This title may surprise a lot of readers but turns out, the Meizu Pro 6S is really a steal for smartphone photography lovers. I, personally, haven’t used the Pro 6S yet to make a claim like this but I did find something to back it up. DxOMark, the popular benchmark for camera performance just recently rated the Meizu Pro 6S as one of the best Chinese smartphone cameras in the market.

DxOMark gave the Meizu Pro 6S a rating of 85, which is quite impressive. Note that there are quite a few smartphones that score all the way up to 90 (HTC U11!) but what makes this score special is that the Pro 6S is only the third Chinese flagship in the list, after Huawei P10 (score: 87) and Huawei Mate 9 (score: 85 – same as Pro 6S). The phone currently retails for anywhere between $300 – $400 which makes it a steal for smartphone photography lovers. Apart from the LG G5, rest of the smartphones in the list are so much costlier than the above price, making it a good option for those who want an affordable camera phone.

DxoMark notes that the Pro 6S’ camera manages to capture excellent details in outdoor photography and keeps the exposure levels ideal in low-light images. The dynamic range is good, there’s high level of detail and the overall impressive performance of the camera in different lighting conditions give the Pro 6S a great score in the benchmark.

The excellent camera score should give the Meizu Pro 6S some attention from affordable smartphone lovers but there are still certain things that cannot be ignored. First up, the phone runs on the Helio X25 deca-core chip, which isn’t nearly as fast as the flagship chipsets of 2016 or 2017. Secondly, despite being a flagship launched near the end of 2016, the phone is still on Android Marshmallow. We expect at least nougat on phones that are just 6-7 months old, but Meizu is still struggling to get a stable Flyme release of Android 7 onto its devices.

Still, if you can live with Android 6 or wait for Android 7 (probably by August), the Pro 6S is a good flagship and at just over $300 (on Aliexpress), it’s definitely a phone that you should check out.

But there’s another option. If you remember, the Meizu Pro 6 Plus, which was released around the same time as the Pro 6S, comes with the exact same setup as the 6S. This would mean the Pro 6 Plus also has an amazing camera and considering it retails for around $370 (again on Aliexpress), it’s a true flagship that you should check out.

To recap, the Pro 6 Plus comes with the powerful Exynos 8890 octa-core chip, 5.7-inch 2K display, and a decent 3400mAh battery. The phone ticks almost all the features that you would expect in a flagship smartphone of 2017 (there’s no 6GB RAM variant though) and at $370, it’s a pretty good find.

Do note that there’s the Xiaomi Mi 6, with a pretty good dual camera setup around this price. It’s a bit costlier at around $400 but the camera performance was impressive according to our review. Also, you get Snapdragon 835 inside. One good reason why you would consider the Pro 6 Plus is because of its beautiful 5.7-inch 2K display. The 5.15-inch 1080p display could be a bit small for some users and the Pro 7 is a decent phablet alternative at this price.

The post Meizu Pro 6S Is An Affordable Option For Smartphone Photography Lovers (Here’s Why!) appeared first on Gizmochina.

We have been hearing about the Vernee Apollo flagship for a long time, maybe a bit too long. The company did takes its sweet time to launch the flagship smartphone, and after months of promotions, the device was officially released in December 2016. The Apollo was an important device, not just for Vernee but also for local Chinese smartphone enthusiasts. The flagship promised stellar build quality and performance but we know, not many promises are kept in this market. Hence, it was important to see, whether a new entrant like Vernee could live up to our expectations.

I have been using the Vernee Apollo for the past couple of weeks and I would like to thank Gearbest for sending in this phone for review. You can currently get the Vernee Apollo as low as $249 from the Gearbest store.

My overall experience using the Apollo so far has been positive. The company did keep most of its promises and you end up with a flagship smartphone that you can proudly flaunt as your daily driver.

Read on to know everything about the phone in this Vernee Apollo Review.

