Elephone has launched its latest 3G smartphone Elephone Q

By

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Sep 25, 2015

Elephone has launched its latest 3G smartphone, the MT6572W Dual Core 3G GPS Mini Phone. This phone is an improvement of its predecessor such as Kitkat 4.4 OS, stronger body, longer battery life, high resolution screen, and so on. The white color body gives the phone an executive look.

The Elephone MT6572W comes with a strong body with smooth rounded corners and edges. The finishing is matte finish with non-grease coating. The volume control is located on left hand side and the power button is located on the right side of the phone for easy operation. It also has a 3.5mm audio out port, through which you can enjoy listening to your favorite songs. The phone is light weight and slim and features a 2.45 inch TFT display with capacitive touch screen and 240 x 432 pixels. On the rear side, you have the 2.0 MP camera with LED flash light, capable of taking clear photographs even at low lights. The front side has 0.3 MP camera for taking selfies. You can also take excellent quality videos through the cameras.

Elephone MT6572W comes with the dual core processor MTK6572W which can clock speed more than 1.0GHz, thereby enabling you do multitasking at the same time without any lagging. The inbuilt 512 MB RAM in combination with the dual core processor makes the experience of using this smart phone a pleasure. This comes with an inbuilt 4 GB inbuilt ROM, for storing lots and lots of data. The phone also comes with an extended storage slot, which can house a 32 GB micro SD card. It also features 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS.

Elephone MT6572W comes with inbuilt 50 languages, so the phone is ready to be shipped worldwide. The battery that comes with this Elephone MT6572W, is powerful 550mAh battery, which has enough juice to make the phone usage for long periods without charging.

Buy Elephone Q from geekbuying.com

Elephone M1, M2 and Vowney now online

By

shanos

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Sep 25, 2015

Product pages are now up on Elephone’s site for the Elephone M1, Elephone M2 and the Vowney

Why not head over now and take a look, let us know which one takes your fancy, there should be something to suit everyone.

Please leave comments below

Regards Shane

Originally posted at gadgetz.tv

Elephone M1

Elephone M2

Elephone Vowney

Android Wear ELE Watch more specs revealed

By

shanos

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Sep 25, 2015

Elephone are soon to be joining the many other Chinese companies that have jumped on the smart watch bandwagon, many of the watches from other companies have concentrated on providing heart rate and sedentary monitoring capabilities as well as bluetooth call notification and the ability to use the watch as a Mic/speaker.

Whilst these watches have generally been fairly cheap, they have also been sadly lacking Google’s Android Wear platform, this has left them with only basic apps and no real chance of being more than they are.

With the ELE Watch, the first Android Wear smartwatch from Elephone, they are jumping in to the ring with the big boys such as Motorolla, Lg and samsung and to some extent Apple.

Style wise the ELE watch looks fairly attractive and has a 1.5″ 320 x 320 multi touch screen (The Motorola has a 1.56′ 320 x 290 multitouch screen ), unlike the round watches seen from Motorola, the Ele Watch has a full face screen (not flat tyre for this phone), the case looks to be made of stainless steel as does the strap.

On board the phone you will find 512m of ram and 4gb of ram this is the same as found on the Motorola, which should prove to be more than adequate for a smartwatch.

The phone has also been tested and rated at IP67 dust and water resistant and has built in GPS.

Hopefully when launched, this will be the catalyst that sees other China phone/watch companies embrace Android Wear and drive prices down and quality/features up.

What do you think? are you ready for some Android Wear love? or will you be holding out for an Apple Watch?

Please leave comments below

Regards Shane

Originally posted at gadgetz.tv

Click here for a range of smart watches

Cubot Enters Into Partnership With Cheetah Mobile

By

Joel Joseph

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Sep 25, 2015

Cubot has made an alliance with Cheetah Mobile to further develop their existence in the European market. Cheetah is the developer of popular mobile apps like Clean Master, Battery doctor and CM Browser. Cheetah’s Clean Master software has 20 million loyal users in Europe, and Cheetah was officially listed in the New York Stock Exchange in August 2014 as CMCM.

The Cubot Cheetah alliance is expected to go fully operational by pre-installing the Clean Master app on Cubot’s new smartphone X15 in the near future. This will be the first collaboration between the two parties to establish a long term business relations. And Cubot also has a certain influence on the European mobile phone market. Especially in Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, Cubot has an important market hold in local consumers with very good reputation.

Making Clean Master a core product in the X15 is expected to bring strategic business results from its worldwide acceptance. According to internationally renowned mobile application analytics company Distimo Statistics, Cheetah’s clean up master ranked first in 62 countries on the Google Play tool chart in June 2014. As of August 18, 2014, Clean Master has been rated 4.7 from more than 13 million user reviews in Google Play. This score is more than what Google Maps, Facebook and other highest rated apps have achieved.

It is obvious that the two companies have different scopes, because Cheetah is a leader in the Internet industry while Cubot is electronic manufacturer focusing on smart devices. Even if the two companies come from different backgrounds, this collaboration will bring a more mature and meticulous user experience to the western market of mobile phone users.

So what do you think about the collaboration?

The Super Cheap Bluboo Xfire’s 8MP OV Camera Does Well Against The iPhone 6

By

Joel Joseph

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Sep 25, 2015

Just yesterday we covered an article about the Bluboo XFire which aimed to be the cheapest MT6735 quad-core chip powered smartphone in the world. While the company is yet to announce an official price tag for the phone, you can expect it to retail somewhere around $70 which is an excellent price for the specs that comes with the device.

