Huawei had unveiled the Nova and Nova Plus range of smartphones at IFA Berlin 2016 with both models boasting of mid-range specs. Also both smartphones were billed to enter into the market globally this October but before that will happen, Huawei has now launched a 4GB RAM version of the Huawei Nova (CAZ-AL10) yesterday in China.
The Huawei Nova earlier released comes in silver, gray or gold color variants, adorning a beautiful design and just like the Nova Plus, was launched with just 3GB RAM onboard. The launch of a 4GB RAM variant, even before the device hits store shelves could be seen as a major tweaking to give the mid-range device more competitiveness. Apart from the RAM upgrade, the new version of the Huawei Nova (CAZ-AL10) now comes with support for LTE-A carrier aggregation on supported Chinese carriers, having the ability to deliver download speed of up to 300Mbps. In addition, the device comes in white and black color variants only which clearly distinguishes it from the 3GB RAM version. The device is already up for purchase in China.
To recall, the Huawei Nova sports a 5-inch IPS display with 1080 pixel resolution and is powered by an Octa-core 2GHz Snapdragon 625 processor, with 32GB of built-in storage which can be expanded further than that via microSD up to 128GB. There’s also a beautifully designed 12MP main camera at the rear with LED flash and f/2.2 aperture, and an 8MP selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture up front.
Furthermore, the Huawei Nova runs on Huawei’s custom Emotion UI 4.1 (EMUI 4.1) based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow bringing along several of Huawei’s UI features, like slow-motion modes, light painting, time-lapse. Huawei also updated the night display feature that filters blue light from the screen. There is also a 3,020mAh battery inside the device which Huawei claims drains so slowly that it can last for two days of consistent usage. Added to all these include a fingerprint sensor, USB Type-C data transfer and charging port, Cat 6 LTE radio, dual-SIM slots etc.
Last week wasn’t as busy as usual, mainly because of the National Day holidays in China. Still there were a few interesting articles that we reported during the period, with the major focus on upcoming phones like Xiaomi Mi Note 2 and OPPO R9S. Google was busy the previous week, all thanks to the two new Pixel phone launches. There was a story on the Mate 9 as well. Sharp also made the headlines past week, all thanks to its 1000 ppi display and the Corner R concept bezel-less phone.
In case you missed out on the hot stories from last week, they are given below. We also reviewed a few interesting products, including the Xiaomi Yeelight strip. Note that the top reviews are posted after the top news articles.
Just a few weeks after the launch of the Xiaomi Mi 5s and Mi 5s Plus, pictures of a new Xiaomi phone have leaked online. The new phone which features an all-metal black body is said to be a new Redmi phone, though some say it might be the Xiaomi Mi 5c.
The front of the phone is fitted with a 2.5D glass and appears to feature the same fingerprint groove as the Mi 5s which means it may come with an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner.
The back has a dual tone black coating with the top part that houses the camera, LED flash, and the antenna; and the lower part, having a darker shade of black compared to the rest of the body. .The camera is placed at the top left corner of the phone beside the flash. The phone keeps the power button and volume rocker on the left like all the new Xiaomi phones.
One of the images leaked includes the about phone section of the phone. There’s 3GB of RAM on board, 64GB of storage, and an octa-core processor clocked at 2.2GHz. It’s also running Android Marshmallow 6.0 based on MIUI 8. The funny thing about the image is the security patch which is dated December 2015 which is pretty old. The page also lists that the phone supports VoLTE.
The images were posted on Weibo by a user whose account name translates to @jumping cute tiger with an accompanying text saying it’s a new Redmi phone with a Mediatek Helio P20 chip and 3GB of RAM priced like the Mi 5s.
The base version of the Xiaomi Mi 5s starts at 1999 Yuan ($300) and features a Snapdragon 821 processor. No one will pick a phone with a Helio P20 phone over a Snapdragon 821 phone selling at the same price. So we want to believe that price is just a wild guess.
According to analyst, Pan Jiutang, he thinks since the OnePlus 3 is running out of stock due to low supply of AMOLED displays, buyers should rather wait for a new phone called the OnePlus 3S. It appears the OnePlus 3S will have a LCD display and hence wouldn’t suffer from supply issues.
