LeEco is the new player in the game but the company is satisfying its customers in many ways since it came to market. First of all, build quality of course, then price, these two are good enough to sell. Another important point is, that they don’t have any locked bootloader that requires a special way to unlock like in the Xiaomi models lately, a fastboot command is more than enough to unlock it and start to develop. The last attractive point, that many users are not aware of is how easy to repair the IMEI on Qualcomm models, because LeEco has chosen not to protect it like many other phone makers did. This comes very handy if you somehow lost your imei number and want to fix it.

*#*#76937#*#* , this code will open the necessary “Diag port” that we will work with.

Select “Enable AT Port” from this service menu, plug your USB cable and your PC will find a new device. Install this “Qualcomm Diag” drivers please. After successful install your diag port will look like this under device manager: “Qualcomm HS-USB Android DIAG”.

Now, before we begin, backup is very important, please refer to this guide how to backup your LeEco’s necessary data and keep it in a safe place, that QCN backup is all you need to restore your modem and IMEI back if anything goes wrong during a ROM flash.

Qualcomm Snapdragon imei Repair, download this tool and run it ( no setup needed ). As you may guess rest is very easy. Just put your factory IMEI numbers in both boxes “IMEI_1” and “IMEI_2“, click start, reboot your phone manually and witness the magic.

Video Guide:

You can use this method on non-IMEI protected phones like Xiaomi Redmi 3 and Redmi Note 3 series without root, but for high end models you need root and another method that you can read in the “backup guide” that I gave.

How about MediaTek series of LeEco, how will you restore your imei if you lost it somehow? Here is the video guide:

The post LeEco / LeTV IMEI Repair – Qualcomm Models appeared first on Gizmochina.

UPDATE : LeEco Le 2 x620 / x620 Pro / x625 Pro baseband – imei repair

Here we are again, for another unbrick/rescue mission.

This time we will unbrick our LeEco Le 2 x620 / x620 Pro / x625 Pro series from so-called “Red light” brick. If you flash a wrong ROM using TWRP, your phone will have no sign of life, only a blinking red light when you plug USB cable and some Mediatek ports under your device manager (if you have drivers installed).

It was much easier for old MediaTek series like x600 or x500 from LeEco to flash an SP Flash tool ROM, but after Helio X20, things changed — there is secure boot protection and we can’t just flash like a regular MediaTek SP tool ROM. We need different “download agents” and a certain authentication file to bypass this protection. This guide works for both unlocked and YES for locked bootloaders. And there is a Youtube video that you can watch if reading can be confused sometimes, this is a tricky guide, but the only complete guide that will answer all your questions.

And there is a Youtube video that you can watch if reading can be confusing sometimes, as this is a tricky guide, but the only complete guide that will answer all your questions. There are less pictures in this guide, but the video shows every step, guide is written in the same timeline as the Youtube video.

Downloads: Flash tool , Rescue Rom

Let’s start.

Double click “flash_tool.exe” inside the x620_flash_tool folder. Choose “MT6797_Android_scatter.txt” in the ROM folder LeEco_x620_SP_Rom if you see an error, if you don’t, do it as the first step by clicking “Scatter-loading” tab right of the window. Next, click “Download Agent” above and choose “DA_PL_HIGH.bin” from “secureboot” folder in the flash tool program folder. Press CTRL + Alt + S to open “Authentication File” section in flash tool and browse to secureboot folder again and select “auth_sv5_letv.auth” file. Untick “recovery” and “boot” images from the list and make sure you have “Download only” selected. If you try to flash recovery and boot partitions too you will see an error like this:

Make sure your phone is completely off. Press “Download” (green arrow looking down), then just plug the USB cable without pressing any other button on the phone.

A new device will be found under device manager, use this driver to setup manually MediaTek Preloader VCOM USB port by selecting the inf file inside the driver folder.

Flashing will start like in the picture, if not, ignore any error, unplug the USB cable, press download again (green arrow looking down) and plug back USB cable in.

Wait until flashing is done, you will see a green “OK” sign showing its done.

Now, unplug the phone from PC. Next, we will flash recovery and boot partitions individually. We need to change download agent from DA_PL_HIGH.bin to DA_BR.bin as the first step here. Again, they are in the “secureboot” folder inside the SP flash tool program folder. Press “CTRL + Alt + V” to open “Write Memory” tab under “Window” menu above.

After you select “Write Memory” a new tab will come up looking like this:

We will flash boot image first, (the pictures are for recovery image flashing, don’t get confused, both will be flashed same way, only files and hex values be different) from “File Path” browse to the ROM folder and select “boot-verified.img” file.

Change the value in the “Begin Adress (HEX)” to “0xf900000” (copy paste from here), leave “Region” as “EMMC_USER”. Click “Write Memory” above (phone is unplugged and off).

Now this step is important: Press Volume + button on your Le 2 and plug in the USB cable, keep pressing Volume + button until flashing is done.

Keeping Volume + button constantly will open our desired MediaTek Preloader VCOM USB port, if you don’t, MediaTek USB port will open and flashing will give an error, if you keep pressing Volume + this will trigger Preloader port to open.

Look at the pictures to see port name.

From “File Path” browse to the ROM folder and select “recovery_stock_works _after_brick.img” file. Change the value in the “Begin Adress (HEX)” to “0x8000” this time (copy paste from here), leave “Region” as “EMMC_USER“. Rest will be the same as is described above.

Press Volume + button on your Le 2 and plug in the USB cable while phone is off, keep pressing Volume + button until flashing is done.

That’s it, now it’s time to power on our bricked Le 2 phone. Next guide will be Baseband and imei fix if you had lost them during brick.

The post LeEco Le 2 x620 / x620 Pro / x625 Pro Rescue Guide + Video appeared first on Gizmochina.

LeEco Max 2, might be the best buy for the money you spend as for just above 200$ you get a Snapdragon 820 power house under a 5.7″ 2K screen in a very well crafted metal unibody. 4GB Ram is more than enough for all of us. LeEco’s bootloaders are easy to unlock and being a popular phone there are many developers who are developing or porting custom roms. Here we open the door to custom rom world. To be able to flash a custom rom ( or even a stock rom, we will do it in this guide) we need a custom recovery first and that custom recovery is Twrp mostly. These things are not so hard on paper if you are an experienced user. You just need to read carefully all the steps and use right files of course. What if something goes wrong ? You can end up with a hard bricked phone in your hands that can’t boot anymore, no sign of life. Why ? Because you messed up your phones boot partitions or its partition table. That failure can only be fixed if you have service rom of your model. I mentioned in my Xiaomi unbrick guide, for some models these roms are very easy to find, all “fastboot” roms for Qualcomm Xiaomi models are also service roms with all necessary key files to unbrick in them. For phones like LeEco Snapdragon models that service roms leak after a couple of months. Today we will learn how to unbrick/rescue our dead LeEco Max 2 X820’s that we finally have service rom in our hands.

Files to download :

1. Max 2 Service Rom (don’t unzip)
2. Flash Software
3. Qualcomm Drivers

We won’t be using Qfil Qualcomm flasher this time, we will use a program called “FlashOne1.9”, I don’t know the developer of this software but a very big thanks to him that it makes flashing much easier than Qfil, it still uses inbuilt Qfil of course but with less clicks and easier GUI.

STEP 1:

This rescue operation is not only for hard bricked Max 2’s, you can use this method to return of a stock “unlocked” developer rom too, your phone is booting but stuck at the logo or for any situation that you want to fix. Thanks to LeEco we can open our service/EDL port very easily with a key combination (even dead brick). Just press volume + and volume – buttons together while powering up, phone will get into EDL mode. After that step 1 is to install our Qualcomm QDLoader 9008 driver, it’s a signed driver so no need to disable driver signature of Windows OS. Just double click driver package,

Choose WWAN or ETHERNET in this window, it’s not important which one to select, and finish the installation. You should see your Qualcomm QDLoader 9008/EDL (emergency download) port after under “ports” tab in your device manager. It is COM27 in my example.

STEP 2:

Unzip FlashOne 1.9 file that you have downloaded anywhere you want and double click the “main.exe” inside the folder. First, choose  “Qualcomm – flash dead phone” from the drop down menu next to “Flash type”.

Then click “Refresh button” next to “Select Device”, your 9008 port will show up.

Next, we will browse for our Qfil/service rom by clicking “Select File” and choose the rom file you have downloaded before, no need to unzip it, the flasher will do it.

After everything is set up under “Settings” we are ready to click “Flash” button.

After you click flash button, FlashOne will start to unzip the rom, this will take minimum 10 minutes or more depending on your PC’s power, so you are free to go and make a coffee in between, or your cup of Earl Grey if you are a tea guy like me

After decompressing is done, the actual flash procedure will start.

If you get an error like this, just put your phone into EDL mode again by pressing both volume buttons and power buttons (hear the USB unplug and plugged sound), then click the flash button again, choose “not to unzip” the rom file this time because it’s already done.

Done! Wait for about 10-15 seconds after you see this message, if your x820 won’t power itself and reboot, do as the message — long press power button to reboot it manually.

Your Max 2 will boot with a developer version of EUI, with an unlocked bootloader.

STEP 3:

After your phone boots, you will see that its storage is abnormally 9.71 GB, to fix this just factory reset your phone choosing the option “Format Virtual SD card”. The File system will be restored to normal values.

STEP 4: (Optional)

“Official TWRP 3.0.2-0 for LeEco Max 2 x820” — Download this custom recovery and Snoop05’s “adb setup“. Install adb and fastboot to your system if you haven’t done it before, choosing “Yes” in every step including “install device drivers” too.

Put your Max 2 into fastboot mode while pressing volume “-“ and powering up.

Unzip twrp to any folder you want, go to that folder, right click holding down “Shift” key on your keyboard and choose “Open command window here“.

Type :

fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.0.2-0-x2.img  (copy from here and paste to command window > right click > paste )

And press enter. Reboot your phone into recovery while pressing volume “+” button and long pressing power button till it reboots. You will see TWRP screen, thick “Never show this screen during boot again” and “Swipe to Allow Modifications”.

That’s all folks. You are ready to flash any stock or custom rom to your LeEco Max 2 now. Here is the latest 5.8.019S (Stable) official rom, it’s multilanguage and Google preinstalled.

See you in the next guide.

The post LeEco X820 Max 2 Super Unbrick Guide appeared first on Gizmochina.

How about Snapdragon 821 for 299$ ? Or a very well build smartphone with Helio X20 + 4GB Ram for 200 $ ? Yes this price range is where the fun begins, where competition brings us to amazing phones for every taste out there  and shows us how much more interesting the future of the smartphones might be.

So let’s begin..