While we were impressed with the chipset as well as the 2750mAh battery on the device ( at least on paper), today the company has released a few images captured using the phone’s 8MP camera. The rear camera module is made up of an 8MP OV sensor with f/2.0 aperture and 5p lens. The company reportedly invested about 3500 hours of debugging to make sure that the camera software was perfect.

All this sounds good, but is it any good in real life? Well, the company has released a set of pictures that’s directly compared with the iPhone 6. Apple iPhone cameras have always been praised for their stellar rear cameras, and comparing the phone’s images with the iPhone 6 will reveal the true capability of the camera.

From the images, we can see that the Bluboo’s camera performance turned out to be quite good. The images came out clear and sharp, with minimum noise. Of course, its not as good as the iPhone 6, but its still good as compared to competitors.

Of course, these images are directly released by the company. Hence, we would advise you not to get too excited. Many a times, the actual performance of the device turns out to be disappointing, so lets wait for an official review of the phone to see whether it lives up to our expectation.

You can check out the comparison from down below. The one on the left is the iPhone 6 sample and the one of the right is from the Bluboo Xfire.

Zeaplus Watch K18 Specs & Pictures Revealed, Looks Promising

By

Joel Joseph

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Sep 25, 2015

Zeaplus recently teased a new circular smartwatch called as the Zeaplus Watch K18. Now, the company has revealed further details as well as pictures of the new watch.

The Zeaplus Watch K18 comes with a 1.4-inch AMOLED display with 400 x 400 pixel resolution. That’s pretty good for a compact circular smartwatch. The watch will be powered by a Mediatek chipset clocked at 1.2GHz. We still don’t know the exact model of the chip. Along with the processor, the Zeaplus Watch K18 features 512MB RAM and 4GB of internal storage.

Other interesting features of the new Zeaplus watch includes heart rate sensor, pedometer and even support for a SIM card. Yes, it comes with a SIM card slot, so you can receive calls, messages etc directly on your smartwatch once the SIM card is inserted into the device.

As we specified in the previous article, the Zeaplus Watch K18 comes with Android OS on board. This is the real Android OS optimized for wearables and not the Android Wear platform. The company is calling it the ZOS and the UI will be based on Android 4.4 Kitkat. Like our readers suggested, this may not be the first Android based smartwatch, but it will still be interesting to see how the local startup manufacturer optimizes it on the new wearable.

From the images that you can see above, the watch does look pretty good. The round face and the casing gives it a premium look. Hopefully, we will get our hands on the device real soon for review.

Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 Coming This Year, Mi Laptop Only By 2016

By

Joel Joseph

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Sep 24, 2015

Xiaomi announced a lot of new products this year in various segments like smartphones, headphones, smart home products etc. While it may seem that now the company is all done for the year, the next few months are going to be even more exciting. In the smartphone lineup, Xiaomi is expected to announce its flagship model, the Xiaomi Mi5. But the announcement may not just end there, as there are other products like a new Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 as well as a Xiaomi laptop that’s coming soon.

While we wait for official details on these products, Pan Jiutang, a leading analyst from China revealed a few more details about the possible release times of these products earlier today. According to him, the Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 should definitely launch sometime before the end of this year. On the other hand, the much anticipated Xiaomi Mi5 flagship may or may not be announced this year. What’s likely to affect the release date is the mass production of the Snapdragon 820 chip. So, it looks like he expects the new model to come with Qualcomm’s latest chipset.

As for the Xiaomi Laptop, a report from a couple of days back said that the phone will enter into production soon, with the first batch of units to be shipped sometime in the first half of 2016. So, today’s comments from Jiutang only confirms this report.

We would really like to see a new flagship handset from Xiaomi this year, as recently most of the releases have focused on the low-end (Redmi Note 2) or the mid-range market (Mi4i). The only high-end smartphones that were announced this year were near the start. So, fans would love to see a new Xiaomi flagship device like the Mi5 before the end of this year. But Jiutang adds that this will depend on the supply of the Snapdragon 820. And from a previous report, it looks like first 820 powered phones will be available only by Q1 2016. So don’t keep your hopes too high.

But its not really a bad thing, as 2016 will turn out to be an eventful year for Xiaomi fans. We will most likely see the new Mi5 flagship as well as the company’s first laptop debut around the same time. It is said that the laptop will use revolutionary design, unlike its competitors, so we are all the more excited to see what the company has in store for us.

We will try to bring as much news about these new products in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: Yes, Please

By

Linus

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Sep 24, 2015

Here on Gizmochina.com we have a lot of readers who are looking for Chinese phones not only because they love Chinese tech, but also they want to find a phone that is the best bang for the buck. Naturally, Xiaomi is the company that comes to their minds and this time around we are taking a look at the highly anticipated Xiaomi Redmi Note 2.

We wanted to thank Giztop.com for sending the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 for a review and we suggest you visiting the Giztop product page.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: VIDEO REVIEW

[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpPOTiapj1U[/embedyt]

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 vs Meizu M2 Note:

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: UNBOXING

The Redmi Note 2 comes in a plain box and all you are getting is the micro USB cable, a power plug and some documentation.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: DESIGN

The phone has a very similar design to the previously released Xiaomi Mi4i and I suggest you checking out the Xiaomi Mi4i full review as well.