In the box you have the following:

• Vernee Apollo Smartphone with Scratch Guard installed
• A decent VR Headset
• Strap for VR Headset
• SIM Ejector Pin
• Manual

Like I said above, the Vernee Apollo is extremely well built. I use the OnePlus 3T as my daily driver and I have to say the Apollo matches the OnePlus model in terms of design. The back of the Vernee Apollo is as good as the OnePlus and it looks beautiful. Coming to the front, after like a week of using the phone, I have seen that the scratch guard that comes with the phone isn’t too good. The basic front looks good, but make sure to change the scratch guard with something better. For a phone that’s marketed as a flagship, I would have expected better scratch resistant film up front. However, don’t worry, the screen underneath is protected by Gorilla Glass 3 and it is just the scratch guard that’s not up to the mark.

The Vernee Apollo feels good in hand. It may not be as thin or lightweight as some other flagships, but the difference isn’t too noticeable. You have the power and volume keys on the right side. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port along with dual speakers. On the left side, there are slots for MicroSD card as well as dual SIM cards. Finally, on top, you have a regular 3.5mm headphone jack.

Coming to the back, you have a slightly protruding camera hump with dual LED dual tone flash on its left. Just below it, you have a round fingerprint sensor that works well. Rest of the back is clean and polished, except for the Vernee logo down below. The gray antenna bands go well with the overall phone’s design language.

[envira-gallery id="124474"]

The Apollo comes with a 5.5-inch 2K display. Yes, the phone boasts of such high-resolution and joins the elite club of quad HD display flagships. The display on the Vernee Apollo looks pretty decent. The colors come out well and thanks to the super thin side bezels on the display, the overall display experience is good. Personally, I would have liked the display to be a bit warmer so that it’s more pleasant to the eyes.

However, note that the phone comes with onscreen buttons which eat up some space on the screen. Also, the bezels on the top as well as the bottom are a bit large, at least larger than what I would have wanted. I feel the display would have looked even better if the bezels were smaller in these areas.

Vernee is marketing the Apollo’s 2K Display as ideal for VR experience. This is exactly why you get a free VR headset inside the box which is a nice addition. The box is pretty well built for a freebie. The 2K display isn’t the best I have seen for VR but it does provide a decent VR experience. So for someone who wants to watch a few VR videos, the Apollo would be fine.

In the hardware department, the Vernee Apollo won’t disappoint most users. Like I said above, the Helio X25 chipset is a good performer and is more than enough to fulfill all your everyday needs. The UI is stock Android Marshmallow (yes, unfortunately, the phone isn’t on Nougat yet) and the UI is smooth and responsive.

Under the hood, the Vernee Apollo comes with 2.52GHz Helio X25 chip with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. These are pretty decent specs for under $300 smartphone. Now we know Helio X25 is not as good as Snapdragon 820 in terms of GPU performance, but gaming was pretty smooth on the phone.

Vernee Apollo’s fingerprint works well. The phone unlocks in less than a second.

I played a few games on the Apollo, like Asphalt 8 and Subway Surfer. I found no missed frames or hiccups in the gameplay as the Helio X25 chip managed to render the graphics well. So, although on paper, the Snapdragon 821 beats the Apollo by a great margin, in real life, for everyday usage, the deca-core X25 should be enough.

Even browsing on the Apollo was a pleasant experience with no hiccups loading and scrolling through multiple pages.

Vernee Apollo Benchmarks

Antutu Score: 90,053

GFXBench Manhattan Offscreen (ES 3.0 | 1080p): 18 fps

GFXBench T-Rex Offscreen (ES 2.0 | 1080p): 36 fps

Overall, the Vernee Apollo is a great mid-range smartphone. But if I had to point out a drawback of the device, then it would be its camera. Inside, the phone comes with a Sony IMX230 camera sensor with f/2.2 aperture. Now, this is a pretty good setup, capable of churning out good quality pictures. But the quality of images captured doesn’t just depend on the sensor inside, but also on the software optimization from the company. This is where I feel, the Apollo could have done better.

The default camera app takes a few seconds to focus on an object and sometimes it even takes multiple trials for a successful lock. Sometimes, especially indoors, the phone managed to capture grainy images. Given the slow focus speed and the grainy image result, I wasn’t too happy with the camera experience.

However, there’s a trick. If you can resist from focusing on an object, the camera turns out to be quite good. Don’t touch the camera screen when you are trying to lock in on an object. By default, the Apollo’s camera locks in on the object in front of you quickly. If you try to touch the area you want to focus, the camera app tries to focus again, which is where things get slow and grainy. So, I would suggest just Point & Shoot. Just point at the object/scenery you want to capture and shoot it quickly. You should be able to get better images.