Vernee Apollo Lite

209 $

Display: 5.5 inch FHD 1920x1080p Sharp IGZO

CPU: MTK Helio X20

RAM: 4GB LPDDR 3

ROM: 32GB eMMC 5.1 (up to 128GB)

Rear Camera: 16.0MP Samsung S5K3P3 sensor, 6P lens, ISOCELL , RWB

Front Camera: 5.0MP Samsung S5K5E2 sensor

Battery: 3180mAH Li-polymer

OS: Android 6.0 out of the box (Vernee OS, CM)

Features: Type-C port (supports Type-C earphone, 3.5mm jack retained), Pump Express 3.0 quick charging (5 minutes charging = 1 hour calling), LED notification, Metal unibody, 0.1s fingerprint ID (ISP smart chip, smart key), OTG, Gyro, E-compass,（2.4G/5G）WIFI, Dual SIM Dual standby / SIM + SD card, Open Kernel Code

Dimensions : 15.20 x 7.60 x 0.90 cm, 178g

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz; WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, FDD LTE: B1/B3/B7/B20

This one is a real champ for this price. I had the chance to review one of the “gray” Apollo Lite myself and I must say, build quality is top-notch, one of the best colors on a metal body smartphone. 5.5″ Sharp IGZO screen is amazing, Helio X20 is enough almost for every duty including games. Speaking of MediaTek Helio X20 and X25 series, I think there is no need to spend money for Helio P10 based smartphones anymore (might be exceptions of course, personal taste for example), why ? Please check the picture below :

I have Apollo Lite for almost a week and it had 2 OTA updates in this time, this shows us that Vernee is serious about rom business too, this is an important topic as you all may agree. Paying for hardware is something but paying for good ROM is more important in most cases. Well optimized software that can use all the hardware features without any problems is very precious. So if you have around 200$ to send for a new series smartphone, Vernee Apollo Lite won’t disappoint you.

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/08/07/vernee-apollo-lite-review-one-pleasant-surprise/

Coolpad Cool1

209$  3GB/32GB, 225$  4GB/32GB, 259$ 4GB/64GB

Display: 5.5 inch FHD 1920x1080p 450nit

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 Octa Core

RAM: 3GB/4GB

ROM: 32GB/64GB

Rear Camera: Dual 2 x 13.0MP back camera, Camera Maximum resolution: 4160×3120, Camera maximum recording capacity: 4K / 1080P @ 30fps, Slow recording capacity: 720P @ 120fps, F2.0 large aperture, PDAF, ball-type closed-loop motor, quick focus, Color temperature flash, back-illuminated CMOS

Front Camera: 8.0MP, F2.2 large aperture, 80 ° super wide-angle lens

Battery: 4060mAh Li-polymer

OS: EUI 5.6 base on Android M OS

Features: Type-C port, OTG, Gyroscope, NXP smart PA TFA9897, AAC Speaker BOX, LED notification, Fingerprint recognition, Infrared remote control.

Dimensions : 152 x 74.8 x 8.2 mm, 167g

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz; WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, FDD LTE: B1/B3/B5/B7/B8

New kid in town from the marriage of LeEco and Coolpad, the Cool1. With the experience of Coolpad in camera department, this new model is trying to give customers Dual Camera setup for an affordable price powered from Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 octa-core CPU. Design is better than LeEco series for my taste, seems more compact with round corners and very good metal construction body. I wish they had a color option like Apollo Lite’s gray or even matte black. 4060mAh battery will help you to carry your Cool1 at least whole day with heavy usage without worrying about power. Cool1’s dual camera setup is like that we have seen on Huawei P9 before, one is RGB camera, second shoots only black&white. The result is better low light performance, sharper images and unique effects of course.

As for Rom department, we know LeEco takes this seriously and software updates mostly are coming in right time.

Xiaomi Redmi Pro

224$ 3GB/32GB, 254$ 3GB/64GB, 300$ 4GB/128GB

Display: 5.5 inch FHD 1920x1080p LTPS-AMOLED

CPU: Mediatek MT6797T Helio X25 | MT6797 Helio X20 Deca-core 2.5 GHz – Exclusive edition | 2.3 GHz – High edition |  2.1 GHz – Standard edition

RAM: 3GB/4GB

ROM: 32GB/64GB/128GB

Rear Camera: Dual Setup, 13 MP Sony sensor and 5 MP Samsung sensor

Front Camera: 5MP, f/2.0 lens

Battery: 4050mAh Li-polymer

OS: Android 6.0 – Marshmallow

Features: Finger print sensor under home key front, OLED screen, TYPE-C connector, metal unibody, microSD – upto 256 GB.

Dimensions : 151.5 x 76.2 x 8.2 mm, 174 g

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz; WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, FDD LTE: B1/B3/B7

Xiaomi version of affordable Dual Camera setup and first metal unibody metal body model of the maker, the new Redmi Pro. The contender of Cool1 in this price range with rear dual cameras. If you like front replaced finger print sensor more, if you like deep blacks more (who doesn’t ?), if you don’t mind about the maker of the CPU, i’m saying that because there still many people who just buy Qualcomm processor  based phones, then Redmi Pro is your choice. This phone uses MediaTek’s high-end line (until X30/X35 comes to market) Helio X20 and X25, both as an option. Both are equal or better CPU’s then Qualcomm’s 652. Rest is like always,  taste. As for rom/software support Xiaomi is way in front of every maker, has world’s biggest forum support behind. If you want to buy high end model with X25 + 4GB Ram + 128GB Rom, this will cost you 300$ and there you might consider other alternatives too. Base model seems most logical as Redmi Pro offers SD card slot for storage upgrade. Dual camera setup differs from Cool1’s, Redmi Pro’s setup has 2 RGB (color) cameras, main is 13MP, second “depth” camera is 5MP.

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/08/29/xiaomi-redmi-pro-review/

LeEco Le 2 Pro

229$

Display: 5.5 inch FHD 1920x1080p 

CPU: Mediatek MT6797T Helio X25

RAM: 4GB

ROM: 32GB

Rear Camera: 21 MP, f/2.0, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash, 1/2.4″ sensor size

Front Camera: 8.0MP, F2.2 large aperture

Battery: 3000mAh Li-polymer

OS: EUI 5.6 base on Android M OS

Dimensions : 15.60 x 7.80 x 0.75 cm, 185gr

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz; WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, FDD LTE: B1/B3/B7

Complete package with 4GB Ram, 32GB Rom, very good workmanship/quality, plus powerful engine with Helio X25. LeEco Le 2 Pro is naturally in our list. Beeing developer friendly, bootloader  can be unlocked with a simple fastboot command, not only this model, talking about every LeEco models, has many custom ROMs online, LeEco community is growing among power users.

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/05/10/leeco-le-2-review/ .

Nubia Z11 Mini

239$

Display: 5.0 inch FHD 1920x1080p 

CPU: Qualcomm MSM8952 Snapdragon 617 (Octa-core (4×1.2 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.5 GHz Cortex-A53))

RAM: 3GB

ROM: 64GB, microSD up to 256 GB

Rear Camera: 16 MP, f/2.0, 1/2.8″ sensor size, 1.12 µm pixel size, geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, panorama, HDR

Front Camera: 8 MP, f/2.4, 1.4 µm pixel size, 1080p

Battery: 2800mAh Li-polymer

OS: Android OS, v5.1.1 (Lollipop)

Dimensions : 141.4 x 70 x 8 mm , 138gr

GSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100;  TD-LTE B38/39/40/41; FDD-LTE B1/3/7

What do you want from a smartphone these days ? Picture (camera) quality and very good sound output are enough for you ? You want these specs in a very good looking 5″ screen phone right ? Then go grab a Nubia Z11 Mini and all done. The little brother of Z11 family shares same 4-axis OIS Sony IMX298 sensor with its big brother Z11 and Xiaomi’s Mi5, flagship grade camera performance, both pictures and videos (4K). For music lovers AKM’s latest audio chipset is onboard too. Being a former DJ myself, I always test audio outputs of smartphones in first place. Nubia’s powerful and clean sound output been always my favorite and Z11 Mini carries this tag too.  You love taking many pictures and videos and listen to music, this means you need storage too, 64GB onboard + microSD up to 256 GB are more than enough. Build quality of Z11 Mini is one of the best in the market, worldwide. Rom updates ? This is where ZTE comes behind its competitors, usually slow. Had mobile data bug in Z9 series, I hope they will take more care with new Z11 models.

Qiku 360 N4S

239$

Display: 5.5 inch FHD 1920x1080p 

CPU: MTK Helio X20

RAM: 4GB

ROM: 32GB, microSD up to 128 GB

Rear Camera: 16 MP, f/2.0, ISOCELL, PDAF, geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, panorama, HDR

Front Camera: 8 MP, f/2.0

Battery: 5000 mAh Li-polymer

OS: Android 6 Marshmallow

Dimensions : 151.3×74.6×8.35mm, 169gr

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz; WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, FDD LTE: 1800/2100/2600MHz

Take Nubia and Meizu, mix them, you get 360 N4S design. Full metal body, 2.5D glass on top, high build quality. Put a Helio X20 CPU with 4GB Ram and 32GB Rom (microSD up to 128 GB) in it and power all these elements with a 5000 mAh battery (biggest capacity in our list, higher than Mi Max, coming next). How does it sound ? Price should be normally a bit lower, but this phone is very hard to find, so if you want an alternative you need to pay 239$ for this beast. Cameras look very good on paper. An infrared remote control is a bonus too. 360 N4S runs its own OS, 360 OS 2.0.

Xiaomi Mi Max

219$ 3GB/32GB Snapdragon 650, 259$ 3GB/64GB Snapdragon 652

Display: 6.44-inch, full HD (1920×1080 pixels)

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 650/652

RAM: 3GB

ROM: 32GB/64GB, microSD up to 128 GB

Rear Camera: 16 MP, f/2.0, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash

Front Camera: 5 MP, f/2.0

Battery: 4850 mAh Li-polymer

OS: MIUI 8 based on Android 6.0 OS

Dimensions : 173.1 x 88.3 x 7.5 mm, 203gr

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz, WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, LTE-FDD: 1800/2100/2600MHz (B1/B3/B7)

I love big screen ! I always did, and now I’m using a Mi Max as my daily phone (first time using a Xiaomi), 3GB/64GB with Snapdragon 652 CPU, bought it for 259$ and I must say worth every penny. If you like big screen phones too, there is nowhere else to look, with 4850 mAh huge battery Mi Max will suit your needs in a quality metal body, having everything including infrared remote control and a good camera (good for my taste, can shoot good pictures in dark room with dual flash). Audio quality is surprisingly very good too. I tested Mi Note Pro’s ES9018 DAC last week, Mi Max’s output is nothing less, high output with clean sound. This big fellow is made for multimedia for sure.

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/06/12/xiaomi-mi-max-review-lot-xiaomi/

LeEco Le Max 2

239$

Display: 5.7 inch 2560×1440 Pixel

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 64bit, Quad Core, 2.15GHz

RAM: 4GB

ROM: 32GB

Rear Camera: 21MP 6P, f/2.0 for 4K video

Front Camera: 1.4μm 8MP f/2.2

Battery: 3100 mAh Li-polymer

OS: eUI Android 6.0 OS

Dimensions : 15.68 x 7.76 x 0.80 cm, 185gr

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz; WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, FDD LTE: B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/20/25/26

Wellcome to the first league, talking about CPU and GPU power. Are you an Antutu freak too ? Then you should start from here.

