Oukitel are all set to release the new improved K4000 Pro, lets have a look at the specs of both phones and see what improvements Oukitel have managed to make to the new handset.

The new K4000 Pro will be seen by many as more of a K4000+ the  newer handset sees some styling tweaks and some under the hood enhancements that  should make the original K4000 even better.

So whats not been changed?

Both the original K4000 and the newer K4000 Pro feature 5-inch HD displays (1280 x 720p resolution) and are powered by 1ghz Quad-Core 64bit Cortex-A53 Mediatek MT6735P processors, these are not the most powerful CPU’s but should do an ok job for most everyday needs.

Ram and Rom configurations are the same between both handsets with 16GB ROM  and 2GB RAM and both feature the same camera pairing of 8.0 mega pixel (13 Mega Pixel interpolated) rear facing camera and 2.0 Mega Pixel (5 Mega Pixel interpolated) front facing camera.

Like the original K4000 the newer K4000 Pro will come with Android Lollipop 5.1, with a confirmed upgrade path to Android Lollipop 6.0 on the K4000 Pro.

Given that both handsets share a lot of components in common, it would be a fairly safe bet that the original K4000 will also see the upgrade to 6.0 

USB OTG functions like reverse charging will also make a return on the K4000 pro, when used with an OTG cable.

So whats changed?

The original OUKITEL K4000 featured a large removable 4000mAh battery, whilst the K4000 Pro sees an increased to 4600mAh whilst still remaining removable.

In order to make maximum use of the battery without making charge times to long, Oukitel have increased the original K4000 charging from 5V/1.0A  to 5V/1.5A this is a 0.5A increase in charging power and should see both the K4000 Pro and the K4000 fully charged within 3-3.5 hours.

Oukitel have also improved network coverage on the K4000 Pro, both handsets support the following bands, 2G(GSM850/900/1800/1900MH) and 3G(WCDMA 900/2100MHz)  4G FDD LTE B1/3/7/20 (2100/1800/2600/800MHz). the newer K4000 Pro adds one more band: B8 (900MHz).

There have also been a few structural changes K4000 pro, the screen is now 1.1mm thick, making the glass more durable and up to three times stronger, the K4000 Pro also has an  improved corner design to its 2.5D CNC ARC craft metal design, that should help the phone to further resist damage when dropped.

Another improvement to the phone comes in the styling department, the Oukitel K4000 Pro now has a crocodile leather textured back cover, this should hopefully make the phone comfortable in the hand whilst also helping to reduce the chances of dropping the phone.

As soon as a review sample finds its way to me, I will do a full handset review.

So what do you guys think? does the Oukitel K4000 Pro have enough extras for you? are you a K4000 owner? would you consider purchasing the new model for its improved battery? or will you wait for the K6000 Pro? or perhaps one of the other great phones that are due this year.

Hopefully Oukitel will continue the strong push they had at the end of 2015 and will start to bring out more 2016 phones with processing power to match their impressive batteries.

For now please leave comments and questions below.

Regards Shanos

The original K4000 can be purchased here

Original article posted on gadgetz.tv 

Its been about two weeks since I first received my Elephone Trunk and whilst it would have been easy to jump right in and do a review after a couple of days, I wanted to give Elephone some time to work on a new firmware that was due to be released to fix a some problems.

The Elephone Trunk is aimed at the budget end of the market costing just $120 (£79), its time to take a look and see just what  $120 will get you.

Screen

One of the first things that you will notice when you turn on the Elephone Trunk is the bright and vibrant 5″ 720p OGS display.

Its nice to see manufacturers releasing 5″ phones, for some people with smaller hands it is the sweet spot, whilst others prefer the 5.5″ screens found on many other Elephone handsets.

Given the screen size of 5″ the 720p resolution coming in around 250ppi gives enough detail to be pleasing to the eye, the screen size and lower resolution also help to keep the power usage lower and improve performance.

Processor and GPU

Elephone have always been avid supporters of Mediatek SOC’s using them for their entire range of phones, this time round for the Elephone Trunk they have chosen to include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad core GPU (MSM8916) clocked at 1.2GHz with Adreno 306 GPU

The Elephone Trunk feels snappy in every day use, with the Adreno 360 handling menus and most apps at decent fluidity and speed, surprisingly considering the CPU/GPU combination gaming performance is not bad.