As you will see in the samples added in the google drive folder, the Vernee Apollo did manage to capture decent pictures in ample lighting conditions. Don’t expect anything out of the ordinary but the camera is capable of capture average decent shots.

The video quality is also decent, nothing out of the ordinary. As for the front camera, it’s also average. I managed to capture decent selfies with the phone’s front shooter.

I was continuously using the Vernee Apollo on Wi-Fi and I didn’t notice any drop in speed or signal. Pairing to speakers, wearables, and even other phones via Bluetooth was also pretty straight forward. No issues in these two departments. The call quality is decent and you won’t have issues talking on the phone for a while.

The speaker output is pretty good as the sound comes out loud and clear. The headphone output is also decent as you get clear audio through good headphones. I didn’t find any specific issues with GPS as well.

Overall, the standard connectivity features work well.

What you get is a stock UI experience. Almost everything is stock Android interface, so nothing special and nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it’s good to see that Vernee went with vanilla Android experience as we have seen Chinese manufacturers mess up the interface when they try to add in their features.

What’s disappointing is that the Vernee Apollo comes with Android Marshmallow out of the box. I haven’t heard about the Nougat update for the phone yet (despite Apollo Lite and Thor getting them), but I am hoping that this company flagship gets the Android 7 update soon.

Given that the Helio X25 is an efficient deca-core chipset, you easily get a day with the Vernee Apollo. Now, 3180mAh isn’t exactly big in today’s standard, but it manages to last an entire day with moderate usage. But what’s best about the Vernee Apollo is that the phone charges very quickly.

You keep the phone on charge for half an hour and the charge goes up from 15% to 50%+ in that time. That’s pretty impressive for a budget flagship smartphone. If you manage to charge the Apollo for like 30 minutes, you are set for an additional 4-5 hours of usage.

My Take

Vernee is definitely a company that we have to keep an eye on. The new entrant is here to change the way we look at local Chinese smartphones and the Vernee Apollo is just a glimpse of the kind of quality products we can get from them.

That being said, the Vernee Apollo is not without flaws. The display on board needs some tweaks in color temperature for the best result and the camera is decent but often captures grainy images.

What I like about the phone is its stellar built quality and finish, the efficient Helio X25 chipset inside with 4GB RAM, ample 64GB of storage with MicroSD expansion option and finally a fast charge equipped default charger. The Vernee Apollo has all the traits of a flagship smartphone, with its design being the biggest plus point.

Make note that the Vernee Apollo is no OnePlus 3T killer, but it definitely can stand on its own as an affordable flagship.

Also check out the huge Gearbest 3 year anniversary promotions here.

The post Vernee Apollo Review: A Beautiful Flagship That Almost Redefines The Way We Look At Local Chinese Phones appeared first on Gizmochina.

A few months ago, a LeEco phone with dual cameras, a 1080p display, a 2.5GHz processor, 4GB RAM, and 32GB of storage was spotted on TENAA. Said to be the LeEco Le 2S Pro, the phone was expected to launch in September. We are already in January and the Le 2S Pro still hasn’t launched.

Then in October, another dual-camera LeEco phone with model number LEX850 was seen on the 3C website getting it’s certification. This one had a 5.7-inch 2k display, a Snapdragon 821 SoC, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and dual 13MP cameras. We thought it was going to be an upgraded version of the Le Max 2 and hoped it would launch soon, but like the Le 2S Pro above, the X850 is yet to arrive.

The news today is that another LeEco phone with dual cameras has been spotted an an online store. The store has the phone listed as the LeEco Le 2S Dual.

The online store lists the Le 2S Dual as having a 5.5-inch display, a Helio X25 processor, dual 13MP cameras on the rear, and a 12MP front-facing camera. The source says the store has pictures of the phone powered on showing it is genuine and the device’s model number is listed as LEX659.

The Le 2S Dual has the same antenna design as the LEX652 but sports a different color. There is also a fingerprint scanner below the dual-camera setup. Some say both the Le 2S Dual (LEX659) and LEX652 are the same device and that the phone was not launched last year because of the company’s financial troubles.