Quote : ” Do we need so much power in our cell phones ? Can software follow this hardware power ? These are only phones, ok smart phones with operating systems in it, but what are we doing with them when its about CPU power ? Using 10 applications same time ? Playing 2-3 power hungry games same time ? Not enough..? We need somehow take this power out of these little gadgets to our desktops and push their limits with much more options like creating. After then, this “race” about making more and more powerful CPU’s for phones can come to a logical state. And when those days come, every one of us will use just one ARM powered PC for every computer based job, our Qualcomm’s, MediaTek’s or Fusion’s…”

130K is the minimum score of Snapdragon 820, best CPU that Qualcomm has made till now (+821). And you can grab it just for 239$ thanks to LeEco. The only phone in our list that has a 2K screen in 5.7″ size, if you care about that, this is your only choice, a good one indeed. Lossless audio over Type-C, excellent build quality, awful color options

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/05/28/leeco-le-max-2-review-beauty-meets-power/

ZUK Z2

259$ (4GB Ram)

Display: 5-inch, 1080p Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels)

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 64bit, Quad Core, 2.15GHz

RAM: 4GB

ROM: 64GB

Rear Camera: 13 Megapixel, Samsung ISOCELL sensor, f/2.2

Front Camera: 8MP

Battery: 3500 mAh Li-polymer

OS: ZUI 2.0 base on Android 6.0 OS

Dimensions : 141.65mm x68.88 mmx8.45mm, 149gr

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz , WCDMA: Bands: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, LTE FDD: 1/2/3/4/5/7/8

And the fun continues. Ok you want Snapdragon 820 but 5.7″ screen is too big for you ( Le Max 2 ), how about a 5″ in a matte black metal frame ( my favorite ) and front finger print scanner ? And a bigger battery compared 3500mAh to 3100 mAh ? + 32GB more storage for 20$ more ? Here is your phone, ZUK Z2 from Lenovo. Still no official multilanguage ROM from the maker, but there are custom ZUI based ROMs supporting your language, or even CM14 Android 7 if you are familiar with flashing ROMs ( if you are not we will help you with our guides for sure ). It’s good to have community behind a model and Zuk Z2 does that. Best 5″ that 259$ can buy for sure.

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/06/27/zuk-z2-review-beautiful-fast/

Xiaomi Mi5

269 $

Display: 5.15 inches, 1080p Full HD 

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 64bit, Quad Core, 1.8GHz

RAM: 3GB

ROM: 32GB

Rear Camera: 16 MP, f/2.0, 1/2.8″ sensor size, 1.12 µm pixel size, geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, panorama, HDR

Front Camera: 4 MP, f/2.0 – , 1/3″ sensor size, 2µm pixel size, 1080p@30fps

Battery: 3000 mAh Li-polymer

OS: MIUI 8 Android 6.0 – Marshmallow

Dimensions : 144.6 x 69.2 x 7.3 mm, 129g

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz, WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, LTE-FDD: 1800/2100/2600MHz (B1/B3/B7)

Famous Xiaomi Mi5, love the black version (especially with the ceramic back). Talking of color, new Mi 5s models don’t have black as color option, why Chinese phone makers don’t use black in every model, I will never understand that. Support of MIUI community, the power of Snapdragon 820 and one of the best cameras in the market, Sony IMX298. If you are a Xiaomi fan you probably get this one under 300$, it surely deserves this money. But I must remind you this version has only 3GB Ram and Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 clocked at 1.8Ghz, not at 2.15 like others, will you feel it as less performance in daily use ? No, you will not, only less Antutu score that’s all, but why Xiaomi reduces clock speed ? To make higher models more attractive ? But it does not. Just make all the clock speeds same and the ram to 4GB in all Mi5 models, it will be easier to sell.

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/03/13/xiaomi-mi5-review-beast-smartphone/

LeEco Le Pro 3

299$

Display: 5.5 inches, 1080p Full HD 

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 64bit, Quad Core, 2.35GHz

RAM: 4GB

ROM: 32GB

Rear Camera: 16 Megapixel, Sony IMX298, PDAF, F2.0, 1/2.8″ sensor size, 1.12 µm pixel size

Front Camera: 8 MP, f/2.2, 1.4 µm pixel size, 1080p

Battery: 4070 mAh Li-polymer

OS: eUI Android 6.0 OS

Dimensions : 151.4×73.9×7.5mm, 175g

GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz; WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz, FDD LTE: B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/20/25/26

Our final model and most powerful model as CPU and GPU power because it has a Snapdragon 821 onboard. Higher clocks of 820 give us about 20K more Antutu score. But, like I always say, scores are not the first key point when you want to buy a smartphone. Talking about LeEco Le Pro 3 it’s not just CPU power, the new model of the firm finally has one of the best cameras, Sony IMX298, finally has enough battery power 4070 mAh, much better comparing to Le Max 2’s 3100 Mah, 2.5D glass on top, which gives a much better look and feel, a new brushed metal body and all this in 7.5mm thickness, for just 299$ ! Many of you may say so why bother to make a list, this one is  a real bargain for this price, who would anyone buy a Mi5 for 269$ if you can buy this beast for 30$ more ? I agree with you, speaking of science, of course, rest is, like we always say, taste and budget (and better software optimizations)….

Every phone in our list is on par or even better (price/performance ratio) then famous phone makers like Samsung, iPhone, HTC, Sony or LG. I don’t count Google’s new Pixel line, nonsense costs for that ugly HTC made phones. So why pay 600$-900$ if we can buy almost same quality and absolute android freedom for 1/3 – 1/4 the price ?

Please don’t forget to check our new compare tool for full specs of phones at Gizmochina (phones are still being added to our database): http://www.gizmochina.com/compare/?pos=97354-99299-97579

The post Smartphone Buyers Guide: Best Value For Money Chinese SmartPhones $200-$300 appeared first on Gizmochina.

August has been a busy month in Chinese smartphone market, talking about new model launches. There have been new models like Redmi Pro (end of July) and Redmi Note 4 from Xiaomi, M3E from Meizu, Cool1 from LeEco and Coolpad marriage, Q5 series from 360. More will come before the end of this year including some flagship models. There is a big war between phone makers to catch a piece of this billion $’s cake.

As the second version of our “Smartphone Buyers Guide” today we will take a look for the models that cost between 100$-200$. There are so many choices when we include old models from last year too, I mean models with old chipsets that has been updated with new series. So they will be eliminated, otherwise this list won’t end As an example, I didn’t include Meizu M2 Note or Meizu Metal in this guide, even though both are still very good phones under 200$, because there is M3 Note out and you can buy it under 200$ too. There will be some exceptions, of course, if it’s a bargain.

Speaking of Meizu, let’s start with this makers phones under 200$.

MEIZU M3 Note

$145.89 for 2GB/16GB, $186.99 for 3GB/32GB version.

Display: 5.5 inch 1920 x 1080 ( FHD ) screen 403 PPi
CPU: Helio P10 Octa Core ARM Cortex-A53 1.8GHz x 4 + ARM Cortex-A53 1.0GHz x 4
GPU: ARM Mali T860 image processor
System: Android 5.1 ( Flyme 5.1 )
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM / 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM. TF card up to 128GB
Camera: Rear camera 13 megapixel, Corning Gorilla 3 glass, f/2.2 aperture, 5-element lens, Continuous shooting, Panorama, PDAF auto-focus, Two-tone flash
Front camera 5 megapixel, f/2.0 aperture, 4-element lens, FotoNation 2.0, FaceAE
Bluetooth: 4.0
GPS: GPS/A-GPS/GLONASS
Sensors: Hall magnetic sensor, Gravity sensor, IR proximity sensor, Gyroscope, Ambient light sensor, Touch sensor, Digital compass
SIM Card: Dual SIM, Dual standby, Dual Micro SIM cards
Battery Capacity (mAh): 4100mAh
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 15.36 x 7.55 x 0.82 cm / 6.05 x 2.97 x 0.32 inches, 163gr

6000 Series Aluminum alloy, means you have a very solid phone in your hands. Meizu always been about “quality”and last year even its budget phones carried production quality to next step. M3 Note, powered by the octa-core 1.8GHz MediaTek Helio P10 chipset is capable of every daily needs of yours, plus more. 4100mAh battery power will be enough for heavy use whole day, for regular use 2 days. When it comes to fingerprint I’m a fan of front placement, simple idea, I want to unlock my phone to see my notifications when it’s on the desk with a simple touch, don’t want to bother to grab it and place my finger to the back of the phone. Meizu’s mTouch is one of the best in the market, combining 3 key functions in 1 and adding fingerprint sensor to it. As we know from the reviews, both cameras of M3 Note do the job for this price range, i mean they are good enough for most of users. Maybe not as good as Oppo R9 with the same chipset inside (Helio P10), but you get Meizu M3 Note for the half price.

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/04/23/meizu-m3-note-review/

Meizu M3S

119.90 $ / 169.90 $ (2GB/16GB – 3GB/32GB)

Display: 5.0 inch 2.5D Arc 1280 x 720 HD Screen
CPU: MTK6750 1.5GHz 64bit Octa Core
System: Android 5.1
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM / 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM. TF card up to 128GB.
Camera: 5.0MP f2.0 front camera + 13.0MP f2.2 back camera
Bluetooth: 4.0
GPS: GPS/A-GPS/GLONASS
Sensors: Gravity sensor, Proximity sensor, Gyroscope, Ambient light sensor, Electronic compass
SIM Card: Nano SIM
Battery Capacity (mAh): 3020mAh
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 14.20 x 7.00 x 0.80 cm / 5.59 x 2.76 x 0.31 inches , 142gr

5.5″ is too big for you ? Here is the little brother of M3 Note — Meizu M3S comes with 5″ HD screen, 2.5D curved glass on top of it. Again with metal body, same mTouch 2.1. A powerful CPU from the same class as Helio P10. Having said that, let’s explain this.

MTK6750 is the toned down version of the MTK6755. Features a similar setup as the MTK6755, including an 8-core 4×4 big.LITTLE configuration with Cortex-A53 CPUs. The difference is that the higher-clocked CPUs will only be set to a maximum of 1.5GHz as opposed to 2.0GHz with the MT6755 Helio P10. The typical setup of MT6750 will be 4@1.5GHz and 4@1.0GHz. GPU is the same, ARM Mali T860 MP2.