While the info hasn’t been confirmed yet, we can’t rule out the possibility of that happening as a shortage will cause buyers to consider other options.
Another source, Liuzuo Hu, had earlier reported on the release of a phone called the OnePlus 3S but the question is if the only change coming to the phone is the change in display. OnePlus may decide to also include the new Snapdragon 821 processor and retain all the other features.
Until OnePlus confirms this, please take this with a grain of salt.
The Huawei Mate 9 is one of the most anticipated phones from Huawei before the year runs out and for several weeks now we’ve been getting tons of leaks. Today is no different, as new details of the flagship emerge.
The main detail consumers want to know about is the dual camera setup on the Mate 9. A previous leak revealed that the phone will feature 20MP dual cameras supplied by Leica, but the latest leak says it will be a 20MP and 12MP combo. This means that it’s either the official poster leaked online in the article is a fake or this new detail isn’t true as well. The info which was posted on Weibo also mentions that the front shooter will be an 8 megapixel sensor.
OPPO has sent out invitations for the official launch of the OPPO R9s. The invitation lists the date as the 19th of October for the release of the R9 successor.
Like its sibling, the R9s will focus on camera performance and the invitation reveals that the phone will be the first in the world to sport Sony’s new IMX398 sensor. OPPO is still keeping the details of the camera under wraps but a source says it is a 16MP dual-pixel camera combo on the front and rear with a f/1.7 aperture.
The OPPO R9s is also expected to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor, a 3010mAh battery with VOOC fast charge, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage.
Zopo has one budget device that is called Hero 2. It costs around $70 but it has some nice features like a metal trim and fingerprint sensor. Learn more in our full review.
In the box, you are getting all the usual stuff and some extras include a high-quality screen protector.
Zopo Hero 2 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
The key design elements of this phone is a metal trim and tactile metal buttons and a vinyl-like textured back cover.
In fact, the backplate can be easily removed to access a 2300mAh battery, two SIM card slots and the microSD card slot.
We have a 5.5” 720p display, which is okay but I’ve seen a bit higher quality panels even on the cheapest phones. My main concern is a slightly blueish tint.
There is no notification LED light and the capacitive buttons are not backlit but we have a front facing LED flash for night selfies. However, it is just a gimmick as it does not really help in the dark.
As for camera, we have just an 8MP shooter. The fingerprint sensor is not the fastest I’ve seen but it is pretty accurate.
The loudspeaker is like on most of the cheap phones – the sound is flat.
Zopo Hero 2 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
The phone ships with a quad-core MTK6737 chip, 16GB of storage but it has only 1GB of RAM, which is kind of disappointing.
The 3D gaming performance is kind of a letdown. You should expect quite a bit of stutter when playing intensive games like Asphalt 8 on medium graphics.
Zopo Hero 2 Review: BENCHMARKS
Zopo Hero 2 Review: USER INTERFACE
The phone runs on Android 6.0 with a light Zopo’s skin on top of it. That means that some icons are redesigned and there are some extras features like gesture and motion controls. Some of them work great while others are kind of slow to respond.
I didn’t have any major lags or hiccups even after installing quite a few apps and I believe this is the most important thing for a cheap phone.
Zopo Hero 2 Review: IMAGE QUALITY
In general, an 8MP camera does not really impress but it is pretty good for the price of the phone. You may get some images usable for social media but don’t expect any stellar results.
Same can be said about 720p video quality.
The selfie camera is just mediocre as the images come out soft and with lots of noise.
Zopo Hero 2 Review: CONNECTIVITY
I didn’t have any connectivity issues and even the GPS lock speeds and accuracy were okay.
Zopo Hero 2 Review: BATTERY LIFE
The 2300mAh battery will get you through only if you are a light user. With my usage, I could get just around 3 hours of screen-on time, which is just an average result.
Zopo Hero 2 Review: CONCLUSIONS
Zopo Hero 2 is yet another cheap phone from China that aims to bring a lot of value to the table. It succeeds in quite a few ways as it has a decent design and build, the user interface that performs fast and the phone does not have major shortcomings.