It is made of quality matt plastic and the phone is very comfortable to hold in the hand. However, the back cover makes a few wobbling noises when pressed and this tells that the Redmi Note 2 is a budget device after all. Nevertheless, it is nothing to be worried about and the build quality is good.

On the front top side we have a 5MP snapper, earpiece, proximity sensor and a highly customisable LED light.

On the bottom there are 3 capacitive keys, which also have a nice backlight.

On the back we have a 13MP shooter along with a single LED flash and on the bottom there is a speaker grill.

On the right there is a volume rocker and a power key. They have a good tactile response but feel a bit plasticky.

On the top we have a headset jack, noise cancelling mic and yeah, there is the IR blaster on the budget phone!

On the bottom there is a micro USB port and the main mic.

The backplate is easy to remove and underneath it you can find a swappable 3060Ah battery, 2 micro SIM card slots and the microSD card slot for storage expansion.

Overall, the Redmi Note 2 is a nice looking phone and it is well built device for such a low price. The only shortcoming is the small crackling noise once you press the back cover or the sides of the phone a bit harder but it is far from the deal breaker to me.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: DISPLAY

The phone is not the smallest one due to its 5,5” display. I honestly believe that this is one of the best panels we’ve seen on a budget phone as the display is bright, sharp, vivid and has great viewing angles. In short, you would never think this is a cheap panel used to reduce the cost of the device.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: USER INTERFACE

The phone runs on MIUI 6, which is built on top of Android 5.0 Lolipop. If you are familiar with the MIUI, it has tons of features, settings, customisation options and it is just so much different than the stock Android.

You can select from thousands of themes available online. Also, you can change wallpapers, fonts, transitions, animations and so on.

Pressing a menu key brings a recent apps tray where you can swipe them up to close or swipe down to lock.

Swiping down anywhere on the screen opens up the notifications menu and if you swipe left you go to the quick toggles menu, which is also customisable.

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Other features worth mentioning are the ability to customise the notification LED light, assign different tasks to navigation buttons, adjust the colour temperature of the screen, play with music equaliser settings, enter the one-handed mode, choose a lite mode and do so much more. There are literally tons of settings and features to play with that you will never find on the stock Android version.

A few downsides would be that MIUI is memory hungry and I usually got less than 1GB of RAM left and if I ran a few apps in the background, the amount of RAM reduced even more.

Other annoying things include that the phone came with a few pre-installed bloatware apps like speed booster and cleaner. While it may be useful for some but I don’t like any of these third-party apps but the worst thing is that you cannot simply uninstall them. Well, at least you can disable them.

In addition, I found a few apps like Google Play Store and Facebook work a bit slower than usual at times.

Overall, the MIUI is full of features and settings but I cannot say that it flies through everything once you install lots of apps and use the phone on a daily basis. Yes, it is fluid most of the times but there is occasional stutter from time to time. You can live with that but I believe the phone needs to get a software update to improve the overall user experience.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 is quite a powerhouse for the price. It has a Mediatek 6795 Helio X10 chip, which has 8 cores and the clock speeds of up to 2GHz. The chip is supplemented with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage. If you opt in for a more expensive Prime model, you will get a slightly more powerful chip (2.2 GHz) and 32GB of storage.

This combo of specs proves to be a real deal when it comes to 3D gaming as Asphalt 8 and Real Racing 3 ran almost perfectly. The graphics are not on par with flagships but still look very good. I didn’t experience stutter or lag that it is worth complaining. Overall, I am very happy with the performance.

A downside is that the phone gets a bit warm pretty quickly but not hot that it becomes uncomfortable to hold it in the hand.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: BENCHMARKS

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Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: MULTIMEDIA

Consuming the full HD content on a nice looking screen is just a blast. Also, the sound that is coming out of the loudspeaker is one of the best ones that we can hear on a budget phone.

The sound via earphones is not bad either.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: CAMERA

The Redmi Note 2 comes with the MIUI camera app, which is nicely designed, it has some a few shooting modes and settings to play with.

The shutter speed is very fast and this is thanks to the phase-detection auto-focus.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: IMAGE QUALITY

The 13MP camera on the back is capable of producing some nice looking images for a budget phone. However, the pictures could have a little bit more resolved detail but my biggest complaint is that the dynamic range is a hit or miss and some shots came out a bit blurry.

The indoor shots have more noise and less details and it is a similar story with the night shots but it is one of the better performing phones in this price range.

Overall, the Redmi Note 2 has a decent camera for a price. While it has some issues there and there, a decent image quality and the shutter speed is what makes this phone a decent performer in this price range of phones.

Download full-res camera pictures

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: VIDEO QUALITY

The 1080P video quality is usually not impressive on cheap phones. Well, I cannot say that the Redmi Note 2 does an amazing job but it is not a disaster either and I’ve seen much worse performers. Just keep in mind that you have to have a steady hand to avoid shakiness. See a video review for the video sample.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: CONNECTIVITY

The call quality is decent, Bluetooth, Wifi are working fine. Also, the GPS lock speeds are fast and the navigation is pretty accurate to use it while driving.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: BATTERY LIFE

The battery life is okay but I expected a bit more. I could get a maximum of 4 hours of screen-on time but with a bit more intense use it reduced to less than 2 hours. Well, it seems that the phone takes too much energy while idling and we may want to see a software upgrade to see an improvement.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review: CONCLUSIONS

So there you have it, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 – a phone that has a reseller price tag of under $160.