XIAOMI Redmi Note 3 Pro

183.99 $ for 3GB/32GB version

Display: 5.5-inch, 1920 x 1080 Pixel Screen with 403 PPI
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 64bit 1.8GHz Hexa-Core ( 2 x A72 + 4 x A53 )
GPU: Adreno 510
System: MIUI 8
RAM + ROM: 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM
Camera: 5.0MP with f/2.0 aperture front camera + 16.0MP with 78 degree wide-angle, f/2.0 aperture back camera
Sensor: Light sensor, G-sensor, Proximity sensor, Hall Sensor, gyroscope, E-compass and fingerprint sensor
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby. One is Micro SIM card slot, the other is Nano card slot, which can also be used as a TF card slot.
Note: Nano SIM card and TF card cannot be used together, because they share the same space of card slot.
Feature: GPS/ A-GPS / Glonass / Beidou
Bluetooth: 4.1
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, dual Micro SIM cards
Battery Capacity (mAh): 4000
Network:
2G: GSM 900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz; CDMA 2000: BC0
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 15.00 x 7.60 x 0.87 cm / 5.91 x 2.99 x 0.34 inches, 168gr

Yes, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 will be on the market soon, but Redmi Note 3 Pro with Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 Chipset will still be most users first choice in this price range. Especially for gamers, because of the Adreno 510 GPU of course. For 5.5″ inch screen size lovers, Xiaomi’s Redmi Note series has always been very popular because of its price/performance ratio. Note 3’s 4000mAh battery will help at least one day under heavy use, more with regular use. Phone has a metal back, but its not unibody, you can take out the back metal cover, still feels nice in hand with matte finish. Has a decent 16MP camera with PDAF supporting 0.1s ultra-fast focusing + two-tone flash light. Finger print sensor is on the back that unlocks your phone in 0.3s.  Redmi Note 4 will come with Helio X20 CPU as we all know, so Qualcomm fans probably won’t change their Redmi Note’s for a while.

Xiaomi Redmi 3S

127.69 $ 2GB/16GB, 146.89 $ 3GB/32GB

Display: 5.0 inch 1280 x 720 HD screen
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 Octa Core 1.4GHz / Adreno 505 GPU
System: Android 6.0
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM / 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM
Max Storage Expansion: 128GB
Camera: Back camera 13.0MP + front camera 5.0MP
Bluetooth: 4.1
Feature: Fingerprint Scanner, GPS, A-GPS
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, one is micro SIM card, the other is nano SIM card
Battery Capacity (mAh): 4100
Network:
2G: GSM 900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz CDMA 2000 BC0
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 13.90 x 6.90 x 0.80 cm / 5.47 x 2.72 x 0.31 inches, 144gr

5″ Redmi 3 series was updated with a new chipset recently, powered by a Snapdragon 430 CPU and the model name became Redmi 3s. Snapdragon 430 brings us Adreno 505 GPU with. These specs made Redmi 3s the most powerful 5″ phone in this price range, made it the little brother of Redmi Note 3 Pro. Redmi 3s has an even bigger battery with 4100mAh capacity and having only HD 5″ screen, this little brother will last longer. With that battery, the Redmi 3s weighs only 144 gm, which is good. 13MP/5MP front and rear cameras and fingerprint sensor sounds as the minimum standards in phone industry lately.

Redmi 4 is behind the corner : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/09/03/xiaomi-redmi-4-appears-tenaa-fhd-3gb-ram-699-yuan-105-price/

Xiaomi Mi Max

182.99 $ for 2GB/16GB edition

Display: 6.44 inch, 1920 x 1080 Pixel 2.5D Arc Screen
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 64bit 1.8GHz Hexa core
GPU: Adreno 510
System: Android 6.0 ( MIUI 7 )
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM
Camera: 5.0MP with f/2.0 aperture front camera + 16.0MP with f/2.0 aperture back camera
Sensor: Light sensor, G-sensor, Proximity sensor, Hall Sensor, gyroscope, E-compass, Infrared, Fingerprint sensor, Accelerometer, etc.
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby. One is Micro SIM card slot, the other is Nano card slot, which can also be used as a TF card slot.
Note: Nano SIM card and TF card cannot be used together because they share the same space of card slot.
Feature: GPS/ A-GPS / Glonass / Beidou
Bluetooth: 4.2
Battery Capacity (mAh): 4850
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 17.30 x 8.80 x 0.60 cm / 6.81 x 3.46 x 0.24 inches, 203gr

A BIG surprise in every aspect ! You want the biggest screen size in a smartphone ? And you also want the biggest battery with it ? 6.44 inch + 4850mAh battery for under 200$. Biggest brother of the family, comes with same CPU of Redmi Note 3 Pro, Snapdragon 650, but with less Ram, 2GB for this edition. 16GB for ROM option is not very important because Mi Max has a SD card slot. If you spend much of your time looking on a mobile phone’s screen during the day, especially for media, biggest screen powered with the biggest battery for just 183$, I think this phone is  a bargain for its specs.

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/06/12/xiaomi-mi-max-review-lot-xiaomi/

LeEco Le 2

158.77 $ for 3GB/16GB, 184.89 $ for 3GB/32GB

Display: 5.5 inch 1920 x 1080 Screen
CPU: Helio X20 MTK6797 Deca-Core
System: Android 6.0
RAM + ROM: 3GB RAM + 16GB/32GB ROM
Cameras: Front 8.0MP + Rear 16.0MP AF with flash
Bluetooth: BT4.0
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby. ( Dual Nano SIM cards )
Battery Capacity (mAh): 3000
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 15.11 x 7.41 x 0.77 cm / 5.95 x 2.92 x 0.3 inches, 152gr

MediaTek Helio X20 (and X25 with more CPU speed) series started to power many phones. It’s a flagship-grade CPU for sure, not the fastest yes, but little under 100K Antutu score is still something. Heli0 x20 is a deca/10-core CPU to remind you. GPU is also powerful enough, a quad-core Mali T880. This combination is better than any on the market, except flagships like Snapdragon 820 and Exynos 8890 from Samsung, but hey, we are talking about under 200$ phones here, remember.

Le 2 comes in a metal unibody, very well crafted. The screen is 5.5″ in-cell full HD IPS panel. The phone has no 3.5mm headphone jack, first in the market, you get audio from Type-C port in Hi-Fi format. Don’t worry, there is adaptor included in the box, if you still want to use your beloved headphones.

Back Camera is 16MP, supporting 4K video shooting mode, front is 8MP, both sensors are from OmniVision. They give you surprisingly good results for this price range. Only downside may be, for some, battery capacity is 3000mAh. So if you want the most powerful phone in this price range and flagship grade build quality, LeEco Le 2 is your choice.

PS: I need to say something about the colors. I’m enough of these gold, rose gold, grey or white, missed all black phones like in the old days. Matte black would be amazing on Le 2 and I think, most of you will agree. Hopefully, new models will have this options : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/08/19/black-leeco-le-2s-back-cover-looped-antenna/

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/05/10/leeco-le-2-review/

LeEco x600

117 $ 3GB/16GB

Display: 5.5 inch 1920 x 1080 FHD screen
CPU: Helio X10 Octa core 2.0GHz
System: Android 5.0
RAM + ROM: 3GB RAM + 16GB ROM
Cameras: 5.0MP front camera + 13.0MP rear camera with AF face beauty and true flash light
Bluetooth: BT4.0
Sensor: Light sensor , G-sensor , P-sensor, Hall Sensor,Proximity sensor
Navigation: GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby. ( Dual micro SIM cards )
Battery Capacity (mAh): 3000
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 14.70 x 7.40 x 0.95 cm / 5.79 x 2.91 x 0.37 inches, 170gr

The whole success story of LeEco (LeTV) began with this model X600. Dont need finger print ? Is 16GB enough for you (for me its still enough) ? Then just grab this hero for about 117-118$ on some online stores, this will be a real bargain for you. Coming with octa-core 2.0 GHz Helio X10 chipset and 3GB of Ram has a very good configuration for this price. Screen is from Sharp, very vivid, design is very attractive even, for my taste its better looking then X500 or X620, has a style for sure. Sound output is one of the best and 3.5mm headphone jack is present. Helio X10 is last years first example of MediaTek’s Helio series and if we should compare it this years P10, X10 is still better when it comes to performance, except energy efficiency of course:

• Helio P10: Single-core – 882, Multi-core – 3371
• Helio X10: Single-core – 905, Multi-core – 5154

ASUS X550

147.69 $ 3GB/16GB

Display: 5.5 inch 1920 x 1080 FHD Screen
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 64bit Octa Core 1.5GHz
GPU: Adreno-405
System: Android 5.1
RAM + ROM: 3GB RAM + 16GB ROM
Camera: Back camera 13.0MP with flashlight + front camera 8.0MP
Bluetooth: 4.0
Improve Touch:
To protect your privacy, avoid of personal information let out. Promise you an undistracted and safe daily life.
GPS: Yes
Sensor: Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Light sensor, Geomagnetic sensor, Gyroscope, Hall sensor
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby. Dual Micro SIM
Battery Capacity (mAh): 3030
Network:
2G: GSM 900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 15.18 x 7.55 x 0.83 cm / 5.98 x 2.97 x 0.33 inches, 156gr

An interesting model from IT giant Asus. Does not have a finger print sensor but has a whole screen to scan your hand-print ! “Equipped with high-tech touch chip owned high capacity of information operation” says Asus. “A totally new way to protect your information”. X500 has a very attractive design and good screen to body ratio with aerial aluminum alloy. Very good cameras indeed for this price, 13MP rear and 8MP f/2.0 aperture front. Promises good low light performance. CPU is last year’s first edition octa-core from Qualcomm, Snapdragon 615, don’t expect much raw performance but it is energy efficient for sure. 3GB Ram is more than enough, you can put a SD card in it so 16GB of Rom is not a big issue. Phone is not unibody so you can change the 3030mAh battery with your second one, many still prefer this solution. 5.5″ full HD screen with 3rd gen Gorilla protection.

Lenovo Vibe P1

148.89 $ 2GB/16GB

Display: 5.5-inch, FHD(1920×1080 pixels) Screen, the 3rd Gorilla Glass Screen
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 615(MSM8939) 64bit Octa Core (Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 and quad-core 1.0 GHz Cortex-A53)
GPU: Adreno 405
System: Android 5.1(Vibe UI 2.68)
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM
Camera: 5.0MP front camera + 13.0MP PDAF back camera with dual color flashlight and auto focus
Sensor: Accelerometer sensor, G-sensor, Proximity sensor, Electronic Compass
Bluetooth: 4.1
GPS: GPS/AGPS
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, Dual Nano SIM
Battery Capacity (mAh): 5000
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 800/850/1900MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100MHz
Product size: 15.30 x 7.50 x 0.90 cm / 6.02 x 2.95 x 0.35 inches, 189gr

Biggest battery capacity in our list with 5000mAh, yes even bigger than Mi Max. Here is a complete package from Lenovo for daily (long) use. Front placed finger print sensor, 5.5″ full HD good screen with Gorilla Glass 3, 13MP PDAF rear camera with dual color flashlight, 128GB SD card expansion, and metal back build. The black color looks not bad either.

