps on the phone, the phone responds and works quite well.
We never experienced any lag while browsing through the gallery or while watching videos on the device. Even scrolling through the video was responsive. As for gaming, most games worked perfectly fine on the device. The quad-core MT6582 processor does well in this regard and the games had no visible lag. Everything played smoothly and for most games, you won’t have any trouble running it on the No.1 Note 4.
No.1 Note 4 tech specs
| Display | 5.7 inch HD display |
| Processor | 1.3 GHz Mediatek MT6582 quad-core processor + Mali-400MP GPU |
| Memory | 1GB RAM + 8GB Internal storage (MicroSD: YES) |
| Cameras | REAR: 13MP sensor FRONT: 5MP sensor |
| Battery | 2,700 mAh (removable) |
| Size |
153.5×78.6×8.5mm |
| OS | Android 4.4 + Touch Wiz like Launcher |
| SIM | Single SIM Card only |
| Price | $139.99 |
Coming to the provided S Pen, surprisingly, it works very well. As soon as you remove the pen from its holder inside the phone, the Air Command panel pops up giving you a lot of options to play around on the device. The S Pen could select apps on the screen without any trouble. We tried out the draw app on the phone and it was working perfectly. To be honest, we were impressed! With the S Pen in our hands, it really felt like we were using a premium device.
Another highlight of the device is its heart rate sensor. We still don’t know how exactly it manages to measure our heart beat, but still the feature somehow works fine. Of course, it’s not very accurate, but then we didn’t expect it to be, since most Chinese phones with a heart rate sensor didn’t work very well. But still, from our testing, the sensor worked just fine and is a useful addition to the phone.
The in-built speaker is loud but not very clear. Moreover, if you keep the phone with the display on the front, you’ll hear muffled noises since the speaker grill is located at the back.
So, overall the No.1 Note 4 turned out to be a pretty good device. And if you are looking for a decent performing device, add this to your list.
CAMERA
Camera isn’t the greatest of strengths of the No.1 Note 4 smartphone. However, for every usage, its 13MP rear camera snaps pictures pretty well. The company has provided a lot of modes inside the camera UI like the Beauty Face, Rich Tone, Auto, Panaroma, Surround shot, Auto Scene etc. You can change settings like exposure, GPS, Color balance etc directly from the UI. However, other than these, the UI is pretty standard.
Coming to the camera performance, the images clicked turned out to be good when there was lot of light. Focusing does take a second or two but works well. The images captured surprisingly have a lot of detail and the colors are also accurate. The video captured from the rear camera too was good.
However, low light performance wasn’t really good, which isn’t surprising given that most Chinese mid-range smartphones struggle to capture pictures in low light conditions. The night photos lack details and there is a lot of noise which spoils the captured image. So, like always we would suggest taking pictures in broad day light or at least in places where there is lot of light for the best performance from its 13MP rear shooter.
Check out the samples below to get an idea about its camera.
BATTERY
Battery life shouldn’t be a big concern on the phone since it features a 2800 mAh capacity battery onboard. The battery life is just average, but its enough to last throughout the day with moderate usage. We have seen 5.5-inch phones from Chinese manufacturers with batteries as small as 2,000 mAh, hence the battery on this phone feels quite decent.
CONNECTIVITY & SOFTWARE
Along with the standard connectivity features like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, MicroUSB, FM Radio and GPS/ AGPS, you also get additional sensors like heart rate monitor and infrared sensor. Both of them worked fine as far as we tested. As mentioned above, the the No.1 N4 is a single SIM phone and supports GSM/ 850/900/1800/1900 ; WCDMA 850/2100 network bands.
As for the software, the No.1 Note 4 runs on Android 4.4 KitKat OS out of the box with a UI like the Samsung Touch Wiz. We have already pointed out that the overall UI experience is almost the same as Samsung, thanks to the color profile, tweaks in settings menu, notifications panel as well as the home screen which makes it a look a lot like Touch Wiz. There are a lot of software gestures available on the device, but now that’s common among recent Chinese smartphones, so its not really a new feature. Still, its good to have features such as air gestures which help you to operate the device.
VERDICT
As you can see, the No.1 Note 4 is a pretty good device. You get a lot of additional features such as the S Pen, heart rate monitor as well as a infrared remote which sets is apart from other Chinese offerings currently available in the market.
The fact that it is build upon the design of one of most loved phablets of the year makes it special. Of course, performance is no way near the original Note 4 but for the price that you pay, this clone definitely deserves some appreciation.