READ MORE: LeEco Le 2 Emerges as Top Best Seller in China’s June to November Sales figure

The Le 2S Dual is priced at ¥1000 ($144) which is not a bad price for a phone with dual cameras, a Helio X25 SoC, and a 5.5-inch display. The only other phone with similar specifications is the Xiaomi Redmi Pro which is priced at $185 for the 3GB+64GB version with a Helio X20 processor and almost $200 for the 3GB+64GB version with a Helio X25 chip.

The post LeEco Phone with Dual Cameras Spotted Online, Priced at ¥1000 ($144) appeared first on Gizmochina.

We first heard about the Vernee Apollo flagship earlier this year, but news about the phone died down in the past few months. However, Vernee has finally announced that the Vernee Apollo flagship will be unveiled this month and it will go on sale from December.

We already know a lot about the Apollo, but here’s a recap of the specs of the device. The flagship will feature MediaTek’s Helio X25 deca-core chipset clocked at 2.5GHz with Mali-T880 GPU. We are still unsure of the RAM inside, but a 6GB RAM option at launch. There should be 64GB of eMMC storage on board as well.

RELATED: Vernee Apollo with Helio X25 will threaten Xiaomi Redmi Pro

The Vernee Apollo is being called as the first Mediatek VR flagship, mainly because it will come with a high resolution of 2560x1440px (2K) with 541 ppi pixel density, making it ideal for using in VR headsets. This could also mean that Vernee may release a VR headset of its own soon, but we are not quite sure about it. As for the rear camera, the phone should come with a 20MP Sony IMX230 sensor.

The exact price of the Vernee Apollo is still not known, but the company is known for pricing its devices reasonably, so we can expect the same with its upcoming release. Earlier, it was said that the phone would go on sale for around $399, but we are waiting for official confirmation from the company.

Stay tuned for more updates on the Apollo flagship.

The post Vernee Apollo Finally Launching This Month: First MTK VR Flagship appeared first on Gizmochina.

Weibo user @ice universe has benchmarked the top 6 processors against each other and the results are pretty interesting. He has also listed out the strong points of each processor.

The result shows Huawei’s Kirin 960 winning scoring highest in memory latency, memory bandwidth, and Dijkstra algorithm value. The Helio X25  CPU  is no slouch either as it wins in some areas too. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 chip also ranks in HDR and Face Detection.

READ MORE:  Xiaomi Meri Rumored to feature In-House Processor

Samsung’s Exynos 8890 is best at encryption and lossless data compression (LZMA). The older snapdragon CPU however fails to win any category which is not surprising as the Snapdragon 821 is supposed to be better than it in all ways. But it does score a little higher than the SD821 in encryption.

The post CPU Battle: Top 6 Processors Slug it Out appeared first on Gizmochina.

A little over six months  after the Meizu Pro 6 was released, Meizu today unveiled the Pro 6S which is more or less an upgrade of the Pro 6. The Meizu Pro 6S looks very similar to the Pro 6 in terms of body design and we have got hands-on images of the device courtesy PCPOP. Let’s take a tour to see if any slight difference exist between the two flagships.

The Pro 6S adopts pretty much the same design as the Pro 6. Both smartphones were even placed side-by-side in some of the snapshots and you just can’t tell which is which just by looking at them. The Pro 6S sports same metal body as the Pro 6 and is available in four colors of rose gold, champagne gold, moonlight silver and sky gray. The Pro 6S also has the same 7.3mm thickness and weighs 163 gram just like the Pro 6. Obviously, the main differences between both devices lie in the hardwares.

On the hardware terrain, one of the major difference between the Pro 6 and Pro 6S is the rear camera sensor. The Meizu Pro 6S packs a more powerful 12MP Sony IMX386 sensor same as on the Meizu MX6, while the Pro 6 features a less powerful  Sony IMX230 sensor. The Pro 6S rear camera also comes with 1.25-micron pixel and f/2.0 aperture, custom 6P lens, zero shutter lag, ring flash, PDAF, laser focus and four-axis OIS. The camera also features multiple shooting modes such as manual mode, Pro mode and a new night mode as well.

Another major difference between both the Pro 6 and Pro 6S is the larger 3,060mAh camera crammed under the Pro 6S’ hood with  24W fast charging support, whereas the Pro 6 packs a smaller 2560mAh battery.

