When it comes to very cheap phones, they usually lack in a lot of different departments and that’s why we are not really interested in them. However, Oukitel has some intentions to change that with their latest U2 model. Will it be another cheapo device with too many “compromises” or will it be a cheap phone worth looking at?

We wanted to say thanks to Comebuy.com for sending Oukitel U2 for a review.

Oukitel U2 Review: VIDEO

[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rpAde1P7QM[/embedyt]

Oukitel U2 Review: SPECS

Oukitel U2 Review: UNBOXING

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The phone comes in a plain box and all you are getting is the wall charger along with the USB cable and some documentation.

Oukitel U2 Review: DESIGN

When it comes to very cheap smartphones, they usually have a questionable build quality and the choice of materials used in the construction.

Oukitel, which is a small Chinese smartphone maker, managed to make a really good looking phone for a price.

It has a metal chassis going around the device along with metal buttons, which have a great tactile feedback and a 2.5D glass on the front and the back with slight curves on the edges.

On the front top side you can find a 5MP selfie camera along with the earpiece and proximity sensor light, and on the bottom the are non-backlit capacitive keys.

The volume rocker sits on the left and the power button is on the right.

On the top side there is a micro USB port and the headset jack, and on the bottom there is just a mic.

The back plate is kind of a fingerprint magnet due to its glossy glass finish but its not that visible on the white model.

On the top side there is an 8MP camera along with the single LED and on the bottom you can find a loudspeaker.

A great thing is that the back cover sits tight but it is very easy to remove it and under the hood you can find a 2050mAh removable battery, a microSD card slot, which takes cards up to 32GB and two SIM card slots and the first one has the 4G LTE support.

Overall, I am really impressed about the design and built quality of this $90 phone. Metal and glass sandwich construction looks and feels premium, the phone is easily manageable with one hand due to its 5” display and overall you no one would ever think this device is so cheap.

Check out all design pictures in one gallery:

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Oukitel U2 Review: DISPLAY

The Oukitel U2 comes with a 5” display but it has a pretty low 540×960 qHD resolution. Its definitely not the sharpest panel I’ve seen but definitely one of the better ones in this price range. The colour reproduction is not very accurate but the panel is bright that can be easily seen outdoors, it has good viewing angles and contrast.

Oukitel U2 Review: UI

A really cool thing is that the Oukitel U2 comes with the newest Android 5.1 version. Basically, you are getting the stock Android experience but Oukitel added some flavour of their own by removing the app tray and designing the icons to make it look a bit more colourful. Also, the recent apps tray shows you just the icons of the recent apps and you can either swipe them up to close it or swipe down to lock.

The Oukitel U2 comes with plenty of gesture and motion controls, which some of them are definitely gimmicky but others are pretty useful like double tap the home button to lock or unlock the screen, draw some letters to open certain apps and so on. A great thing is that these gestures work pretty good.

Other than that, the base of stock Android assures that you will get smooth and fast performance when doing daily tasks and the phone works well even with lots of apps running in the background.

Oukitel U2 Review: PERFORMANCE

The phone comes with the Quad-Core MT6735M, which is clocked at 1GHz. The chip is coupled with 1GB of RAM, Mali-T720 GPU and 8GB of expandable storage.

The result of it? I expected a lot more since the Oukitel U2 simply can’t handle the graphically intensive games. The performance is terrible since there are a lot of lag, stutter and skipped frames. 

Overall, this phone is not for heavy gamers but the games that do not have the best graphics work much better. 

Oukitel U2 Review: MULTIMEDIA

There are no issues watching full-HD movies. Well, it is just that the phone doesn’t have a full-HD screen.

On the other hand, the loudspeaker is pretty good for such a cheap device.

When it comes to listening to music via earphones the volume output is good but naturally, the sound quality is not on par with the more expensive phones. Still, you can enjoy the music at a decent quality for such a cheap phone.

Oukitel U2 Review: CAMERA

As it has become usual to cheap phones, Oukitel U2 has a stock Mediatek camera app with a few shooting modes and settings to play with. The shutter speed is pretty slow.

Oukitel U2 Review: IMAGE QUALITY

You cannot expect any stellar results from a cheap phone, which has an 8MP camera on the back. Basically, the images taken with the rear snapper could be useful only for social media as they usually lack in details, the contrast, exposure and dynamic range are usually off. Still, the colour reproduction can be accurate at some shots.

You would not want to take many low-light shots as sometimes it is hard to see the scene you took the picture of.

Oukitel U2 Review: VIDEO QUALITY

As far as the video quality, the footage lacks in every aspect and it simply does not look good overall. See the video review for a video sample.

Oukitel U2 Review: CONNECTIVITY

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The call quality is surprisingly decent for a cheap phone and the signal reception is better than average. The 4G connectivity may not be the fastest but it is working.

GPS lock speeds are pretty fast, Wifi and Bluetooth are working fine and I am quite impressed that the Oukitel U2 doesn’t have major connectivity issues like some other cheap phones.

Oukitel U2 Review: BATTERY LIFE

In theory, 2050mAh battery should perform good given the fact that the phone does not have a powerful chip and it does not need to push too many pixels.

In reality, the Oukitel U2 will last you a full day if you are not a heavy user and it has a decent over 4 hours screen-on time.

Oukitel U2 Review: CONCLUSIONS

So here it is, the $90 Oukitel U2. If you are on a tight budget and looking for a phone that has a great design and build quality, does all the basic tasks well, has a great user interface performance, decent call quality and battery life, this phone may be for you.

However, the Oukitel U2 would not be your next device if you love taking a lot of pictures and love playing the latest 3D games.

Still, despite these shortcomings, which could be a deal breaker for some, the Oukitel U2 is a really decent offering in the price range of under $100 unlocked.

We wanted to say thanks to Comebuy.com for sending Oukitel U2 for a review.

Buy Oukitel U2 from Comebuy for $93.18

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