The phone has a decent design, a brilliant screen, a feature rich MIUI operating system and good gaming performance Also, for this price you are getting a good camera with a fast shutter speed, 2 SIM card slots with the 4G LTE support, microSD card slot, a good loudspeaker, removable battery and more.

That doesn’t mean that the phone is perfect though. The MIUI still needs some polishing and I would love to see an improvement an RAM management, and the pre-installed bloatware is annoying. Also, the battery life is not the worst but it is not great either. Well, at least it is removable.

Is it worth $160 price tag? Definitely yes. Well, the Redmi Note 2 is not perfect but it is impossible to find a device in this price category that it doesn’t have any flaws. To be honest, I’ve seen a lot worse phones with a lot more disadvantages. All in all, if you are on the budget, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 is a great bang for your buck.

We wanted to thank Giztop.com for sending the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 for a review and we suggest you visiting the Giztop product page.

Buy Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 from Giztop

Customers Who Got Elephone P8000 Without Breathing Light Notification Will Get Discount For Vowney

By

shanos

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Sep 24, 2015

Elephone are a company that have been critiscised recently due to both hardware and software issues in some of their handsets, the software side has seen various bug fixes integrated in to OTA rom updates and for the most part all software issues have been or are being fixed, however with the release of the Elephone P8000 a hardware compromise was made on 5000 of the first units to leave the factory.

The issue was due to the built in breathing notification light not being included, whilst this angered many who had purchased from the first batch of handsets, they may well get to now have the last laugh.

Elephone have released the statement below, confirming that those who purchased an Elephone P8000 that did not have the breathing notification light, will now receive a discount on the upcoming Elephone Vowney.

The Vowney is scheduled to be released around the end of October, this means that the affected P8000 users have around a month to wait, hopefully the discount offered by Elephone will be significant enough that P8000 owners can sell their phones and without too spending too much more be able to upgrade (hopefully having already spent 2/3 months enjoying their current handsets).

Official statement from Elephone regarding discounts for Elephone p8000 users affected by lack of breathing light notification

Elephone P8000, while being a competitive mid range smartphone, became a highly recognized and popular model. This budget-friendly phone offers excellent performance and outstanding 4000mAh battery capacity. We’ve received so many orders that we barely kept up with the schedule. In order to deliver the smartphones to the customers on time, we had to make a compromise. There are 5000 pieces of Elephone P8000s don’t have breathing light, and we’re sorry about the inconvenience brought to you. If your P8000 doesn’t have breathing light, you will get discounts for Elephone Vowney, which packs QHD display, 21MP camera, the most powerful MTK CPU MT6795 and 3GB RAM.

Originally posted on gadgetz.tv

The Vowney is currently available to pre order here, or you can pick up one of the fully working P8000 handsets here

Elephone M2 full specs and images

By

shanos

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Sep 24, 2015

Elephone have been working on a multitude of handsets recently, they have a new flagship the Vowney coming soon in 3 different flavours to match users budgets, but they also have also been working hard on their new Metal Design phones series.

The first of the Metal Design series phones the Elephone M2 is set to be released soon and Elephone have provided full specifications as well as images of the finalised handsets.

First up the specs for the Elephone M2, a MediaTek MT6753 octa-core processor is powering the phone along with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of ROM, the inclusion of 32GB rom will come in handy as the phone does not appear to offer micro SD expansion.

The screen is said to be an LG 5.5″ 1920 x 1080p (400ppi) display, if true then this should provide brighter more vivid colours as well as improved daylight viewing when compared to previous Elephone handsets such as the P7000 something to note in the pictures id the use of 2.5D front glass, looking very closely black boarders can still be seen but they are much thinner than on previous phones and are to a degree optically lost when looking through the curvature of the glass screen sides.

Whilst not a true bezelless design it certainly looks a lot better than previous models, that lets not forget came under a fair amount of criticism for their black boarders.

The front of the phone houses the capacitive navigation keys, as well as the home button mounted finger print scanner which has unlock times of a claimed 0.5 seconds.

As mentioned before Elephone have worked hard on the styling of the phone by slimming the bezels and adding the 2.5D glass, where they have also changed from their previous designs is the slim unibody metal design which accounts for 85% of the body and leaves the phone just 7.35mm thick, the use of the unibody on the Elephone M2 should avoid any bendgate issues.

The rear of the Elephone M2 is completely metal, except for the black bar at the top that houses the 13mp camera and flash.

Elephone have chosen to stick with the 13mp Sony IMX214 rear camera (as previously used in the P7000) and will use an 8mp front facing unit (make as yet unknown) hopefully Elephone will have had time to tweak the cameras software to maximise the capture quality.

An area that has seen Elephone criticised recently is their phones operating systems, if you head over to the forums you can keep up to date with rom releases and bug fixes, hopefully this time around more time has been spent getting everything working as it should straight out of the box, its not that Elephone don’t get things fixed, its just that a lot of people feel that phones should not be released without finding and stamping out all but the most minor of problems.

So what do you think of the new Elephone M2? from a design standpoint its not a bad looking device, at just 7.35mm thick it should be easy to hold and fit in your pocket and the addition of 32GB Rom should be more than enough for most users.