Aside those two differences, the Meizu Pro 6S and Pro 6 are very much similar. The Pro 6S uses the same Helio X25 chipset but with a slightly reduced temperature by 3.5 degrees celsius. The Pro 6S equally sports a 5.2-inch FHD AMOLED display with 2.5D glass on top with 10000:1 contrast ratio and 350 nits brightness and support for pressure sensitive touch.

Related: Meizu Pro 6S Camera Samples Released

Also worthy of note is that the Pro 6S only comes with a 64GB non-expandable storage whereas the Pro 6 featured a lower 32GB storage version. Another thing is that the Meizu Pro 6S carries a price tag of 2,699 Yuan ($400) which is slightly lower than the price of the 64GB variant of the Pro 6 which retails for 2,799 Yuan ($413). Remember the Pro 6S packs more features, so i’ts a case of getting more for less. Amazing, isn’t it?

The post Meizu Pro 6S Hands-On Images: Spot The Difference! appeared first on Gizmochina.

Meizu has been teasing its brand new Meizu Pro 6S flagship for the past few days. Today, at an official event, the company took the wraps off the new device in China. The company has surprising priced the Pro 6S cheaper than the existing Pro 6 flagship, but that’ll probably change in the next couple of days as sellers start discounting the previous generation model.

Design wise, the Meizu Pro 6S is pretty much the same as the Pro 6 handset. It comes with a metal body with CNC, 3D, PBT nano molding and three-dimensional sandblasting anodizing process, with four color options — moonlight silver, rose gold, champagne gold and sky gray. Even in the thickness department, the company has managed to keep it almost the same as the previous gen model, with a 7.3mm thick body and 163 grams weight.

As for the specs, the Meizu Pro 6S comes with the same 5.2-inch FHD AMOLED display with 2.5D glass on top as the previous generation model with 10000:1 contrast ratio and 350 nits brightness. Note that the phone supports pressure sensitive touch.

The real upgrades are in the camera department. The Pro 6S comes with a Sony IMX386 12MP sensor with 1.25-micron pixel and f/2.0 aperture. Other features include custom 6P lens, zero shutter lag, ring flash, PDAF, laser focus and four-axis OIS. There are multiple shooting options such as manual mode, Pro mode and a new night mode as well.

One of the big disappointments with the Meizu Pro 6 was its small 2560mAh battery. That’s changed with the new Meizu Pro 6S as it comes with a larger 3060mAh battery, which should ensure at least a day of battery life with moderate usage. The 24W fast charging will further help in speeding up the process of charging the battery.

This new model also comes with Helio X25 deca-core chipset, but it is said that the temperature of the chipset has been reduced by 3.5 degrees celsius. Other specs include 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 64GB of storage which is not expandable, 5MP front camera, voLTE, Flyme 5 OS, dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1.

As for the pricing, the Meizu Pro 6S is priced at 2699 Yuan ($400). This makes it cheaper than the Pro 6 4GB edition that retails for 2799 Yuan ($413) in China but this price will most likely reduce very soon.

So, what do you think about the Pro 6S? I would personally like to see some real life samples from the new camera with OIS.

While the Pro 6S is a decent flagship, what you really should be looking forward to is the true flagship smartphone that Meizu is reportedly preparing for launch by the end of this year.

The post Meizu Pro 6S Official: Upgrades Camera (Sony IMX386 + OIS) & Battery At A Cheaper Price appeared first on Gizmochina.

While we were still waiting to see the actual renders of the Pro 6S, Meizu has surprised us with the release of what is said to be camera samples shot by the Pro 6S’ camera. The Meizu Pro 6S had been disclosed to use the same design as the Pro 6 with perhaps so pieces of engineering on the inside. For one, the Pro 6S has been revealed to still likely retain the Helio X25 chipset used on the Pro 6 but the device seems to have seen some bit of upgrade on the camera end and perhaps in some other hardware aspects as well.

Recent Weibo update by a Meizu Engineer reveals some very clear images said to have been shot be the Pro 6S and to clear doubts, the Meizu Engineer could be seen to be blogging using a Meizu Pro 6S smartphone. Some might have wanted the EXIF information but since it was shared on Weibo, that is not available. The photos were also compared to some shots from an iPhone 7 and curiously the photos said to have been shot by the Pro 6S came out better. Definitely, we’ll have to put that to test before believing any bit of it.