Huawei Honor 5C

189 $ 2GB/16GB

Display: 5.2 inch, FHD(1920×1080 pixels)
CPU: Hisilicon Kirin 650 64-bit octa-core
GPU: Mali T830
System: EMUI 3.1 base on Android 6.0
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB, support external microSD to 128GB
Camera: 13 Megapixel BSI camera, F2.0, support HDR Movie, 8-Megapixel, f/2.0 front camera
Sensor: Accelerometer sensor, G-sensor, Proximity sensor, Electronic Compass
Bluetooth: 4.1
GPS: GPS/AGPS
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, Dual Nano SIM
Battery Capacity (mAh): 3000
Network: GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz , WCDMA: Bands: B1/B8, LTE FDD: Bands: B1/B3
Product size: 147.1mm × 73.8mm × 8.3mm, 156gr

The Kirin 650, 16nm FinFET manufacturing process (less chip size = less heat), new midrange class octa-core CPU from Huawei’s own kitchen. Clocked at 2.0GHz and holding Mali-T830 MP2 GPU in it, promises many things on paper.  The iPhone 5SE killer (who cares?) Honor 5C uses this architecture.

I’m not a fan of Huawei phones, because they always cost more against what they give back to customers in the name of performance.

Honor 5C comes with 5.2″ FHD screen, may be the optimum size for many smartphone users. Does not have any protection glass. Cameras are ok on paper, build quality is: metal back on plastic body. Finger print is on the back. Onscreen keys, reduces screen size to 5″ at home screen. You get a decent performance for this price that’s for sure, the rest is kind of a taste.

Kirin 650 loses to Helio X10

360 N4

189 $ 4GB/32GB

Display: 5.5 inch 1920 x 1080 Screen
CPU: Helio X20 MTK6797 Deca-Core
System: Android 6.0
RAM + ROM: 4GB RAM + 32GB ROM, support external micro SD
Cameras: Front 5.0MP + Rear 13-megapixel, f2.0, PDAF
Bluetooth: BT4.0
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby. ( Dual Nano SIM cards )
Battery Capacity (mAh): 3080
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 149mm x 75.7mm x 8.3mm, 140gr

Editor’s Choice (if you can find one to buy).  MediaTek X20 is a very good chipset, like I stated before. Supporting it with 4GB of Ram is very future based (talking about Android versions). Plus  IP67 dustproof and waterproof and a very good design (149mm for a 5.5″ is awesome), having hardware keys (big fan of this red round home key and two little tiny dots, ok the idea belongs to Nubia we all know) and not loosing from screen size in that matter is very ergonomic. 32GB Rom supported with an SD card slot. Good cameras both rear and front, 13MP rear Sony IMX258 sensor, f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, 5MP front, f/2.0 aperture. And all these specs for under 189 $ (official price is even under 150$), believe me most of us don’t need more than this in a smartphone. Downside being, you can’t find 360 N4 easily to buy, and there is upgraded version announced that has 5000mAh battery inside. If 360 manages to produce those phones in enough numbers to feed the smartphone market, can be the next succeess story from China. Their next line is worth to look if you haven’t yet : 360 Q5 & Q5 Plus.

Elephone S3

149.99 $

Display: 5.2 inch Bezel-less 2.5D Arc FHD Incell Screen
CPU: MTK6753 64bit Octa Core 1.3GHz
System: Android 6.0
RAM + ROM: 3GB RAM + 16GB ROM. TF card up to 128GB.
Camera: 5.0MP OV5670 f2.4 front camera + 13.0MP Sony IMX135 f2.2 back camera
Bluetooth: 4.0
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby (Micro SIM + Nano SIM)
Battery Capacity (mAh): 2100
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz
Product size: 14.20 x 7.05 x 0.83 cm / 5.59 x 2.78 x 0.33 inches, 145gr

I decided not to include any MediaTek MTK6753 based phone in this article (MTK6592 was the king of this class), because for a little higher budget you can get a Helio P10 or X10 even. Elephone S3 is an exception because of its bezel-less design. This phone just don’t have any bezels both sides like Nubia Z11 and has a full metal frame. It has 3GB of Ram, 16GB of Rom supported with an SD card slot. A fingerprint sensor on the back and 13MP+5MP camera configuration with not bad sensors at all. 5.2″ screen size is pocket-friendly. I think Elephone S3 is worth 150$, this is a very good looking and solid phone for sure. Not everybody knows about Antutu benchmark, there are still plenty of users who use these machines as mobile phones only, and I am one of them

Full review : http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/07/01/elephone-s3-review/

For buyers just around the limit of 100$, please check our “phone buying guide under 100$” too. Pepsi P1S still is the best value for money with its 96.99$ price, having MTK6592 64-bit Octa-Core (sorry, it’s a 32-bit CPU)  1.7GHz CPU and a fingerprint scanner in a metal body of 5.5″ size.

The post Smartphone Buyers Guide: Best Value For Money SmartPhones 100$-200$ appeared first on Gizmochina.

Today’s headline is the newcomer, Lenovo’s sub-brand ZUK Z2 series. Amazing value for price, almost the cheapest Snapdragon 820 based smartphone and therefore the series already has many fans/forums around the world. I myself always used Qfil flash programmer when it was about unbricking a Qualcomm based Lenovo/ZUK. But after Snapdragon 820, things changed a little, in  terms of the name of programmer files and extensions. Until Snapdragon 810, for 64 Bit chips, we had “mbn” file extension as our “firehose programmers”, for example “prog_emmc_firehose_8994_ddr.mbn” or “prog_emmc_firehose_8994_lite.mbn” inside our Qfil ROM packages. And Qfil was the only flasher that supported this firehose protocol till now. After 820’s Qualcomm made differences both in file system and naturaly to our “service files”.  Mbn’s became “elf’s”, “not the nation from middle-earth ?” 

Before we start, we need to put our Windows operating system into “Test Mode“, so we don’t have to deal with any driver install issues in between our work.

To do this just :

Press Start->Search->cmd then right-click on it and click Run as administrator. In the CMD window, type or copy this “Bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON”  and press enter. Restart PC.

STEP 1:

First, we need to install adb on our computers, and for that, we will use a program called “adb setup“, thanks to Snoop05 from XDA-Developers, this will enable adb and fastboot commands to work on our systems. It will also install necessary adb drivers. There are many ways to do that but what is best about Snoop05’s solution is that we can use adb and fastboot commands system-wide, this means our old “command prompt” will turn to accept this commands, and no need to work in the “adb” folder like we used to before.

Then install Lenovo and ZUK phone Windows USB drivers + Qualcomm Diag port drivers on your system.

STEP 2:

On Lenovo/ZUK phones, to enable USB debugging, click “USB debugging (ADB)”under “USB computer connection” from the pop-up window when you plug the USB cable.  On ZUK Z1, if Cyanogen ROM is installed, go to settings> about phone, and click “Build number”couple of times till you see “you are a developer“message. Then back to settings>Developer opitons>USB debugging, click it and allow. Your system will install necessary”adb” drivers. Now open command prompt and type :

“adb devices“

Look at your phone for the “Allow USB debugging?“ message, select “Always allow from this computer“ and click OK. If you forget to allow from phone, the command will return“unauthorized“, if OK you will see your phone as “device“ .

STEP 3:

Now it’s time to open our so called Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 service port to work with. If your phone is in working condition, we will use an adb command from command prompt :

“adb reboot edl”

If your phone is bricked / can’t boot up / stuck at logo / restarting itself continuously, then we will use the key combination to open our Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 service port. That key combination depends on the ROM that you had on your phone before it’s bricked.

If you were on Lollipop : Phone must be completely off. Pressing “Volume Up” key plug the USB cable in WITHOUT PRESSING POWER BUTTON !  Port will open.

If you were on Marshmallow : Phone must be completely off. Plug the USB cable in and immediately press Power On button. Port will open. 

STEP 4:

Now setup Miflash that you downloaded before. Miflash will install necessary “Qulacomm” drivers to your system , so don’t forget to choose “Install this driver software anyway” option when it asks, twice, and after it finishes you will see a new port named Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 in your device manager too.

The driver path will be “C:\Program Files (x86)\Xiaomi\MiPhone\Qualcomm\Driver”, in case you want/need to install your drivers again.

STEP 5:

Open MiFlash, click “refresh” button and you’ll see your Qualcomm 9008/EDL port there. Then click “Browse” and choose your downloaded ROM folder, please (unzip it before you that). It will look like this for ZUK Z2 ROM folder :

When you are ready click “flash” button. In about 2-3 minutes the flashing will finish, unplug the USB cable and press power button long enough to power on your ZUK Z2. That’s it. Your ZUK has been saved or flashed with a stock factory ROM.

Some of the paragraphs of this article are taken from my Xiaomi and Lenovo unbricking + flashing guides, so don’t get confused because of some pictures here.

If you need to look at them:

Xiaomi Phones (Qualcomm models): How To Flash Global Multilanguage ROM + Mega UNBRICK Guide

Lenovo / ZUK Phones (Qualcomm Models) : Easy Rom Flashing + Mega UNBRICK Guide

OnePlus Series Mega UNBRICK Guide + TWRP Flashing

The post ZUK Z2 & Z2 PRO ROM Flashing + UNBRICK Guide appeared first on Gizmochina.

Buying a daily cheap phone is not that easy anymore as it was a couple years ago. We just had a couple of alternatives, but today, as more Chinese makers come to market and because of the high competition in the smartphone market, there are many more phones to choose from. Today, we will try to help you with the purchase of a super cheap phone. Remember, these are phones under $100 class, and hence you should not expect a lot from them, but again, some might also surprise you in this price range.

There are more than 50 alternatives under 100$ range so I decided to narrow down this list as choosing minimum 2GB of RAM and Quad-core CPU’s. We have 1 exception with 1GB RAM phone, because of its price. All the phones in this list are based on Quad-core MediaTek CPU’s, divided to MTK6580 and MTK6735. Both are capable of serving you as a daily smartphone processor. We have two exceptions in the list when it comes to CPU type, two 64-bit octa-core phones with MTK6592 and MTK6753, Pepsi P1s (yes it’s a smartphone) and Vernee Thor.

So, here are the models which we think are best under $100 price range.

Vernee Thor 4G

$99.99

Display: 5″ HD On-cell Corning Gorilla Glass 3 screen
CPU: MTK6753 64-bit Octa-Core 1.3GHz
GPU: ARM Mali-T720 MP3 450MHz
System: Android 6.0
RAM + ROM: 3GB RAM + 16GB ROM
Camera: 13.0MP Rear Camera , Front camera 5.0MP
Sensor: Gravity Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Fingerprint
Bluetooth: 4.0
OTG: Yes
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, dual micro SIM cards
Network:
2G: GSM 900/1900/2100MHz
3G: WCDMA 900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz

Starting with highest price in the list our first phone is Thor from Vernee. High price brings some unique features in this price range with it. First is, this model has the 64 bit octa-core MTK6753 CPU and again the only model with 3GB Ram onboard. Just these two features make Vernee Thor the most powerfull phone on our list. If you are a light gamer and are used to handling multiple apps at the same time, i.e. if you multitasking a lot, with 3GB Ram this model is for you. It has Android 6.0 as operating system, is a 4G LTE capable phone of course. Plus a very attractive design with 80% screen-to-body ratio, very good screen quality with 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3 on top, titanium alloy 7.9mm thick body, 140g weight, decent cameras both rear and front. There is also a very quick responsive finger print scanner on the back side. What else could you want from a 99$ phone ? So if 5″ is enough for your daily use, and you have $99 to spend, Vernee Thor should be on top of your list. This phone costs 119$ normaly, but you can get it for 99.99$ with a coupon, for a full detailed review and about the coupon please follow this link : Vernee Thor Review – Simple But Fast. With this specs and price Thor deserves to be Editor’s Choice in 5″ screen class under 100$ list.