Storage ROM/RAM

The Elephone Trunk comes with 16GB Rom and 2 gb of Ram, storage can be upgraded via micro SD card.

Battery

The battery on the Elephone Trunk is a 2100mAh removable battery, the lower power usage from the combination of

cSnapdragon 410 CPU and 720p screen help keep battery usage down.

A full day of usage is possible between charges, if you are not pushing the phone to hard with lots of browsing, gaming or video playback.

Antutu Benchmarks*

1st Run – 22848

2nd Run – 22624

3rd Run – 21890

Average – 22,454

You can see the Elephone Trunk Antutu benchmarks in the following video (Video is sped up to save time).

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcDH6ZWlGOU[/embedyt]

Gaming performance**

The Elephone Trunk is budget a phone, not really something that you would choose specifically for gaming, however all things considered it is capable of providing adequate levels of gameplay.

The video below shows Asphalt 8 running on the Elephone Trunk, gameplay is smooth and playable and would be enough to keep you entertained if you were stuck on a train.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaTKCuazsN8[/embedyt]

Cameras

The Elephone trunk comes with two cameras upfront you will find a 2mp selfie camera, which is adequate but nothing special.

Looking to the back of the phone you will find an 8mp rear facing camera that uses interpolation to bring it up to 13mp a single LED flash is there to help when lighting is not at its best.

As mentioned above when the Elephone Trunk first arrived there were a couple of minor niggles and one fairly major one, the camera performance was to say the least not great.

The problem was that the sensor could not achieve an accurate focus lock even in good lighting, with the camera continually hunted for a lock.

Quite often the Elephone Trunk would appear to achieve a clear picture and then as you pressed to take the picture un-focus and take a blurred image.

I spoke with a contact at Elephone who said that they were aware of the problem and had an updated firmware in the works that would fix the camera issue.

The updated firmware arrived last week via an OTA update (which installed without any issues), once installed I fired up the Trunk and took the camera out for some testing.

Thankfully the update has really helped to resolve the issue, I can now pick a focus point on the screen and the camera will achieve lock and take a decently focused picture, the focus and capture times are a little slow compared to newer more expensive handsets, perhaps these times will improve with further updates.

What it will not do however is give you the most detailed image in the world, this is not a class leading sensor by any means, however it is more than adequate and for a phone of this price not much more should be expected really.

The camera is not quite perfect and in my opinion still needs some tweaking, capture speed, low light imagery as well as colour balance could be better.

Firmware development

The Elephone Trunk features the Qualcomm MSM8916 Snapdragon 410 quad core cpu, which unlike Mediatek CPU’s has a decent developer comunity following (mainly due to Mediatek’s choice of not releasing the required developer files as open source).

The Elephone Trunk really benefits from this active developer community, there are a couple of teams on the Russian site 4pda.ru  and devs on XDA forums working on custom roms.

The Elephone Trunk (or as the Russians know it the Arc Benefit A3), is getting custom roms such as CyanogenMod 12.1 and even CyanogenMod 13 running well on the $120 handset.

Design

Elephone have done a really nice job with with the Elephone trunk handset, a rubberised texture on the rear leaves it feeling really comfortable to hold and also makes it feel secure with less fear of dropping.

The front of the phone is mostly filled by the 5″ OGS panel (with black boarders approximately 2.5mm wide), the lower chin has  three capacitive buttons, the centre is is a circular home button, as yet Elephone have not given the option to use this for notification, but with luck they or one of the other devs will manage to implement this feature in the future.

The top chin is where you will find the ear piece, proximity sensor and 2mp selfie camera, the rear casing of the Trunk has a matte rubberised coating giving it a nice tactile feel, the finish is reminiscent of the earlier Apple Macbooks finish before they went to unibody aluminum construction.

The coating provides great grip and works well with the curved contours of the phones rear.

On the rear of the trunk you will find the Elephone logo and 8mp rear camera with single LED flash, towards the bottom is the built in speaker which is output through to small slots providing fairly decent audio output levels.