However, the launch of the pro 6S is not far off, as Meizu has scheduled a concert for October 31 where the Chinese company is also expected to unveil the Meizu M5. The Pro 6S is now rumored to launch on November 3 and very well, that isn’t far off. We’ll wait to see how that pans out.

The post Meizu Pro 6S Camera Samples Released appeared first on Gizmochina.

LeEco has managed to take on competitors with aggressively priced Le 2 mid-range smartphone. However, there’s another slightly powerful model in the company’s Le lineup that was announced in April, namely the Le 2 Pro. This particular model comes with an even faster processor, the Helio X25 @ 2.5GHz at a very cheap price tag. Considering the same chip powers flagships such as the Meizu Pro 6 which costs a lot more, the Le 2 Pro with its powerful specifications is definitely worth checking out.

Now, the Le 2 Pro model with Helio X25 on board is available on OPPOMART for $249. The one listed as default is the Helio X20 powered model, so make sure you select Helio X25 powered model from the drop down menu.

As for the other specs of the Le 2 Pro, it comes with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. At the back, you get a powerful 21MP Sony IMX230 sensor while up front, there’s an 8MP shooter. The display remains the same, a 5.5-inch panel with 1080p resolution. Other features include USB TYpe-C, VoLTE and 3000mAh battery.

Remember that there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack on board, so be ready to use USB Type-C headphones on the device.

The post LeEco Le 2 Pro With Helio X25 Now Available On OPPOMART appeared first on Gizmochina.

A new device from Xiaomi has shown up on bench-marking site, GeekBench. The device which goes by the name Xiaomi Redmi Pro sports a MT6795T processor a.ka. Helio X25. This is the same processor found on the Meizu Pro 6.

The phone scores 1847 on the single-core test and 4761 on the multi-core test. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow and is said to be equipped with 4GB of RAM and a Mali-T880 GPU.

The exciting part of the news is the price. Xiaomi is said  to sell this new phone for just 1000 Yuan ($150)!!! Well, that’s what the rumors are saying right now. If true, this is less than half of the price of the Meizu Pro 6 which sells for $350 (2339 Yuan). We don’t know what game Xiaomi is playing but this will dent a blow on the sales of Meizu.

Meizu’s Pro 6 still has some strong features of its own such as a Super AMOLED screen with 3D touch and a 21MP primary camera.

Xiaomi has not yet announced the camera specs of the screen, but we should expect either a 13MP or 16MP sensor and a regular FHD screen.

Hopefully, more details will emerge of this Helio X25 powered mid-ranger in the coming weeks.

The post New Redmi Device With Helio X25 Spotted: To Take on Meizu Pro 6 appeared first on Gizmochina.

It seems like a long time since we first heard about the Elephone P9000 Edge smartphone. We have been waiting for this particular device for the past few months, and up till now, we only have been hearing tid bits about the device. A few days back, we came up with some of the specs of the Eleephone P9000 Edge model and now, we have a few more pictures as well as details about the device.

The new bezel-less model from Elephone is confirmed to come with the Helio X25 chipset, which is the overclocked version of the deca-core Helio X20. From benchmarks, we have seen that this chip is quite powerful for an everyday flagship. Up front, the phone will feature a bezel-less 5.7-inch JDI display with 2K resolution. The company is also using an all metal design on the device, so metal lovers will definitely be happy to hear this.

Apart from this, the Elephone P9000 Edge will come with speakers with ACC tech, which produces a similar effect as the iPhone 6S and the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. Further, the company seems to have given due importance to the camera at the back. The phone is said to come with dual cameras, with variable apertures and quick focus. The definition of photos will be reportedly improved by around 30%. Also, users will be able to choose a focal point after the image has been taken. There will be dual tone flash as well. Finally, the phone will come with a fingerprint enabled home button up front.

As for the versions, the P9000 Edge is supposed to come in at least two variants, one with 4GB RAM and 32GB storage and another with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. Pricing is said to start at $250 for one of the versions, which should most likely be for the 4GB RAM version.

So, what do you think about these specs? Despite its late entry, do you think the P9000 Edge is a phone that can get your attention?