+ MTK6753 Octa Core Cpu
+ 3GB Ram
+ Fingerprint 
+ Metal frame
+ Android 6.0
+ 4G LTE

Pepsi P1S

$93.99

Display: 5.5″ 1080P Full HD
CPU: MTK6592 64-bit Octa-Core 1.7GHz
GPU: ARM Mali-Mali-450 MP4 450MHz
System: Android 5.1
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM
Camera: 13.0MP Rear Camera , Front camera 5.0MP
Sensor: Gravity Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Fingerprint
Bluetooth: 4.0
OTG: Yes
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, dual micro SIM cards

Network:
2G: GSM 900/1900/2100MHz
3G: WCDMA 900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz

Pepsi P1S is a 5.5″ size smartphone and the only one that has Full HD 1080p screen resolution in our list. Body is all metal with a fingerprint scanner located at the back. Our second phone with a octa-core CPU and its MTK6592 with 1.7GHz, this makes Pepsi the most powerfull model under $100 too. That chip is last years flagship grade model from MediaTek, better then Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 we can say. Phone supports 4G LTE as connectivity and definitely has a good look/design for this class. For this price and what you get for it, the Pepsi P1S is the Editor’s Choice for 5.5″ size. For a full review please visit : Pepsi Smartphone Review.

+ MTK6592 Octa Core CPU
+ All Metal Body
+ Fingerprint Scanner
+ 4G LTE

OUKITEL K4000 Pro 4G

$84.99

Display: 5″ 1280×720 HD 2.5D Arc Screen
CPU: MTK6735 64bit Quad Core 1.0GHz
GPU: Mali-T720
System: Android 5.1
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM
Camera: Front 2.0MP (SW5.0MP) + Rear 8.0MP (SW13.0MP) AF with LED flashlight
Bluetooth: V4.1
Features: GPS / OTA / OTG
Card Slot: Dual SIM dual standby. Dual Micro SIM cards
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 800/900/1800/2100/2600MHz

You need a tough phone that lasts 6 days on a single charge with regular use ? That’s what Oukitel says, on paper, but with the 4600mAh battery and 5″ HD screen you surely can expect long use. Plus 9H hardness 2.5D tough screen surrounded with a CNC worked metal body. Rest is 2GB RAM powered by Quad-core CPU, decent GPU, so capable of every daily needs including being a 4G LTE world phone. If you are a hard worker outdoors or like to camp without an energy source around, OUKITEL K4000 Pro is definitely for you. Not bad looking either.

+ 4600mAh Battery (6 days)
+ Metal frame
+ 9H hardness 2.5D tough screen
+ 4G LTE

Doogee X6 Pro 4G

$84.67 

Display: 5.5″ 1280 x 720 HD Screen
CPU: MTK6735 64bit Quad Core 1.0GHz
GPU: Mali-T720
System: Android 5.1
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM，TF card up to 32GB
Camera: Back camera 5.0MP (SW 8.0MP) with flashlight and auto focus + front camera 2.0MP (SW 5.0MP)
Sensor: Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Light sensor
Features: GPS, A-GPS, WiFi, OTA, FM
Bluetooth: 4.0
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, one is standard SIM, the other is Micro SIM
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz

5″ is not enough for you and you want a 5.5″ screen size phone with minimum 2GB of Ram and Quad-core ? Then Doogee X6 Pro is one of few alternatives for you, under 100$ of course. Not expect much from back and front cameras, but being a 4G LTE world phone you can be sure of to be connected anywhere around the world. Screen resolution is 720P remember, not full HD. Having hardware keys rather than on screen touch keys you get full 5.5″ to use, light gamers, e-readers, online-media lovers, this phone might be for you.

+ 5.5″ Screen
+ 4G LTE

HOMTOM HT3 Pro 4G

$79.79

Display: 5″ 1280 x 720 HD Screen
CPU: MTK6735 64bit Quad Core
GPU: Mali-T720
System: Android 5.1
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM. TF card up to 64GB
Camera: Back camera 8.0MP ( SW 13.0MP ) with flashlight and auto focus + front camera 2.0MP ( SW 5.0MP )
Features: OTA, GPS
Bluetooth: 4.0
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, dual Micro SIM cards

Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE: 800/1800/2100/2600MHz

2.5D Screen, this curved glass type looks good on any phone its for sure, makes handling on the edges more ergonomic and  pleasant. 4G LTE phone with compact body and nice screen. Has 3000mAh battery which is good value in this class, HOMTOM says 3 days on a single charge, for $79.79, that’s good.

+ 3000mAh Battery (3 Days)
+ 4G LTE

Bluboo Picasso 3G

$74.46 

Display: 5″ 1280 x 720 HD
CPU: MTK6580 Quad Core 1.3GHz
GPU: Mali-400MP
System: Android 5.1
RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM
Camera: Front and rear 8.0MP camera
Sensor: Gravity sensor, Proximity sensor, Light sensor
Bluetooth: 4.0
Features: GPS, AGPS
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, dual micro SIM
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/2100MHz

So, this was our Smartphone Buyers Guide: Under $100 For the month of August. Which one’s your favorite?

Maybe we missed some models to include here. If you think there is phone model with unique features in this price range, please let us know in the comments section.

The post Smartphone Buyers Guide: Best Value For Money Phones Under 100$ (August Edition) appeared first on Gizmochina.

OnePlus  Series Mega UNBRICK Guide + TWRP Flashing

Let’s rescue/unbrick our OnePlus One, 2 and 3 series, including OnePlus X, from any brick you may think of. Not very long, about 1.5 years ago, everyone was afraid of Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 brick situations like death, because many didnt knew what that was, as a port. This is Qualcomm’s so called “service” port that we use to fix our phones with a proper ROM. This port can be manualy opened, or if you do something wrong like deleting your phone’s boot partitions accidently, sbl1.mbn for example, that port opens itself and waits you to flash with right Qualcomm flasher software, in the right way, with the right kind of ROM.

As someone who has been working on these “brick” cases since the past 2 years, I sometimes willingly brick a phone to death first, then unbrick it again, this takes less time in many brands, like today’s example, OnePlus series.

OnePlus is a “developer” phone in the first place. What does that mean ? This means your bootloader can be unlocked with a simple fastboot command and you are ready to “develop” ROMs or apps. This means OnePlus won’t be out of warrantee if you “root” it, as rooting and unlocking the bootloader freely are a part of being a developer phone. Thanks to OPPO, yes you read right– OnePlus One was an identical twin of the Oppo Find 7 series from inside, we are able to find “unbrick” roms of these developers phones since a while. Oppo Find 5 was the first model as an example of this story. Actually I am the first one in the world who has unbricked OnePlus One from a death brick ( i like to call this a coma brick ), from Qualcomm HS-USB Diagnostics 9006. My two articles “Snapdragon’s are UNBRICKABLE”  has been read by 450,000 readers around the world in a year. It’s time to share my experiences with our readers at gizmochina.com.

Rescue Files :

OnePlus 3

OnePlus 2

OnePlus X

OnePlus One

Qualcomm Driver :

Qualcomm QdLoader driver

STEP 1:

Before we start, we need to put our Windows operating system into “Test Mode”, so we dont have to deal with any driver install issues in between our work.

To do this just :

Press Start->Search->cmd then right-click on it and click Run as administrator. In the CMD window type or copy this “Bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON” and press enter.

Restart PC.

After your work with unbricking is done, if you want to get out of this test mode, detailed instructions are here : Windows Test Mode .

This is pure unbricking method with its own flasher inside the rescue folders so we dont need any adb or fastboot command to get in EDL (Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008) mode like we did in our Xiaomi guide before. We will use a simple key combination like I described in our Lenovo/ZUK guide. Special thanks to OnePlus for not hiding it from us, like Xiaomi did.

OnePlus’s own flashers : MsmDownloadTool V3.0 is for OnePlus 3, MSM8994DownloadTool is for OnePlus 2, MsmDownloadTool V2.0 is for OnePlus X and Msm8974DownloadTool is for the OnePlus One. These tools will be in every rescue package that you will download from links above. I will be working on OnePlus One today. This model has Color OS 2.0 as rescue ROM, so after you flashed this rom your OPO will boot with Color OS (Chinese-English version), BUT whats important for us is to get back our “fastboot mode” back, its a developer phone remember?

After we have fastboot mode back we will be able to flash TWRP recovery to our phones and flash any rom that we want, including stock ROMs. Rescue packages for other models than the OnePlus One contain only rescue partitions in it, so no “system.img” and “userdata.img’s”. They  will give you stock recovery and bootloader (fastboot). There are also complete  rescue ROM files but because they are big packages, hard to upload them all to our servers, i will give those “androidfilehost” links under the article too. But if you are a “custom rom” guy like me, you wont need those stock ROMs, flashing TWRP will be more then enough to go to second step after rescue (flashing a custom ROM).

STEP 2:

Let’s put our OnePlus’s into the Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 /EDL mode. To do this, we will use the default key combination of Qualcomm for this : Phone is completely off> Press Volume “+” button> Plus the USB cable in (without pressing power button), thats all. Before that I presume that you have installed “Qualcomm QdLoader driver” on your system, if yes, your new device will be like in the picture, if not, please do it in this step and get ready for the next step.

Our flasher will be “Msm8974DownloadTool.exe”, but I pictured here all the ROM folders, because I want you see some other files too and understand what we are doing here. “rawprogram0.xml”, “patch0.xml”, “prog_emmc_firehose_8974.mbn” and “MPRG8974.mbn”, these files are Qualcomm’s engineer files and cant be found in any rom than these kind of “service” roms. All the xml files can be regenerated but those mbn files not. They include vendor (maker) related model specific sign codes in it and cant be used on cross models. What I’m trying to explain here is — You have seen those files in your Xiaomi’s fastboot roms too, like in your Lenovo and ZUK’s Qfil ROMs, but like I said, you cant use Xiaomi Mi4’s “MPRG8974.mbn” to rescue an OnePlus One for example. They share same chipsets, Snapdragon 801’s but because of the different “signs” in them they just wont work, so dont loose time on this field. I know some users are..

STEP 3:

Right click “Msm8974DownloadTool.exe” and run it as “administrator”, this flasher is in Chinese but does not matter we will only use 2 buttons on it. “Enum” to identfy our EDL ports and then “Start” to start the flashing. Here my port is on Com 28, dont get confused Windows’s com port number and this tool’s numbers — same port, different numbers.