However, the display has a bluish tint, the 3D gaming performance is mediocre, there is no notification LED light, capacitive buttons are not backlit and the battery life is just mediocre. Still, Zopo Hero 2 is a decent phone for the price but if you are in the market of cheap phones, you may also want to consider some other options available. Anyway, most of the cheap phones share the same pros and cons.
Xiaomi’s Mijia has something new coming on October 11 and from the teaser image, appears to have been inspired by a dragonfly. The poster’s theme even loosely translates to ”feel the dragonfly’s eyesight”.
The image which was posted on Weibo is accompanied with a brief explanation of how the eyes of a dragonfly works. Insects generally have multifaceted eyes. The housefly for example has 6,000 eye facets but the dragonfly more than quadruples it with 30,000 eye facets. Research has shown that dragonflies have one of the most advanced eyes in the Animal kingdom allowing them to even see ultraviolet rays. A dragonfly also has a near 360° view making it difficult to catch. See the video below.
This is where the guess comes in. Some people already think Xiaomi plans to launch a new camera with a 360° panoramic view and 240 fps slow-motion capability. If we look at it another way, we can also guess that it might be a drone as well with a camera with the above features.
The OnePlus 3 is one of the best bang for the buck phones out there. Apart from the amazing specs and great price, software support is also very good. But according to analyst Pan Jiutang, it seems the phone is suffering from low stock again.
A few months ago, OnePlus had to suspend sales in 24 countries to build up inventory. Pan Jiutang says the low stock is due to supplies of AMOLED displays running low. The Chinese Golden Week holiday which ran from 1st of October to 7th of October may probably have added to the low number of available units as production facilities would have gone on break.
This low inventory appears to have affected a store in Canada which I believe is pictured below closed.
Quite a number of people want to get their hands on the OnePlus 3. Some people have even started shopping for the holidays. And with Thanksgiving and Black Friday less than 2 months away, OnePlus better stock up on the phone pretty fast.
Featuring a 5.5” Optic AMOLED screen, a snapdragon 820 chip, 6GB of RAM, 64GB of built-in storage, 16MP rear camera, 8MP front shooter, and a 3000mAh battery (that doesn’t explode) with an amazing fast charge technology all for $400, the OnePlus 3 is hard to beat.
Update: Although it is out of stock in Oneplus official shop, but it is available at Oppomart.
Nokia’s first foray into making android smartphones didn’t go well but the company seems to be taking another shot. Now that the 2-year deal (with Microsoft) preventing the release of phones bearing the Nokia name has ended, it is not surprising for us to hear about a new Nokia phone. We first reported that the Nokia D1C was found on GeekBench last week, this time around it has made its way to Antutu.
Antutu confirms the details we saw last week on GeekBench but reveals a little more. The D1C runs Android 7.0, comes with a Snapdragon 430 processor, an Adreno 505 GPU, and has 3GB of RAM. The screen size is unknown but the resolution is 1920 x 1080.
The phone’s built-in storage is also revealed to be 32GB. We also get to know the camera configuration. There is a 13 megapixel shooter on the back and an 8 megapixel camera in front for selfies.
OPPO’s R9 is one of the phone maker’s best selling phones till date. The phone has sold over 7 million units since its launch this year but the company thinks it’s time to release an upgrade in form of the OPPO R9s.
OPPO posted a teaser image with a large ”S” in gold on Weibo with the tag line ”Share the Moment”. The tag line hints at the OPPO R9s being a camera-centric device just like its sibling.
The R9s is said to have gotten its National 3C certification already and is expected to launch soon in less than a month. The phone has been reported to feature a camera with a large f/1.7 aperture, a snapdragon 625 chip and will support a 5V/4A VOOC fast charge technology.
We have reviewed quite a few phones made by Oukitel and most of them have been great devices for the price. The company is about to release a brand new U15 Pro model soon and it seems like a pretty nice-looking budget device.
First of all, the Oukitel U15 Pro is made entirely of metal and it sports a similar design to the Meizu MX5.
It claims to use the aircraft-grade aluminum. We are not sure about that since we have not tested the phone yet but at least Oukitel feels quite confident about the build quality of their new smartphone.
The phone sports pretty good specs for the price. That includes a Mediatek MTK6753 chip (1.3GHz), 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage.