Please leave comments below

Regards Shane

Originally posted on gadgetz.tv

If your currently considering an Elephone handset but can’t wait for the release of the M2, be sure to check out the great prices for the rest of the Elephone range

Or if you can wait, get your pre order in for the Elephone M2 here

Xiaomi Mi4C Drop Test: Will It Survive A Fall? [VIDEO]

By

Joel Joseph

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Sep 24, 2015

A couple of days back, Xiaomi announced its Xiaomi Mi4C mid-range flagship for a competitive price tag of 1299 Yuan ($203). The phone comes with top-notch specifications, especially for a device in its segment.

There’s the hexa-core Snapdragon 808 chipset under the hood along with 2GB / 3GB RAM and 16GB / 32GB storage options. The display up front is of 5-inches with FHD 1080p resolution. The rear camera is a 13MP Sony IMX 258 sensor with improved algorithm for better low light images (brighter and less noise). Up front, there’s a 5MP shooter with wide angle lens for the perfect group selfie. The phone comes with 3080mAh battery with Quick Charge 2.0 and a USB Type-C port. There’s even an IR port up on top.

Overall a great device in terms of specifications for just $203. But is it durable enough? Well, folks from China just did a drop test of the new Mi4C and in general, the phone did quite well.

In the waist high drop test, from around 1m high, the Mi4C survived the fall. No visible scratches or damages. Even in the second drop test from chest height, (around 1.5m), the phone survived as well. This shows that the display is quite strong and can definitely withstand a few falls.

However, in the third drop test, which was from over the head height, the Xiaomi Mi4C didn’t survive. That’s like the worst case scenario and its unlikely that you would drop your phone from such a height. So, in most cases, the Mi4C’s 5-inch display should survive a fall.

Anyways, take a look at the video and see it for yourself.

Ulefone Achieves 30,000 pcs Presales in 2 weeks

By

Frank Tu

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Sep 24, 2015

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

Ulefone announced today that they have received 30,000 pre-orders for their 5-inch device Ulefone Paris since September 10 when the presale started with the special price of USD129.99.

In detail, users from United States contributed about 4,000 units of the pre-sales, making up Ulefone Paris biggest market as they did Ulefone Be Touch 2; Russia, Spain, Italy saw sales of 3,500 or so, respectively; and UK and Germany totally pre-ordered about 4,000 pcs, according to Ulefone.

Ulefone Paris has adopted the popular 2.5D glass and metal frame and backlighted touch buttons in design. Its components include a 5-inch 720P IPS display, MTK6753 64-bit 8-core chipset, 2GB RAM, 16GB built-in storage, 13MP and 5MP cameras, as well as 2250mAh battery. Software-wise, the phone is powered by the stock Android 5.1 operating system with an optional U-launcher.

Ulefone promises the Paris to be a mobile phone with balanced specs to deliver excellent user experiences. To prove the MTK6753 chipset will be fast with 720P display, Ulefone even held an event inviting fans to name any demanding games for them to test and show on Youtube. Besides, Ulefone says they’ll send at most 100 Paris samples to Youtubers, bloggers, and tech sites for reviews, which they believe will all be positive.

Presale page：http://ulefone.com/paris-presell.html

BLUBOO XFire Will Be The cheapest MT6735 LTE Smartphone in the World, Expected to Cost just $62

By

Joel Joseph

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Sep 24, 2015

Bluboo may not be as famous as UMi, Elephone or other local Chinese manufacturers, but the company sure does know how to make competitive products. The company has just revealed that its working on the BLUBOO Xfire, which is reportedly the cheapest MT6735 LTE smartphone in the WORLD. The phone is expected to cost somewhere around 399 Yuan which translates into just $62. That’s the cheapest price we have seen for a 64-bit quad-core 4G LTE device. Looks like the XFire is really here to set fire to the market.

Now you would be thinking, if the company did somehow incorporate MT6735 quad-core chip on board a $62 smartphone, the rest of the specs must suck. But that’s not the case here. The guys over at BLUBOO has really surprised us by giving the XFire quite impressive specs for its price segment. For display, you get a 5-inch IPS panel, which should come with at least qHD resolution. The company has not revealed the resolution yet, so we are guessing its qHD, but anything above this (720p) would be amazing.
Given that this is an ultra-cheap device, the phone comes with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of expandable storage. That’s pretty acceptable for cheap device. At the back, there is an 8MP OV camera sensor while up front, you can expect to see a 5MP OV sensor.

Another big surprise on the BLUBOO XFire is the battery on board. Usually, this is where manufacturers cut down on a cheap device, but this particular phone comes with a 2750mAh battery, which honestly is impressive. With such specs, the phone should definitely run for a day at least. What’s more, BLUBOO has promised Pure Android 5.1 Lollipop OS on board. Finally, even in the looks department, the BLUBOO Xfire doesn’t disappoint, since it will be available in three different colors, including Obsidian Black, Peal White and Ocean Blue. Other highlighted features include dual Silicon Mic and BOX speaker.
Overall, the BLUBOO XFire is really turning out to be a surprise offering. With a pricetag below $70 and MT6735, the phone will definitely get some love from the budget users. You can expect the phone to launch sometime around late September or early October this year. Stay tuned for more details.
Meanwhile, let me know your thoughts on this super cheap device!