After you click on Start,  “8974_msimage.mbn” will be send to your phone and you will hear an usb unplug and plug sound from your cumputers. If this is your first time you will see this :

An error on the Msm8974DownloadTool with red color (it says cant find the necessary port) and a new device under your device manager as “QHUSB_BULK”. Windows will automaticaly install drivers, just wait for a minute till you see your new port “Qualcomm HS-USB Diagnostics 9006”. This port will be used to flash the rest of the files, its so called “EMMC” mode of the Qualcomm device.

STEP 4:

Lets close Msm8974DownloadTool first. Then press “power button” of the phone long enough while your are pressing Volume “+” button same time — this will reset Qualcomm 9006 port to 9008 again. Then, run Msm8974DownloadTool as administrator  and click “Start” again. Because our 9006 driver is now installed and you will see this :

The tool will start to send rescue files to our bricked OnePlus’s. In this example, the whole Color OS 2.0 files including systemimg and userdata.img’s.

After it finishes youll see our port line will become green saying its done.

STEP 5:

Our last step will be to press our phone’s power button long enough till it vibrates and wakes up back to life again. Remember, just put your phones in “fastboot” mode pressing Volume “+” button while powering on. Then download our “OnePLus Latest TWRP Recovery Package for all Models”.

Copy your OnePlus model’s TWRP.img to your “fastboot.exe” working folder and type:

“fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.0.2-0-oneplus1.img” for OnePlus One

“fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.0.2-2-oneplus2.img” for OnePlus 2

“fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.0.2-0-oneplus3.img” for OnePlus 3 and

“fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.0.2-0-oneplusX.img” for OnePlus X of yours.

To boot into TWRP right away type :

“fastboot boot twrp-3.0.2-0-oneplus1.img” for OnePlus One

“fastboot boot twrp-3.0.2-2-oneplus2.img” for OnePlus 2

“fastboot boot twrp-3.0.2-0-oneplus3.img” for OnePlus 3 and

“fastboot boot twrp-3.0.2-0-oneplusX.img” for OnePlus X

Your OnePlus will boot to TWRP recovery, just copy your desired stock or custom ROM from your PC to your phone and flash it. That’s all folks

Here are links of complete rescue Roms like I promised :

OnePlus X Complete Rom Rescue Package

OnePlus 2 OxygenOS 2.1.1 Rescue Package 

OnePlus 3 Complete Rom Rescue Package

The post OnePlus Series Mega UNBRICK Guide + TWRP Flashing appeared first on Gizmochina.

If you are fan of 5″ smartphones, you already know about the ZUK Z2. With its powerfull specs and elegant design, Z2 already became very popular among users and has many fan sites in a short time after it was released 2 months ago. With its $299 price tag it was already the cheapest Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 powered device and was strongest contender of Xiaomi Mi5 and LeEco Le Max 2 in this price range. Then we saw price cut of Le Max 2, being sold under $300, and now ZUK Z2 took this place, again, with the brand new Rio edition.

Specs are the same with ZUK Z2, except for RAM and ROM configuration which has been reduced to 3GB and 32GB. The original ZUK Z2 has 4GB RAM and 64GB ROM. Even the clock speed of the Snapdragon 820 stayed the same, 2.15GHz, not an underclocked version like we saw in Xiaomi Mi5’s 3GB/32GB version as 1.8GHz  ($329).

ZUK Z2 Rio Edition specifications

• 5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD LTPS 2.5D curved glass display
• 2.15GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 820 processor with Adreno 530 GPU
• 3GB RAM with 32GB internal storage
• Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with ZUI 2.0
• 13MP rear camera with LED Flash, f/ 2.2, 5P lens, ISOCELL sensor, PDAF, CAF dual-mode focus, EIS
• 8MP front-facing camera with 1.4μm pixel size, f/2.0 aperture, 78.9-degree wide viewing angle
• Dual (nano) SIMs
• Fingerprint scanner
• Dimensions: 141.65×68.88×8.45mm; Weight: 149g
• 4G LTE with VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz), Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, USB 2.0 Type-C
• 3500mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0

Oh yes the price, only 1599 Yuan, $240 for this power house ! However if Chinese customers choose to order through selected online stores they will receive a 100 Yuan price cut making the phone just 1499 Yuan ($224) starting August 2.

That’s insane price for a Snapdragon 820 flagship!

The post ZUK Z2 Rio Edition (3GB+32GB): The Cheapest Snapdragon 820 Phone appeared first on Gizmochina.

We will extend our “How To” guides to Lenovo and ZUK smartphones today. As you may already know ,the ZUK brand belongs to Lenovo. ZUK Z1 came last year with an affordable price and elegant design, including finger print sensor and 64GB storage option powered with Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 and sold many even Lenovo was surprised with the sale numbers. This year, 2 models came from ZUK brand, ZUK Z2 Pro and ZUK Z2, both having powerfull Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 cipsets inside, both with minimum 4GB of RAM’s  ( ZUK Z2 Pro has a 6GB Ram variant too) and plus many more new feutures, you can read full details here :

ZUK Z2 Pro : OnePlus 3 vs ZUK Z2 Pro vs Le Max 2 vs Xiaomi Mi5: Ultimate Flagship Comparison!

ZUK Z2 : ZUK Z2 Review – Beautiful and Fast

Today we will learn how to flash roms with Qfil, Qualcomm’s own flasher software and this will also will be our “Unbrick Guide” for Lenovo/ZUK Qualcomm-based phones.

Remember to check our guide about Qualcomm based Xiaomi phones too : Xiaomi Phones (Qualcomm models): How To Flash Global Multilanguage ROM + Mega UNBRICK Guide

So our “How To” guides are unique as they are alternative ROM flashing guides (without the need of flashing recovery’s, without the need of rooting, and works even with locked bootloaders) + Unbrick guides in just one single method.

I will use a Lenovo Vibeshot as an example today, came as bricked from a reader, stuck on Lenovo Logo, no recovery menu, no system menu ( volume “-” + power ). My screenshots will be based on this model, so don’t let my ROM files or configurations confuse you. I’m sharing ZUK Z1’s Qfil ROM link in the article, please ask for other model’s QPST/Qfil rom files in the comments if needed.

The method that we will use today is Qualcomm’s own method to flash ROMs to supported models, and it’s not forbidden from the maker, if it’s not hidden. I mean you can’t use this method on every Qualcomm based phone like LG, Samsung or HTC. Those makers never will allow their customers to rescue their bricked phones by themselves, they have their service centers worldwide and work so hard to leave Qualcomm’s own structure, in order to create their own ROM structure. So, users have to go to their manufacturer service centers if they brick their phones.

This is why I like Chinese brands much more, most of them are unbrickable in this way, because, again, most of them use Qualcomm’s structure and we can find that kind of  “Qfil” ROMs online. In time we will learn how to unbrick them all.

Most Lenovo Qualcomm models have the same ROM structure and this guide can be applied to all. There may be some exceptions, of course, like some old models running Snapdragon 800’s or some models that are being sold only to network service providers around the world like Vodafone,  and not to customers directly. Remember ? Service center policy ?

Before we start, let’s take a look at the downloads :

Lenovo and ZUK phone Windows USB drivers

QPST/Qfil Qualcomm Flasher ( build 430 recommended for now, using myself )

Qualcomm Diag port drivers

ZUK Z1 CM12.1 Qfil Rom

All drivers I’m sharing here are signed drivers, so no need to disable Windows driver enforcement like we did in our first guide for Xiaomi.

Before we begin, let me remind you, this method will wipe your phone completely and bring it to “out of box” factory mode. So backing up your important data is a must! If your phone is already bricked and can’t power on or is stuck at logo, there is not much to do for your data.

STEP 1:

First, we need to install adb on our computers, and for that, we will use a program called “adb setup“, thanks to Snoop05 from XDA-Developers, this will enable adb and fastboot commands to work on our systems. It will also install necessary adb drivers. There are many ways to do that but what is more important about Snoop05’s solution is that we can use adb and fastboot commands system-wide, this means our old “command prompt” will turn to accept this commands, and no need to work in the “adb” folder like we used to before. Then install Lenovo and ZUK phone Windows USB drivers + Qualcomm Diag port drivers on your system.

STEP 2:

On Lenovo phones to enable USB debugging, click “USB debugging (ADB)” under “USB computer connection” from the pop-up window when you plug the USB cable.  On ZUK Z1, if Cyanogen Rom is installed, go to settings> about phone, and click “Build number” couple of times till you see “you are a developer“ message. Then back to settings>Developer opitons>USB debugging, click it and allow. Your system will install necessary”adb” drivers. Now open command prompt and type :

“adb devices“

Look at your phone for the “Allow USB debugging?“ message, select “Always allow from this computer“ and click OK. If you forget to allow from phone, the command will return “unauthorized“, if OK you will see your phone as “device“ .

STEP 3:

Install QPST build 430 on your PCs. After setup finishes go to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Qualcomm\QPST\bin” folder and locate QFIL.exe, create a shortcut on your desktop, or continue to work from bin folder, as you like.

STEP 4:

After you downloaded your ROM and unzipped it, run “QFIL.exe”.  Select “Flat Build” option under “Select Build Type”, then click “Browse” under “Select Programmer” and locate the mbn file that is starting with “prog_emmc_firehose”. In my example its “prog_emmc_firehose_8936.mbn”, 8936 is the code number for Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset, for ZUK Z1 it will be “prog_emmc_firehose_8974.mbn”, 8974 is the code for Snapdragon 801 series.

Then, under “Download” click “Load XML” tab at the right end of the window, the pop-up window will locate the rawprogram0.xml that we need. After you select it and click “Open”  another pop-up window will come automatically and show you “patch0.xml” to select .

After necessary files are selected, the Qfil configuration should look like this :

STEP 5:

Now it’s time to open our so called Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 service port to work with. If your phone is in working condition, we will use an adb command from command prompt :

“adb reboot edl”

If your phone is bricked / can’t boot up / stuck at logo / restarting itself continuously, then we will use the key combination to open our Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 service port. That key combination depends on the ROM that you had on your phone before it’s bricked.

If you were on Lollipop : Phone must be completely off. Pressing “Volume Up” key plug the USB cable in WITHOUT PRESSING POWER BUTTON !  Port will open.

If you were on Marshmallow : Phone must be completely off. Plug the USB cable in and immediately press Power On button. Port will open.

STEP 6:

Qfil will recognize HS-USB Qdloader 9008 port and “Download” tab/option will be ready to click. Click it immediately if you opened the port with key combination because after 5 seconds phone will restart, if you click “Download” in time, the Qfil will hold the port and start flashing our ROM. If you opened the port with adb command, no need to hurry, port will stay open as long as you press power button long enough to reset.

Look at the “Status” window. If you see “Switch To FireHose and Wait for 3 seconds..” lines then everything seems fine, Qfil will start to flash our Qualcomm Lenovo/ZUK’s.  If you see “Download Fail” line at the end, please press power button long enough to reset the phone/port and try again.

Remember : Phone/port must be resetted after every attempt with Qfil.

After Qfil finishes flashing, in our example it took 2 Min. and 58 Sec., the phone will be reset from the program itself. You can close Qfil after you see “Waiting for reset done…”  ignoring any pop-up. Your phone is rescued/unbricked and  will boot with your new ROM. Congratulations !