The right hand side of the phone is home to the power button and volume rocker, these are chromed plastic and feel fairly nice to operate.

There are no buttons on the left hand side of the phone.

On the top of the phone you will find a standard micro usb port as well as 3.5mm headphone jack.

Connectivity

The Elephone Trunk supports Bluetooth 4.0 and Dual sim slots with support for the following networks
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz

Battery

The Elephone Trunk’s removable battery is a 2100mAh Li-polymer unit, this is not particularly large but should see you through a day of normal usage.

The 5″ 720p screen and CPU combination help to get the most from the battery, neither of them sucking too much juice.

If you intend to do a lot of browsing, gaming and other intensive tasks on the Trunk I would advise purchasing a spare battery or power bank to keep handy just in case.

Final thoughts

The Elephone Trunk is a decent little phone, whilst not for everyone, it does fit into a niche that has been somewhat ignored by a lot of manufactures recently.

Its small form factor and decent real world performance make it a good option for non power users who are happy with ‘good enough performance’  and just want a phone that fits easily in a pocket and does what its supposed to do.

It’s premium feel and appearance give it the look of a phone costing much more than the $120 price tag would suggest.

The phone would rank a lot higher if it were not for the camera niggles.

But what it does have going for it, is third party rom support, this alone could be a reason to buy as it should see frequent updates and new functionality and tweaks (check out the forums linked above to see some of the great work being done on the Elephone Trunk).

Hopefully with ongoing support for this little phone Elephone and the other Devs will iron out the bugs and make this little phone even better.

For me this phone makes me reminissant of what it was that got me hooked on android, allowing my inner geek to tweak and flash new roms, whilst for non power users and children it offers a good set of functions and quality at a price that will not break the bank this Christmas.

Please feel free to leave comments and questions below

kind regards Shanos

The Elephone Trunk can be purchased here 

Original article posted on Gadgetz.tv

*Antutu Benchmarks are provided to give a comparative view of handsets performance.

Whilst they do give an indication of a handsets overall potential. they do not fully take in to account hardware and software optimisation.

Manufacturers have also been known to include cheat software built in to handsets, to deliberately make handsets operate faster in tests than they might otherwise in real world usage.

Antutu benchmarks on gadgetz.tv are run 3 times in close succession to see if any throttling occurs due to heavy CPU/GPU usage.

**Gaming videos are recorded using AZ Screen Recorder

 

The Elephone  Vowney with 2K Display, Mediatek Helio X10 octa-core processor, 4gb Ram and 21MP camera is currently available to purchase as part of the the Elephone MEvent  for just $299.

The Elephone Vowney Lite is also available in the event for just $239.99 the main deifferences in the two varients are the screen and the amount of ram.

The Vowney Lite comes with a FHD Display, Mediatek Helio X10 octa-core processor, 3gb Ram and  21MP camera.

You can currently order the Vowney with 2K Display in gold and the Vowney Lite in grey, the white variants are currently not available to order.

We are yet to receive a firm release date for both handsets, but hopefully both the official shipping dates for the Vowney with 2k display and the Vowney Light will be before Christmas.

We have advised that software for both handsets is still currently under going debugging and testing, hopefully the fact that Elephone appear to be spending additional time on the phones software, should help to ensure that both handsets will come with finalised software, that does not require bug fixes and stress on the part of the purchaser. 

It would be great to see these long awaited handsets finally released by Elephone, with great hardware and firmware that together will asserts their position as makers of great Phones that have the software to back up the hardware, if they can get both of these right with the release of the Vowney handsets, it will make them  a real contender in a crowded handset market this December.

You can check out the hands on video, please feel free to leave any comments or questions below, and let me know which one you will choose? will it be the 2K, 4gb ram version that floats your boat? or perhaps the FHD 3gb variant, or maybe your waiting on the Elephone P9000?

Regard Shane

Original article posted on gadgetz.tv

Elephone have this morning sent over a new video showing the Ecoo E06 Hands-on, as many of you are now aware Ecoo is the Sub brand of Elephone.

