You know, I’ve reviewed quite a few smartphones over the time but some of the devices keep astonishing me. I just came across the unknown and unheard 6” all-metal phone that is called PPTV King 7. It not only looks great but it is powerful and it costs just $130. Learn more in our full review.

Thanks to Banggood.com for sending the PPTV King 7 for a review

PPTV King 7 Review: VIDEO REVIEW

PPTV King 7 Review: UNBOXING

The phone ships in a premium box where all the items are packed neatly but there are no extras included.

PPTV King 7 Review: DESIGN

The King 7 is a truly premium-looking device since it is made almost entirely of metal (except for the top and bottom parts for antennas), the metal buttons are tactile, and they do not rattle, and finally, the phone sits nicely in the hand.

The phone is huge due to its 6” display, which has 2K resolution and it is definitely one of the best panels you can’t find on any device in this price range. I know that many people complain about the black bezels around the display but I’m okay with that. Well, you can’t have it all at this price point.

We have an 8MP camera and a nice pulsing notification LED light on the front. I don’t like the fact that there are only the on-screen navigation keys but at least you can switch the position of them.

As for the main camera, we have a 13MP shooter that is coupled with a dual-tone dual LED flash.

When it comes to audio, the loudspeaker is easily one of the best in this price range.

Also, the sound quality via earphones is just great since the PPTV phone has a built-in Hi-Fi audio chip. Finally, the top-mounted IR blaster works just fine with my Samsung TV.

PPTV King 7 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

When it comes to the specs, the King 7 is a little outdated but it is still plenty powerful for such a low price.

The phone ships with the Helio X10 chip, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, which can be further expanded via the microSD card slot.

The 3D gaming experience is pretty good. Although you may see some skipped frames on the highest graphics in some games but switching graphics to medium solves the issue.

PPTV King 7 Review: BENCHMARKS

PPTV King 7 Review: USER INTERFACE

As far as the user interface, you will love it or hate it. The phone runs on the outdated Android 5.1 and there is a heavily customised PP OS UI skin on top of it.

The performance of the UI is pretty good as I didn’t have any lags or stutter. You may love the user interface because there are plenty of customization options, various settings and tweaks to play with. On the other hand, you may hate it since there is no app tray, the icons look cartoonish and you may not need all those extra features if you are a more conservative user.

Well, I can definitely live with this user interface as it has been running smoothly but I always prefer stock Android, so I downloaded the third-party launcher.

PPTV King 7 Review: IMAGE QUALITY

IT IS HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED TO DOWNLOAD FULL RESOLUTION CAMERA SAMPLES TO SEE THE ACTUAL IMAGE QUALITY. THE PICTURES UPLOADED ON THE WEBSITE ARE 50% SMALLER IN RESOLUTION.

As for image quality, you should not expect any stellar results from a cheap phone like this. Still, you may get some nice-looking photos that are pretty sharp and detailed. However, the camera has some issues with the edge-to-edge focusing and there could a little bit more detail in some of the shots.

The selfie camera has a pretty aggressive beautification mode so the images will definitely look great on social media.

The video quality is just mediocre as on most of the cheap phones. Unfortunately, I could not play any 4K video samples on my Mac due to format compatibility issues but make sure to check out the video description for original camera samples. See the video review or download original camera samples using the link below.

Download full resolution camera samples 

PPTV King 7 Review: CONNECTIVITY

When it comes to connectivity, the phone performs well. The signal strength and call quality are good, the Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS work fine.

PPTV King 7 Review: BATTERY LIFE

The King 7 ships with the 3610mAh battery and it has to power a huge 2K resolution display. I was sceptical once I first saw the spec sheet but surprisingly, I managed to get over 5 hours of screen-on time on a mixed use, which is a good result. Unfortunately, the phone does not ship with the fast charger.

N.B. charging graph indicates the time when the phone was connected to the computer for approx. 1-2 mins for data transfer.