OUKITEL K4000 With a 4000mAh battery & 5-inch 2.5D display up for pre-order at just $119

By

Joel Joseph

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Sep 24, 2015

We have seen plenty of great options from OUKITEL in the past few months. The company has come up with yet another interesting package, the OUKITEL K4000 which boasts of a large battery that will last you up to 5 days and a strong screen that can resist scratches or any other physical damage.

This year we have seen some pretty good looking smartphones from Chinese manufacturers. The OUKITEL K4000 aims to be one of these phones, as it comes with a solid plastic body with a metal frame to ensure that the phone is sturdy. Its a bit thick as compared to most other competitors, but that is because it comes packed with a large 4000mAh battery. To be precise, the phone is 11mm thick, which is around a millimeter thicker than other large battery smartphones. But to compensate for this thickness, you get up to 5 days of battery life with moderate usage. The company claims that if you are into heavy usage, then you can expect the phone to last about 2.5 days. Even if you get around 2 days of usage, the purpose is served.

Apart from the large battery, the OUKITEL K4000 comes with a 5-inch 1280 x 720 pixel resolution display and 2.5D glass. The front screen is anti-scratch protected with 9H hardness. So, you don’t have to worry about the display getting damaged during day to day usage. As for the other specs, the phone features MT6735p quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage. At the back, there will be a 13MP camera with a 5MP (both interpolated) sensor up front. The phone supports 4G LTE networks with dual SIM dual standby. Finally, for software, you get the latest Android 5.1 Lollipop on board.
The OUKITEL K4000 turns out to be the complete package, right? For all these features, you just have to shell out $119, which is a pretty competitive price. The phone is already available for pre-sale via online retailers. What’s more, during the initial pre-sale period, you will get a free protective case along with your order.

Buy OUKITEL K4000 for $119

Alcatel makes OneTouch Flash 2 official for emerging markets

By

Joel Joseph

-

Sep 23, 2015

Alcatel has just announced that a new smartphone named OneTouch Flash 2 for emerging markets. Its predecessor model was the OneTouch Flash which had successful market acceptance in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. The new phone is also expected to be released in these countries with a reasonably low price. The OneTouch Flash 2 will be available for sale via Flipkart in India and via Lazada in other countries.

As a flagship smartphone the OneTouch Flash 2 features a 5-inch 720p IPS display on its front while there is a 13MP five piece lens camera with a dual tone LED flash on the back. The main camera supports 80 degree wide-angle shooting and HD video recording capabilities. The 5MP front camera comes with a soft LED flash and gesture controls. The device runs at 1.3GHz on an Octa-core MediaTek MT6753 processor coupled with a 2GB RAM and 16GB memory storage. Factory released devices are installed with Lollipop Android 5.1 operating system. There is also a microSD card slot that can accept memory cards with a capacity up to 128 GB. Connectivity options include 4G LTE / 3G HSPA +, Wi-Fi 802.11 A / B / G / N and Bluetooth 4.0. A GPS sensor is included for accurate navigations. The 3000mAh battery offers extended time operation on a single charge. The OneTouch Flash 2 is for now released in volcanic gray and mica white color options. The company is yet to announce the official price tag for the device.

Buy the Xiaomi Mi4C at Giztop Now (In stock)

By

Joel Joseph

-

Sep 23, 2015

On Tuesday, Xiaomi officially released the Xiaomi Mi4c mid-range flagship in China. The phone comes with tremendous value for money, offering the powerful Snapdragon 808 hexa-core chip in a sub-$250 smartphone. There’s no doubt the Mi4C is one of the best value for money packages that you can buy from the market right now.

Unfortunately, Xiaomi has made the Mi4c limited to the Chinese market. International customers will have to buy the less powerful variant, with Snapdragon 615 inside. However, those who want to get their hands on the Xiaomi Mi4c can do so from Giztop. The website has started accepting pre-orders for the device. On the website, the 16GB variant is priced at $249, which is higher than the official price. But even with the slightly higher price tag, its better than most other competitors in the market right now.

To remind you of the specs, the Mi4C comes with a 5-inch 1080p FHD display with Snapdragon 808 chipset under the hood. You get 2GB & 3GB RAM options with 16GB/ 32GB of storage. There’s a 13MP sensor at the back which is reportedly quite good. You can check out the samples from here. The front 5MP camera is very wide, making sure that everyone in the group is included in the shot. As for the battery, you get a large 3060mAh battery on board with Quick Charge 2.0.

Overall, a great handset for the above mentioned price tag. You can check out the buy link for more details.

Update: The Xiaomi Mi4C phone is in stock now.

Buy Xiaomi Mi4C at $249, free shipping

Motorola Moto G 3rd Gen 2015 Review – The Best Budget Smartphone of 2015? REALLY?

By

Linus

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Sep 23, 2015

Usually, Gizmochina’s website is dedicated to the Chinese tech news and reviews, and you may be wondering why we decided to review a device, which is made by Motorola. In case you haven’t heard that this is not an American company anymore since the Chinese tech giant Lenovo has purchased its mobile division.