The E06 will be one of the first mobile phones to enter the market equipped with a Mediatek Helio‬ P10 ‪chipset‬ one of the latest from the manufacturer that will also be fitted in Elephones own P9000 bezel-less handset, the use of the Helio P10 should certainly give the Ecoo E06 a decent turn of speed and a good amount of bang for the buck.

Elephone have said that the phone will be released with Android Marshmallow 6.0 out of the box, another thing that should help to put this phone on the radar,however the hands on video is currently featuring the previous version Android Lollipop 5.1 running on the phone.

Check out the Ecoo E06 hands-on video and let me know what you think, personally I think its a good looking device and the screen looks really bright and vivid.

Regards Shanos

Original article posted on gadgetz.tv

Is the Elephone S1 for just $70 a complete bargain or is it too little tech for 2015’s consumers? coming off the back of the moderately successful S2 and S2 phones, Elephone are about to add 2 new models to the S series phones, the S1 and S1 Plus.

The Elephone S1 will come with a  5 inch screen whilst the S1 Plus will come with a 5.5-inch screen, resolution for the screens is as yet unconfirmed but for this price I think the best we can hope for is a 720p unit.

Styling wise the handset renders for the S1 look very good, featuring glass rear panels and chamfered metal chassis, hopefully they will launch with Corning Gorilla Glass like the latest versions of the S2 and S2 plus.

Judging by the renders its safe to say that  Elephone are aiming for a premium styling, at budget pricing.

In order to keep the price down so low some sacrifices will need to be made, the inclusion of the lower end quad core Mediatek MT6580 chip, is one such compromise, unless Elephone couple it to a separate LTE modem the S1 and S1 Plus will be strictly 3g handsets.

I guess the type of people looking at a phones with a price tag as low as $70 (£46), may still on a 3G data plan rather than a more costly 4G LTE plan.

What do you think? in 2015 and on in to 2016 will there still a market for non 4G LTE handsets? are Elephone playing a blinder that may see them clean up at the bottom end of the market? or is it just too little power in a market full of 4G handsets?

As always please leave any comments or questions below

Regards Shanos

Original article posted at Gadgetz.tv

With just a short while left until the long awaited Elephone P9000 goes on sale, I figured its worth pitting the old against the new in a show down.

Elephone’s previous phone the P8000 surprised many people with its large 4000mAh battery and bright screen, whilst leaving some disappointed with slow software updates and several bugs.

In the  Elephone P8000 vs P9000  head to head we will see if the company has learned from past mistakes and is able to present a better more rounded phone.

Elephone P8000 vs P9000 Design

The Elephone P8000 design was more of an evolution of the P7000 than a design revolution, the rear cover featured a nice faux carbon fibre texture and the phones metal frame gave a fairly sophisticated look whilst also ensuring the phone would not bend under normal usage.

Something that many people found disappointing when the phone was released, was the larger than necessary black borders that surrounded the screen, these had been disguised very well in the original renders and came as a real disappointment.

Apart from the 5.5″ screen with its black borders the front was also home to 3 capacitive buttons, the home button also works as a halo style LED notification light. 

The P8000 was not a small phone by any means weighing in at a substantial 205 grams and also fairly chunky at thick at 10 mm, most of the extra weight and width was due to the inclusion of a 4000mAh battery.

For the P9000 Elephone have managed to slim the phone down to a much more acceptable 8mm and managed a 55 gram weight reduction bringing the P9000 in at just 150 grams.

The Elephone P9000’s design really stands out over the P8000’s due to the striking appearance of the virtually absent screen bezels, the 2.5D display curvature of the screen works to further increase the look making it appear that no bezels are present, the P9000 also features a stylish flat rear design.

On the P8000 he fingerprint sensor that was integrated in to the home key, for the P9000 this has now been given its own designated side button. 

From a design standpoint it would appear that Elephone have certainly seemed to listen to the criticisms levelled at the P8000 by its users.

Elephone P8000 vs P9000 Performance

The elephone P8000 featured an8-core MediaTek MT6753 processor running at 1.3 GHz with a Mali T720 GPU and 3GB of RAM. 