PPTV King 7 Review: CONCLUSIONS

Honestly, I have never heard about the PPTV company before but the King 7 exceeded my expectations, to say the least.

For the price of just $130, this phone is a great value since it has an excellent build quality, very nice and sharp 6” 2k display, a little outdated but still decent specs, feature-rich UI and a pretty good overall performance.

Obviously, the phone is not for everyone due to its size. Also, some may hate the black bezels around the display, the phone runs on the outdated Android 5.1 and there is no fingerprint sensor.

Still, if you consider that this phone has a decent camera, great sound quality and a pretty good battery life, the PPTV King 7 is an awesome phone for the price, despite previously mentioned shortcomings.

The post PPTV King 7 Review – The Most Underrated Cheap Android Phablet? appeared first on Gizmochina.

It seems that there has been a wave of super-sized smartphones from China and Cubot Max is one of them. It sports a 6” display, it has decent specs but it costs just $114. Learn more in our a full review.

Thanks t0 Efox-shop for sending Cubot Max for a review.

Cubot Max Review: VIDEO REVIEW

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGaM-gMQ4RE[/embedyt]

Cubot Max Review: UNBOXING

The phone ships with all the usual stuff and some extras include a high-quality soft TPU case.

Cubot Max Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY

The very first thing you are going to notice about this phone is that it is really huge due to its 6” display. It has only 720p resolution but it is surprisingly sharp and nice panel.

We don’t have backlit capacitive buttons but there is a notification LED light, which is a nice addition for a cheap phone like this.

The phone is made of plastic and we have a textured vinyl-like finish on the back. I can’t say that the phone looks or feels premium but it is well made.

The buttons feel nice and tactile.

The loudspeaker sits on the bottom and it is okay but as usual to the cheap phones, the sound is flat.

As for camera, we have a 13MP shooter with a single LED flash.

The backplate can be easily removed to access a 4100mAh battery, two SIM card slots and the microSD card slot.

Cubot Max Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

The Cubot Max sports some pretty good specs for the price. The phone ships with an octa-core MTK6753A chip, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

The gaming performance is okay. You should be able to run most of the 2D games and 3D games on the medium graphics but you have to expect quite a bit of stutter on the highest graphics.

Cubot Max Review: BENCHMARKS

Cubot Max Review: USER INTERFACE

The Android 6.0-based user interface will give you a pretty much stock Android experience but there are some added features like a bunch of gesture and motion controls that work pretty well.

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.

Cubot Max Review: IMAGE QUALITY

As for image quality, the camera can take some okay-looking photos in daylight. However, most of the shots look overexposed, the dynamic range and white balance adjustment are poor and so on. Well, this is what you usually get from a cheap phone and the results get a lot worse in low-light situations.

As for selfie shooter, it will do the trick for social media but the quality of pictures is just mediocre.

The 1080p video is mediocre-looking too. See a video review for a video sample.

Cubot Max Review: CONNECTIVITY

I didn’t have any connectivity issues and even the GPS lock speeds and accuracy were okay.

Cubot Max Review: BATTERY LIFE

The 4100mAh battery performs pretty well on the daily basis. I got a full day or even 2 days of moderate usage out of this phone, which is a good result considering a large display.

Cubot Max Review: CONCLUSIONS

Cubot Max is yet another cheap Chinese phone that offers a large 6” screen and some decent specs for the price.

After using it for quite a bit of time, we have to say that a large screen is pretty fun for multimedia consumption. Also, the phone did not lag and it was fast on the daily basis.

As usual to the cheap phones, you should not expect any stellar results from the camera. Also, the phone does not sport any premium materials like metal or glass and it lacks backlit capacitive buttons but it gets most of the basics right. If you add a great battery life, the Cubot Max is a decent offering for the price of just $114.