Usually, cheap phones do not sport the best cameras and we do not expect any stellar results from the U15. Nevertheless, the device sports a pretty powerful setup on paper – a 16MP camera coupled with a dual LED flash.
All in all, Oukitel U15 shapes up to be a pretty nice phone for the price. The phone will retail for $139.99 when it goes on sale in November but you can now pre-order it for just $119.99 from Everbuying.net, which sounds like a pretty good deal considering the overall package of this phone.
We have reviewed quite a few Blackview phones this year and the E7 is one of their latest budget offerings. The phone costs just $67, it has a decent design and more. Learn more in our full review.
The phone ships with all the usual stuff and some extras include a soft TPU case and a pair of earphones.
Blackview E7 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY
For just $67, the Blackview E7 is actually a pretty nice-looking phone. Although it does not use any premium materials like metal or glass in the construction, it is well-built.
We have a 5.5” display, which is only 720p but it is plenty sharp for the daily use. Unfortunately, we don’t have neither notification LED light nor backlit capacitive buttons.
There is only an 8MP camera on the back but we have a fingerprint sensor, which is not the fastest I’ve seen but it gets the job done.
The backplate can be easily removed to access a 2700mAh battery, two SIM card slots and the microSD card slot.
The loudspeaker is like on most of the cheap phones – the sound is flat.
Blackview E7 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
The Blackview E7 sports some pretty good specs for the price. The phone ships with a quad-core MTK6737 chip, 16GB of storage but it has only 1GB of RAM, which is kind of disappointing.
On the other hand, the gaming performance is pretty good. You should be able to run most of the 2D games and 3D games like Asphalt 8 on the medium graphics. However, you should expect quite a bit of stutter and skipped frames.
Blackview E7 Review: BENCHMARKS
Blackview E7 Review: USER INTERFACE
The phone runs on Android 6.0 with the Blackview’s skin on top of it. That means that there is no app tray but we have a few extra features like a bunch of gesture and motion controls. Some of them work great while others are kind of slow to respond.
I didn’t have any major lags or hiccups even after installing quite a few apps and I believe this is the most important thing for a cheap phone.
Blackview E7 Review: IMAGE QUALITY
An 8MP camera does not really impress as we’ve seen some better-performing shooters on the cheap phones. Nevertheless, you may get some images usable for social media but don’t expect any stellar results.
Same can be said about 720p video quality. See a video review for the video sample.
The selfie camera is just mediocre as the images come out soft and with lots of noise.
Blackview E7 Review: CONNECTIVITY
I didn’t have any connectivity issues and even the GPS lock speeds and accuracy were okay.
Blackview E7 Review: BATTERY LIFE
The 2700mAh battery will get you through the day quite easily. With my usage, I could get around 4 hours of screen-on time, which is a decent result for a cheap phone.
Blackview E7 Review: CONCLUSIONS
The Blackview E7 is a pretty nice phone for just $67. It is pretty fast on the daily basis, it has a decent design and some extra features like a fingerprint sensor. However, it lacks premium materials in the design, it has just 1GB of RAM and it lacks notification LED light and backlit capacitive buttons. Still, the Blackview E7 is a good phone for the price but you have to consider if these shortcomings are important to you or not.
Vivo, one of the sub-brands of BBK Electronics has had a strong ranking among domestic Chinese phone manufacturers this year. Quarterly rankings by research firms like IDC and TrendForce for Q2 2016 had placed the company among the top three in terms of highest phone shipments, alongside market leader Huawei and OPPO (another BBK brand). Now it has been revealed by a Weibo user that the company will gross a total of about 70 million in phone shipments this year.
According to the Weibo user, the innovative brand is targeting a figure in the range of 90 million to 100 million phone shipments next year. In the same vein, industry analyst Sun Changxu projects that Vivo’s phone sales could even clock up to 75 million units before the end of the year.
Vivo had broke into the top three tier for the Q2 2016 through its agressive phone sales using offline sales channels. The company also released a number of top notch devices this year such as the Vivo Xplay5, X5, X6 and X6 Plus, X6S and very recently the X7 and X7 Plus high-end smartphones. According to well-known industry analyst Pan Juitang, Vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi and Huawei are all expected to launch new smartphones by the end of October to crown up their sales for 2016.