For everyday tasks this proved to be adequate enough to perform well and gave a smooth user experience, for less GPU intensive games performance was ok, but more intensive games suffered some frame rate drops and lag.

It looks like Elephone wants to really push the P9000’s hardware capabilities, they have chosen to include a Helio P10 processor and 4GB of RAM . 

When the phone is released it will be amongst the most powerful phones on the market and be expected to easily handle anything you can currently throw at it.

Elephone P8000 vs P9000 Display

The 5.5 inch IPS LCD full HD resolution found on the P8000 was quite good, providing good colour reproduction, good viewing angles and was brightness levels that meant it was able to be used outdoors.

Elephone have decided to follow the same path as the P8000 for the P9000 and are  again using a 5.5 inch IPS LCD with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, hopefully colour reproduction, viewing angles and brightness, will to be at least as good as those found on the P8000 if not better.

Elephone P8000 vs P9000 Battery

A definate highlight of the Elephone P8000 was its 4000mAh capacity battery, easily able to hold over a days worth of charge, some people even managed to eek out  two days of light to moderate usage.

A downside to the 4000mAh battery found in the P8000 was the 4 hours taken to recharge it from flat, it was a real shame that Elephone did not put fast charging on the phone.

Elephone have taken the decision to reduce the P9000’s battery capacity down to just 3100mAh, this will help to thin the phone a bit and also keep the weight down, however some P8000 users that upgrade may be a little little disappointed having to recharge more often.

Hopefully Elephones decision to  opt for the Helio P10 will have a positive affect on battery life,  power usage on the Helio P10 is still pretty much an unknown quantity but hopefully its ability to switching the number of cores in use up or down to suit the tasks thrown at the P9000 may help to reduce overall battery use and go some way towards mitigating the reduction in battery capacity, hopefully the P9000 should still see at least a day of usage between charging, although most users charge their phones nightly so this hopefully won’t be a major problem.

Elephone P8000 vs P9000 Camera

The P8000’s 13mp sensor was often a bain of contention for its users, whilst it was capable of producing some great images, focus tended to be a bit hit and miss as did low light photography and white balance, this did improve with firmware updates but was sadly an issue that got a fair amount of attention.

Elephone will hopefully have imaging sorted this time around on the  P9000, the choice to fit a  20MP rear camera with dedicated autofocus should help to provide stunning images, with incredible definition and sharpness, the thing that Elephone need to do is dedicate the necessary time to ensure that the software is able to process and render the images properly, the phone will have an 8mp camera up front, which should allow some half decent selfies.

And the winner of the Elephone P8000 vs P9000… 

Is the P9000 by a fairly long shot

From the information currently available about the P9000, it appears that Elephone have made some pretty significant improvements over the P8000, the Mediatek MK6797 and the screen with virtually no bezels and 20.mp camera will go along way to wards silencing some of Elephones critics and the slimmer lighter body will also ensure that the phone feel better in the hand, even if it comes at the expense of battery life.

If there is one thing that Elephone can’t be accused of, its sitting back and not thinking of what to bring out next, today we have recieved news of another phone nearing release. The Elephone Ivory will be ready by the end of November.

The specs for the Elephone Ivory are not bad at all considering the low price of just $99 the phone will be powered by the popular 8 core Mediatek MT6753 that is more often found in phones in the $150+ price range.

The display is a 5″ 720p HD unit with on-cell display and 2.5D glass

Given the specs and the low price this could be a great option for people wanting a fairly decent spec spare phone or even a phone for their children.

If Elephone can get the software right and include a bright and vivid screen, as well as a half decent camera, the Elephone Ivory could be a real winner and help to rebuild Elephones reputation.

Having got hands on with the Elephone trunk (review to follow shortly)recently, it is definatly possible for Elephone to make a phone with a decent screen at a decent price, lets hope that they get the software and the camera  working well.

The fact that Elephone are aiming this phone at the budget end of the market, with a price tag of just $99 (£65) could make this a real bargain stocking filler.

Will this be a phone find its way in to a christmas stocking for you this year?

As always please leave comments and questions below

Kind regards

Shanos

Originally article on gadgetz.tv