Buy Cubot Max

The post Cubot Max Review – A Solid $114 Phablet appeared first on Gizmochina.

iNew has a phone that costs $110, it has a 6” HD display and decent specs. Stay tuned to find out if this phone is any good in our full review.

iNew U9 Plus Review: VIDEO

iNew U9 Plus Review: UNBOXING

The phone comes with all the usual stuff and some extras include a pair of earphones, a screen protector and a hard plastic case.

iNew U9 Plus Review: SPECS

iNew U9 Plus Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY

When it comes to the design, the U9 Plus is obviously a huge phone due to it’s 6” display.

Speaking of the display,  it has only 720p resolution but it is still quite sharp for a phone that costs just above $100.

As far as the overall build quality, the phone is well-made but I have to admit that the phone feels a bit plasticky and cheap since it uses only plastic in its construction.

We have a 5MP selfie shooter. Unfortunately, there is no LED notification light and the capacitive buttons are not backlit.

There is a 13MP camera coupled with a single LED flash. On the bottom, we have a loudspeaker, which is not very good but it is not bad for the price of the phone.

The backplate can be easily removed and underneath it you can find a replaceable 3000mAh battery, 2 SIM card slots and the microSD card slot.

The buttons sit on the right side and they are tactile. However, they are made of plastic and feel a bit cheap.

iNew U9 Plus Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

The phone has a quad-core MTK6735 with the max. clock speeds of 1.3GHz, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage.

The gaming performance is pretty good. I played Asphalt 8 on medium graphics and there were no lags. Also, the phone does not overheat.

iNew U9 Plus Review: BENCHMARKS

iNew U9 Plus Review: USER INTERFACE

The phone ships with the already outdated Android 5.1 and iNew’s skin on top of it. There is no app tray but there are quite a few fancy widgets and customization options.

Also, there are some gesture and motion controls but the phone is kind of slow to react to some of the gestures.

The user interface could have been nice but there are some pre-installed apps and even some apps that are designed for Chinese market.

Most importantly, the animations and transitions once you simply scroll through the different menus are slow. Thus, the whole user experience is not as good as I expected. This is something iNew should take a look at to fix this issue with the future software updates.

iNew U9 Plus Review: IMAGE QUALITY

The 13MP camera does not impress. Even the daylight images lack detail and sharpness. Also, the dynamic range adjustment is poor in most of the shots. Finally, the color reproduction is not always consistent.

The low-light shots do not impress either as there is a low amount of detail and quite a bit of noise.

The video quality is okay for the phone this cheap but don’t expect any great results.

A 5MP front-facing camera is not good either as most of the shots have a soft focus.

iNew U9 Plus Review: CONNECTIVITY

I didn’t have any connectivity issues. Even the GPS was very fast to find the position and pretty accurate to use.

iNew U9 Plus Review: BATTERY LIFE

The 3000mAh battery does not look impressive on paper but it performs pretty well considering its low capacity and a large display.

I could get around 5 hours of screen-on time on time but your results may vary, depending on the usage.

iNew U9 Plus Review: CONCLUSIONS

The iNew U9 Plus is a phone that aims to bring a huge 6” display and decent specs for a low price.

It succeeds in a couple of ways. It has a pretty sharp display that is great for multimedia consumption or gaming. Speaking of the 3D games, the phone handles them pretty well if don’t set the graphics on the maximum settings.

Also, the phone has a pretty good battery life considering its low capacity.

On the other hand, the phone has a decent build quality but it looks kind of cheap due to the fact that it uses plastic in its construction.

Also, I was disappointed that the transitions and animations in the user interface are slow, both cameras do not impress, there is no LED notification light and the capacitive buttons are not backlit.

In conclusion, the iNew U9 Plus could have been a nice phone but it has some shortcomings that you have to consider before buying it. Some of the cons hopefully will be fixed with the future software updates but at the moment, you would have to live with them.

The post iNew U9 Plus Review – A $100 Phablet appeared first on Gizmochina.