Xiaomi released the two flagship phones, the Xiaomi Mi 5S and the Xiaomi Mi 5S Plus just a week back, however, rumors about new models continue to come in. Earlier today, new images of a Mi smartphone, most likely the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 surfaced on Weibo, revealing a different design than what we had seen for the phone. Some say that it could be the Mi 6 flagship, but it is a bit too early for even the prototypes to emerge, given that the Mi 5S was just launched.
So, we are assuming this is the upcoming Mi Note 2 phone. The design is different, in the sense, the corners are rounder than other Xiaomi flagships and the overall look of the device is unique to the company’s smartphone lineup. Apart from the Mi logo on the back of the phone, there’s nothing else to confirm that this is a Xiaomi smartphone.
What’s interesting about the phone is that it features a curved screen design. While we can’t verify whether it’s a dual curved edge display or just a normal 2.5D curved display, the front for sure looks good. Further, you have the oblong home button below the display, like the Mi 5 which should come with a fingerprint sensor embedded into it.
Other specs of the Mi Note 2 are expected to be very high-end, much better than the Mi 5S as well. You can read more about that from here.
Earlier this year, 360 Mobiles released two impressive smartphones 360 N4 and F4 boasting of beautiful designs and cool specs. The company is also rumored to be working on a higher version of the 360 N4 which is tagged 360 N4S, expected to be released in no distant time.
The 360 N4S is tipped to come in two versions with one bearing a Deca-core Helio X20 processor and the other said to be equipped with the Snapdragon 625 chipset. The N4S was hitherto thought to be different from the N4 only in the larger 5,000mAh battery it is expected to have on-board but these latest leaks seem to indicate some differences in the processor as well as memory. We had earlier spotted a leak which revealed a 6GB RAM version but this new leak gives the N4S as coming with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage alongside a 64-bit Octa-core Snapdragon 625 chipset.
The 360 N4S is also said to feature a 5.5-inch 1080p In-Cell LCD display with a 1.7mm narrow bezel and 2.5D curved glass. The device is said to adopt a body design manufactured from aluminum-magnesium alloy using nano injection and full CNC process. The N4S comes in streamer gold, sky gray and sun white color variants and is said to weigh 169g, with a thickness of 8.3mm. The device is also said to have a 3GB RAM and 32GB built-in storage version, a 16MP rear camera with PDAF and 8MP front-facing camera. The 5000mAh battery is also said to come with support for turbo charge technology which is touted as capable of charging the phone from zero to full battery capacity in just two hours
Reports have emerged that Taiwanese company Foxconn is planning its own line of smartphones and it is going to sell it in one of Apple’s hottest market, Japan. If you don’t know, this isn’t Foxconn’s first foray outside contract manufacturing, as the company has a entry-level/mid-range phone line known as InFocus which it manufactures and sells mainly in the Asian market.
Foxconn which employs over one million persons in its numerous plants, is probably better known as the company that manufactures the Apple iPhones along side a host of contract manufacturing it does. But the company is making a bold move in trying to introduce entry-level and mid-range smartphones in Japan with a heavier market push. The report carried by DigiTimes didn’t mention any detail regarding the description or features of the smartphones but disclosed that the release will be done through Foxconn’s sudsidiary Sharp and would commence in the first quarter of 2017.
Foxconn acquired Sharp around March this year for 389 billion yen ($3.5 billion) and it is believed the company will likely sell the smartphone using the Sharp brand which is quite popular in Japan. The move could offset Sharp’s Aquos line of devices which covers the high-end market in Japan with a space left open for entry-level and mid-range consumer devices.
Foxconn’s other subsidiary FIH Mobile purchased Microsoft’s feature phone business earlier this year for $350 million and looks set to release its first Android phone under the Nokia brand name.
Kodak has teased a poster on its website that suggests the company would likely be launching a new smartphone on October 20. The teaser first appeared in a tweet on Twitter which was quickly taken down but it is now on the Kodak phones official website. The poster contains the expected launch date and a shot of what is likely the side view of the device. The view we were gifted reveals what is likely the round-shaped power button with the Kodak logo engraved on it. The button seem to be engraved inside the side bezels of the phone and a part of the flat display screen is visible.