However, this is not the main reason we decided to review a Motorola Moto G (2015). The thing is that this device has been highly praised as a budget smartphone of the year due to its great price/performance ratio… but since we are the Chinese tech enthusiasts, we all know that there are so many other budget phones that are comparable to the Motorola’s offering. We are not going to be comparing with certain Chinese phones this time but we will judge the Motorola Moto G knowing that there are so many similar Chinese smartphones on the market – both the ones we have already reviewed and haven’t done that yet. Please keep in mind that our review unit has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of ROM (the base model, which starts at $179.99).

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: VIDEO

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

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: UNBOXING

The phone comes in rather cheap looking box and besides the documentation you are getting just a microUSB cable and no power plug.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: DESIGN

As far as design goes, we have a typical Motorola’s design language with rounded corners on the back for a better grip and a frame going around the device. However, this time around it is made of plastic to reduce the cost of the phone.

On the front top we have a 5MP snapper, a sensor light, the earpiece and on the bottom there is a front firing speaker.

The back plate is made of quality textured plastic and here we have a 13MP shooter along dual tone dual LED and signature Motorola’s dimple.

On the right we have a volume rocker and the power key. However, the placement is not super convenient as the power button should have been below the volume rocker, in my opinion.

On the bottom there is a microUSB port and on the top we have a headset jack and secondary mic.

The back plate is removable and under the hood you can find a non-removable 2470Ah battery, SIM card slot and the microSD card slot for storage expansion.

Overall, the phone sits very comfortably in the hand and the textured back helps with a grip. While the plastic doesn’t add any premium looks but the phone is well made and I have no complaints about its built quality.

But if you don’t like the standard looks of the Moto G, you can customise the phone the way you want by changing the colours of the front and back, customise accent colours, add your own engravings and so on. Keep in mind that basic customisation options come at a $30 extra and the upgrade of specs will cost you even more.

If you don’t want to spend extra cash customising the handset, you are still getting a feature that it is not that widely spread among the budget phones – a water resistance. The Moto G has an IPX7 rating meaning that you can submerge the phone up to 1 m and keep it underwater up to 30 mins.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: DISPLAY

The Motorola Moto G sports a 5” 720P panel, which is not bad but not great either. It is bright, colour reproduction is okay but a bit on a colder side. What’s frustrating is that this is clearly not the most pixel dense display as you can clearly see the individual pixels, which is a shame. That is visible during all the daily tasks like web browsing or simply scrolling through the settings menu. Other downsides would be a subpar sunlight visibility and average viewing angles. A great thing that the display is covered by the Gorilla Glass 3.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: UI

The Motorola Moto G runs on Android 5.1 Lolipop. It is almost stock Android UI with zero bloatware but with some added extra functionality by Motorola like Moto Assist, Moto Actions and Moto Display.

One of the most useful are the ability to chop the phone twice to turn on and off the flashlight and twist the phone twice to open up the camera. I found the flashlight feature work almost perfectly and the camera feature works okay too.

Other useful features come from the Moto Display as it wakes up the display when notifications arrive. While it may be useful for a lot of people I personally turned it off as I simply don’t like seeing new notification every 5 minutes.

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There is one annoying issue with the software though. For some reason, the MacBook does not recognise the device once it is connected. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

Also, Motorola is pretty confident about its software as I haven’t received any software updates in more than a month of using this device.

Overall, the performance is snappy and responsive unless you run too many apps in the background on the 1GB model I have. To avoid that, I suggest you paying extra and going with 2GB variant.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

The Moto G has a quad-core Snapdragon 410 chip, which is clocked at 1.4GHz, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of expandable storage. If you opt in for a higher end model, you will get 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Of course, that comes for the extra money.

I was pleasantly surprised that the Moto G can handle 3D gaming quite well. While the graphics don’t look that good as on higher-end phones but the loading times are fast and the stutter levels are low.

Also, the phone doesn’t have overheating issues even after extensive periods of gaming.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: MULTIMEDIA

The Moto G can handle Full-HD content without any issues or lags. The loudspeaker quality is very good for a budget phone. It is placed on the front side, which is always a welcome feature. Also, it is very loud and the sound quality is really good for a budget phone.

While the sound quality via earphones is not the best but it is good for this price tag of the device.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: CAMERA

The phone comes with a very simple camera app, which is responsive, easy to use and has a few shooting modes and settings to play with. The shutter speed is pretty fast.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: IMAGE QUALITY

The 13MP camera on the back is actually capable of producing some nice looking images when there is plenty of light. The pictures have a good amount of detail, they look sharp and the colour reproduction is decent. Even the dynamic range is handled quite well most of the times.

However, when the sun goes down, the troubles start. It all begins with the artificial lighting as quite a lot of noise kicks it and the level of details goes down.

The night shots do not impress at all. There is just so much noise in each picture and the sharpness is lost compared to daylight images. While it is not the worst performer but I actually expected a bit more from the camera in low-light scenarios.

The 5MP selfie snapper is not the best out there, but it gets the job done for social media.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: VIDEO QUALITY

The 1080p video is far from the best but it is actually pretty good. Well, the footage could look a bit sharper but the colours, auto-exposure work fine, the video does not look very shaky and there is a continuous auto-focus but it is very slow. SEE A VIDEO REVIEW FOR A 1080P VIDEO SAMPLE.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: BATTERY LIFE

The 2470Ah non-removable battery doesn’t need to feed a high pixel density display and a powerful chip. The result of it – the battery life is just fantastic. On a light use I could get over 6 hours of screen-on time and on the heavy use, the time reduces to 4-4.5 hours.