Congratulations !

Please request Qfil Rom links of your Lenovo variant in the comments below. For new ZUK Z2 series, there are still no Qfil ROMs online. So if you bought one of those models, be careful for now and before flashing any rom, READ carefully!

The post Lenovo / ZUK Phones (Qualcomm Models) : Easy Rom Flashing + Mega UNBRICK Guide appeared first on Gizmochina.

Rumors and leaks are not stopping about Samsung’s new “note” series Galaxy Note 7. Today we got a picture of a working phone, not from a prototype.

Note 7 will be launched on August 2 as we wrote here  “Samsung Galaxy Note 7 launching on 2nd August” and first leaks here “Galaxy Note 7 prototype images showing key details surface online“.

As we can see from pictures Note 7 will have “more” rounded corners then before. In addition, Note7 will enhance the function of the stylus through software improvements, the most important feature of Note series starting from the first model. According to previous reports,  Note 7’s  Bluetooth connectivity will enhance the performance of LE, so that the distance precision of the stylus will be improved. Also, Air Command function will be upgraded.

Galaxy Note 7 may come in 2 variants depending on the market regions. One with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 and another with home made Exynos chipset and 4GB/6GB RAM options won’t be a surprise either, as that configuration has become fashion lately. Plus expect a Dual Pixel camera as the Galaxy S7 Edge.

As for the additional “sensor” holes on top of the phone, we can’t be sure but rumors are that Galaxy Note 7 will have an iris/eye scanner for more security. But we can’t be sure about that until the official launch. Maybe dual camera setup in the front too?

What are your thoughts?

The post Real Pictures Of Working Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Leak! appeared first on Gizmochina.

Editor’s Note:

Gizmochina has been increasing its efforts providing you the latest smartphone news and reviews from China. But you probably want a lot more than just news. We understand that and hence, we are starting a new series on the website for our readers: Chinese Android ROOT/ ROM Flash/ UNBRICK / Tips & tricks tutorials. We hope that these step by step tutorials will come in handy for our readers from around the globe to flash new ROMs and unbrick their bricked smartphones safely. You can anytime comment below with questions, suggestions or requests and we (specifically OSMAN aka AndroidBrick who is our and your Pro Android tech guy) will try our best to answer these questions.

As you may guess from this article’s headline, our first guide will be to learn flashing global stable ROM to Xiaomi devices. Because of the nature of this method, this will be also an UNBRICK guide, and I will explain about this later in the article. The phone that we will working on in this guide is Xiaomi’s latest flagship Mi5.

STEP 1A:

Before we begin, for device drivers to install without a problem, and to install drivers that are not digitally signed, we are going to disable Windows driver enforcement. To do this :

1. Click the Start menu and select Settings.
2. Click Update and Security.
3. Click on Recovery.
4. Click Restart now under Advanced Startup.
5. Click Troubleshoot.
6. Click Advanced options.
7. Click Startup Settings.
8. Click on Restart.
9. On the Startup Settings screen press 7 or F7 to disable driver signature enforcement.

Your computer will restart and you will be able to install non-digitally signed drivers. Keep in mind that, if you restart your computer again the driver signature enforcement will be re-enabled.

STEP 1B:

Second, we need to install adb on our computers, and for that we will use a program called “adb setup“, thanks to Snoop05 from XDA-Developers, this will enable adb and fastboot commands to work on our systems. It will also install necessary adb drivers. There are many ways to do that but what is more important about Snoop05’s solution is that we can use adb and fastboot commands system-wide, this means our old “command prompt” will turn to accept this commands, and no need to work in the “adb” folder like we used to before.

STEP 1C:

Last step, before we begin our guide is to enable “USB debugging” on our phone. In this example, the Xiaomi Mi5. Talking about USB debugging, I strongly advice to all users out there, please do “enable” USB debugging as first thing and keep it that way, don’t turn it off. I am saying this so that you can avoid future problems. I mean in some bricks, this can be because of a wrong app setup, or it can be because of a false rooting way or even non-user related OTA update. Having USB debugging open is very crucial to rescue our phones from such disasters. Just keep this in mind, I will explain more in the future.

STEP 2:

On Xiaomi phones to enable USB debugging, go to settings> about phone, and click “MIUI version” couple of times till you see “you are a developer” message. Then back to settings>Additional settings>Developer opitons>USB debugging, click it and allow. Now its time to connect our phones to computer, plug the USB cable. Your system will install “adb” drivers. Now open command prompt and type :

“adb devices“

Look at your phone for the “Allow USB debugging?” message, select “Always allow from this computer” and click OK. If you forget to allow from phone, the command will return “unauthorized“, if OK you will see your phone as “device” and we are ready to start our guide.

This guide is for locked bootloaders, so no need to wait for the unlocking procedure to flash this official ROM. For unlocked bootloaders the method is almost the same, I’ll explain it too.

STEP 3:

Mi5 Global Stable MIUI 7.5.1.0

Xiaomi MiFlash Flashing Software

Let’s download those two. First link is our ROM, second is our Xiaomi’s Miflash FLASH tool. Before we install Miflash to our computer, open the command prompt and type this command :

“adb reboot edl”

This command will reboot our Mi5 to “Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader” mode, this is Qualcomm’s service port on most Snapdragon based phones. Your phone will be completely dark, so nothing will be seen on the screen, and this is very normal. Here, we will use this port to flash our ROM, and you may see this port in some “bricked” situations too — for instance, if you have accidently corrupted some important partitions. So as you may guess now, this method can be used for unbricking our Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Xiaomi Mi5s too. If you face that kind of brick you can use this guide to rescue your phone, you will just have to change the ROM, rest will be the same. For Xiaomi, rescue ROMs are called “fastboot” ROMS and you can find them under this link :

http://en.miui.com/a-234.html

In my computer, all drivers are installed. Your PC will have a new unknown device under device manager after you reboot your phone to EDL (emergency download mode). Ignore it and start to setup Miflash that you downloaded, Miflash will install necessary drivers to your system , so don’t forget to choose “Install this driver software anyway” option when it asks, twice, and after it finishes you will see a new port named Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 in your device manager too. The driver path will be “C:\Program Files (x86)\Xiaomi\MiPhone\Qualcomm\Driver”, in case you want/need to install your drivers again.

After you see your new EDL port, open the Miflash itself. Click “refresh” button and you’ll see your port there. Then click “Browse” and choose your downloaded ROM folder please (unzip it before you that). It will look like this :

As you can see in above picture, there are some options under the Miflash window. “Flash all“, “Flash all except storage” and “Flash all except data and storage“. If you want to wipe everything on your phone and do a clean flash choose first option, or if you want to keep your data in your storage (like pictures or What’s App folder etc), choose the second option. When you are ready click “flash” button.

It took 155 seconds for me to flash our new rom, this is my computer of course,  and I wonder how long it will take on your PCs. Let’s compare and leave a comment. You can ask anything you want in comments, I will try to answer them all. After you see “The operation completed successfully” under “Status” section press your phone’s power button and boot it up. If you unplug the USB cable before it finishes you will brick your phone !

But, remember what I told before, don’t panic, unbricking procedure is the same — just repeat all the above steps again.

NOTE: For unlocked bootloaders, every step is the same, except, you don’t need to boot your Xiaomi to EDL/Qualcomm HS-USB Qdloader 9008 mode,  just reboot your phone in “fastboot” mode while pressing “volume down -“ button while you are powering it. Then repeat Miflash steps again.

If you are in a bricked situation and you can’t boot your Xiaomi Mi5 except for fastboot mode — In this case, we have another fastboot command that will help us to unbrick our phone, just type this command in command prompt :

“fastboot oem edl”

Your phone will boot in EDL mode again, rest is the same as mentioned above.

Remember that I have told you to leave “USB debugging” on, no matter what? Let me explain it now. In case you bricked your phone and it does not boot normally, or in case your phone is stuck at the Mi logo and you don’t have “fastboot mode” either. Check your device manager for “ADB  Interface”. If it’s there, just use this guide, starting from “adb reboot edl” command step and rest is the same. Now you see why leaving USB debugging “on” is so important ? This little trick can save us our phone back in just 155 seconds !

You can use this method for every Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Xiaomi phone including your Redmi Note 3 Pro (SD) or Redmi 3 / Pro etc., except for the “fastboot oem edl” command, this command will only work on some new Xiaomi phones.

See you in the next “How To” article.

The post Xiaomi Phones (Qualcomm models): How To Flash Global Multilanguage ROM + Mega UNBRICK Guide appeared first on Gizmochina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvajwQfnDCk

Earlier teasers about the new brand from BBK “imoo learning phone” were not certain to describe its features. We knew that the youngest brand of the BBK family will come targeting education, therefore targeting students first. Other members of the family are Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus as we highlighted in this article. Now we know most of  the specs and why its called a learning phone for young students.

Lesson/subject synchronization, teacher consulting and parent safety (probably tracking of the children) are some info related about “student and school” relationship. Students can use the data-saving feature of imoo phone, thereby using less internet for their learning. They will also have the chance to track their schedule/lessons online from imoo.

Imoo looks like its big brother, Vivo V3Max in front. Back side of the phone is similar to the iPhone 6s except the hole between the camera and the flash. It could be a place for the laser focus in addition to some other feature, which we will know for sure after the official launch. What’s more interesting is that we can’t see any fingerprint scanner back or front and imoo may have thought that it’s not necessary for children.

RELATED: Company behind Vivo, OPPO, and OnePlus launches a new smartphone brand

The learning phone comes with a 5.5″ Full HD AMOLED  screen, equipped with MediaTek P10  eight-core 2GHz processor. 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM, 2930mAh battery, 13MP rear camera, 5MP selfie camera are the other specs of the phone as we know for now. It will have Android 6.0 out of the box measuring 158 x 78 x 7 mm and 154.5 gm.

We all know that Chinese students are a big community, following mobile technology very well. Most of them will probably want a new phone for the next school period and  parents might choose to buy imoo for their children because of the education oriented abilities of the new brand. Price for the imoo phone will be around 2000 Yuan – $300.

The post Imoo Learning Phone From BBK Is Here For Education, Features Revealed appeared first on Gizmochina.

Xiaomi seems to be releasing new Redmi models every few months. In June, the company unveiled two new Redmi models, the Redmi 3S and the Redmi 3X (carrier version of the 3S). Now, we might have just spotted two more Redmi variants.

Two new models with code numbers 2,016,020 and 2,016,021 are seen at National Quality Certification Center’s website in China. Both are equipped with 5V/2A charger specifications and dated for 29th June. Judging this info, we might say these are probably the new Redmi series models, or maybe new variants of the Xiaomi Max series with 2GB RAM options.

For now, there is no announcement from Xiaomi about these phones, let’s see what will come up in the next days.

RELATED:

Over 100 million shipments for Xiaomi’s Redmi series. 

The post Two New Xiaomi Models Spotted, New Redmis Coming ? appeared first on Gizmochina.