The Eastman Kodak company, also known as Kodak held sway as a photography giant way before the digital era. The company came to the party very late in the ear of digital cameras thereby struggled without success to meet up with new competitors like Fujifilm and others. Since then, the company has been trying out its hands on various ventures including the manufacture of printers. Just last year, Kodak ventured into the smartphone business with the release of the Kodak IM5, a mid-ranger with a $249 price tag.
Kodak IM5
The IM5 was manufactured by Bullitt (known for making rugged CAT-branded smartphones), and came in as a mid-range device running Android 4.4 KitKat reputed as having a “custom built, intuitive user interface.” The IM5 packs a 13MP rear camera that’s aided by unique image management software which Kodak says helps users take, store, share and print photos. There’s also a 5MP camera on the front. The device also sports a 5-inch 720p display and featured an octa-core MediaTek processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal memory, and microSD card support. The Kodak IM5 further features a dedicated app store with hand-picked selection of app, in addition to access to Google Play Store.
Unfortunately, the reception in the saturated smartphone market was a cold one for the company and its IM5 but that certainly has not deterred the photography legend and we just hope this new device holds the magic wand to give the company an in-road into the phone market. October 20 is the date but you don’t need to mark that on your calendar, as always we’ll keep you up-to-date here at Gizmochina.
How about Snapdragon 821 for 299$ ? 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 🙂
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.
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$, it surely deserves this money. But I must remind you this version has only 3GB Ram and Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 clocked at 1.8Ghz, not at 2.15 like others, will you feel it as less performance in daily use ? No, you will not, only less Antutu score that’s all, but why Xiaomi reduces clock speed ? To make higher models more attractive ? But it does not. Just make all the clock speeds same and the ram to 4GB in all Mi5 models, it will be easier to sell.
Our final model and most powerful model as CPU and GPU power because it has a Snapdragon 821 onboard. Higher clocks of 820 give us about 20K more Antutu score. But, like I always say, scores are not the first key point when you want to buy a smartphone. Talking about LeEco Le Pro 3 it’s not just CPU power, the new model of the firm finally has one of the best cameras, Sony IMX298, finally has enough battery power 4070 mAh, much better comparing to Le Max 2’s 3100 Mah, 2.5D glass on top, which gives a much better look and feel, a new brushed metal body and all this in 7.5mm thickness, for just 299$ ! 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 ?
If you are looking for a phone that has decent specs and performance, it is always worth checking out some older models since they are still pretty good but the prices have dropped significantly. We just came across the Lenovo ZUK Z1 that we have reviewed last year. Now Everbuying.net has it on sale and you can get even a better discount if you use our coupon code that you will find at the end of the article.
The ZUK Z1 is a pretty large (or just a normal phone according to today’s standards) phone due to its 5.5″ 1080p display. The highlights on the front are a super fast and accurate fingerprint sensor and a highly customisable notification LED light.
The backplate is made of matt plastic and it is nice to the touch. As far as optics, there is a 13MP Sony camera, which is also optically stabilised and it has a dual LED flash.
When it comes to the processing power, the ZUK Z1 uses a quad-core Snapdragon 801 with the 2.5Ghz clock speeds, 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage as a base model. Some may say Snapdragon 801 is already an old chip and yes, it has already shown its age due to the mainstream transition to the 64-bit chips. However, this is still a capable processor that can easily handle everyday tasks and even some of the 3D games. During our testing at the time of the review, Asphalt 8 ran like a champ even on the highest graphics settings.
In addition, we still remember the ZUK Z1 as one of the fastest phones we’ve ever tested when it comes to the daily use. Opening/closing apps, scrolling through the menus is just blazing fast.
Lastly, the phone is powered by a beefy 4100mAh battery. As it has been already revealed by our full review, you can reach almost 7 hours of screen-on time, which is a fantastic result.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
To recall, the Huawei Nova sports a 5-inch IPS display with 1080 pixel resolution and is powered by an Octa-core 2GHz Snapdragon 625 processor, with 32GB of built-in storage which can be expanded further than that via microSD up to 128GB. There’s also a beautifully designed 12MP main camera at the rear with LED flash and f/2.2 aperture, and an 8MP selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture up front.