What is even more important – the standby times. Literally, this phone can stay powered on for days in standby mode.

Overall, the battery life is really impressive it be may one of the best we’ve seen in the budget phones category.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: CONNECTIVITY

I have no complaints about any of the connectivity options. The call quality is very good, which is common to the most of the phones made by Motorola. Also, GPS is fast and accurate and Wifi, Bluetooth work just fine.

Motorola Moto G (3 Gen, 2015 model) Review: CONCLUSIONS

So, there you have it, the highly praised 3rd Gen Motorola Moto G. While I wouldn’t be so sure that this is a true budget phone of the year as we have some other great offerings like the Meizu M2 Note, Asus Zenfone 2, Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 and some other phones from China, the Moto G has quite a lot to offer.

For the starting price of $179.99, you are getting a phone that it is well built despite the choice of plastic in its construction. Also, it has a good camera for daylight images, snappy UI performance, the latest Android version with a high chance of getting the latest software updates fast.

In addition, you are getting a decent loudspeaker for media consumption and you will be able to enjoy that for a long time as the Moto G has one of the best in class battery life. A huge plus is that this phone is water resistant and we don’t see that too often in budget phones category.

However, you have to consider the shortcomings like a low quality screen, not impressive camera performance indoors and in the low-light and a plasticky design of the phone.

All in all, the Moto G is a decent offering for a price. However, it is not the only smartphone you should look for in this price category.

Buy Motorola Moto G from Amazon US

Buy Motorola Moto G from Amazon UK

Meizu announces two smart home routers, starting at 99 Yuan ($16)

By

Joel Joseph

-

Sep 23, 2015

Along with the launch of the Meizu Pro 5 flagship, the company also launched mini routers in two versions that are priced at 99 Yuan and 169 Yuan. The basic version is designed for a 2.4GHz WiFi while the more advanced pro version supports 5GHz WiFi connectivity. The home router has a sparkling white housing from a simple round design made by a double injection molding process. Purchasing the Meizu Mini router can be obtained at a discount of 69 and 119 Yuan when bought in a bundle package with a Meizu phones.

The plug on the rear offers a 2 pin connection to be directly connected to a wall outlet. The router also includes WiFi 802.11ac features at a maximum speed of 433Mbps. Both versions of the router have concealed built-in FPC flexible antennas and connection is achieved via a dedicated Meizu application. The Mini Router is equipped with dual band high performance MT7628AN processor clocked at 2.4GHz or with MT7610E processor clocked at 5GHz.

Overall, competent products, but it will be interesting to see if the router manages to threaten the current No.1 position of the Mi router in the smart home router segment.

Inventec to make Xiaomi’s First Laptop, Starts Shipping By H1 2016

By

Joel Joseph

-

Sep 23, 2015

After a report from Bloomberg which confirmed Xiaomi’s plans for a laptop next year, we haven’t heard much about this new product. However, now, Taiwanese Media reports that Inventec Corp will be manufacturing Xiaomi’s first laptop computer next year. Invetec Corp CEO Richarg Lee confirmed this news yesterday.

Inventec is a famous ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) involved in the making of laptops, mobile servers and smartphones with an experience of more than 20 years. The company is based in Taiwan.

The news comes as a surprise since rumors stated that Foxconn was going to manufacture Xiaomi’s laptop. However, Mr. Lee states that he is unaware of any such plans. He adds that Inventec is currently working with Xiaomi to design a notebook PC much different than the competition.

While talking to reporters, CEO Lee further said that he was excited about the business outlook for Xiaomi’s Notebook computers. Xiaomi has a wide smartphone user base that exceeds 200 million. So, it would be interesting to see how its existing fans react to a new laptop from the company.

Xiaomi will most likely use the same strategy for selling its new laptop as it did with its smartphones. This might bring a revolution to the industry, which has remained more or less stagnant in the past few years. Till now, most companies have resorted to the the traditional way of selling laptops and computers. So, it will be interesting to see whether Xiaomi’s entry into the industry brings about a positive change.

Anyways, since its almost confirmed that the Xiaomi Laptop is real and in production, the next thing we want to know is the specifications. The company is known to bring amazing value to its products and we expect the same with its upcoming laptop.

Expect the first Xiaomi laptop units to ship by Q1 or Q2 of 2016. Hopefully, we will get more news in the coming weeks. So, stay tuned for more updates.

Meizu Pro 5 In Pictures: Premium Aluminum Body With A New Logo

By

Joel Joseph

-

Sep 23, 2015

Meizu just unveiled its new flagship, the Meizu Pro 5 at an event in Beijing. The phone comes with top-notch specs to ensure that it stays ahead of the competition. The overall design looks similar to the MX5 which is not really a bad thing since the phone does look premium.

The phone comes with a one piece aluminum body, with a slightly protruding camera at the back. The back features a smooth texture with a three stage design. You will also find the new Meizu logo at the back, which much simpler and modern looking than the previous one. The front features a 5.7-inch display with 2.5D glass and the mBack button below it.

It comes with the new age, reversible USB Type-C port. The Meizu Pro 5 handset is quite thin too, as it measures just 7.55mm in thickness. Also, it weighs about 168 grams.

You can check out the Meizu Pro 5 hands on images from down below. As for the full specs and availability details, you can check out our launch article.