The post Important Elephone P9000 Edge Details Revealed: CPU, RAM, Camera & Pricing appeared first on Gizmochina.

We all are waiting patiently for the Vernee Apollo smartphone, the first 6GB RAM phone from the company. Vernee had revealed a few months back that its flagship model was going to come with the Helio X20 chip on board. We have seen that this deca-core chip is a pretty good performer, however, last month, MediaTek released a faster variant of the chipset, the Helio X25 clocked at a higher frequency. Now, it looks like Vernee has decided to use this faster Mediatek Helio X25 chipset inside the upcoming Apollo flagship.

Rest of the specs seems to be the same as before. So, only the chipset has been upgraded to X25. Other specs as revealed by the company earlier include 6GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage, and 5.5-inch 2K display. At the back, the phone will reportedly come with a 21MP Sony IMX230 camera sensor. Other features of the Apollo are metal unibody design, USB Type-C port and pressure sensitive display.

The launch of the device has been delayed to July. However, the Vernee Apollo Lite version will be launching sooner, sometime in June.

The company has also released a 3D video of the upcoming Apollo flagship. Check that out from down below.

The post Vernee Upgrades CPU On The Apollo Flagship to Helio X25 appeared first on Gizmochina.

Meizu surprised us all last month by unveiling not one, but three new handsets. After keeping quiet for the initial three months of the year, the company decided it was time to update all of the three major lineups in April, namely Meizu M3, Meizu M3 Note and Meizu Pro 6. While these three phones are already announced, there could be more. We have heard rumors about the Meizu MX6 launching sometime in the second half of this year and now, thanks to a Geekbench listing, it looks like there is a possibility of a Meizu Pro 6 Lite version as well.

The Geekbench listing reveals that there is a slightly toned down Meizu Pro 6 variant, with 3GB RAM on board. In case you remember, the Pro 6 flagship is the first phone in the market to run on the new Helio X25 chipset which is an overclocked and faster version of the X20. While we would expect the toned downed version to feature the slower Helio X20 chip, it looks like the phone has the same MT6795T i.e. Helio X25.

The scores are pretty amazing, with the model scoring 2061 in the single-core test and an impressive 6691 in the multi-core test. Both the test scores are better than the original Pro 6’s score, which gets only around 1800 in the single-core and 6200-6300 in the multi-core test.

However, we are not quite sure whether this would end up being announced as the listing is of March 22, which is way before the Pro 6 was officially announced. It is possible that this is a prototype model that was being tested before launch. So, we better wait for some more concrete details about the device.

The post Meizu Pro 6 Could Have a “Lite” Version With 3GB RAM appeared first on Gizmochina.

Meizu just announced the Pro 6 smartphone and the overall package is pretty impressive. The phone starts at less than $400 and comes with the upgraded Helio X25 chip along with 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and a lot of high-end features. Since the phone is now official, we can get some real benchmark results of the device. Thanks to Chinese media, we have the Pro 6 AnTuTu and Geekbench results with Helio X25 inside and the results are more or less similar to what we had seen previously.

So, in the official Pro 6 conference, Meizu had said that the phone manages to score around 101,757 points on AnTuTu. Well, from past experience we know that real life results come out a bit less than the official figure, and the same thing has happened here. The Helio X25 inside the Pro 6 has managed to score 96,169 in the recent AnTuTu test, a good 5500 points below the official figure. But that seems to be acceptable, because under perfect conditions the Pro 6 should be able to break the 100K mark.

This also shows that the Helio X25 is slightly better on AnTuTu as compared to Kirin 950, which manages to score around 93,000 (max). Also, in the Geekbench test as well, Helio X25 outdoes the Kirin 950 inside the Mate 8 with a score of over 1900 on average in the single-core test and 6300 (avg) in the multi-core test. On the other hand, Kirin 950 scores around 1700 and 6200 in the two respective tests.

To be fair, Huawei Kirin 955 would be a better competitor to the Helio X25. Initial benchmark tests have shown AnTuTu results to be around 96-98K, which is at par with Helio x25’s results. However, benchmarks are not always a good indicator of the real life performance of the chip, and hence, just because one chip gets 2K more than the other in a benchmark test, it doesn’t really make it a better performer.

We will have to see the actual performance of the chip in real life usage and how well it is optimized with the software to see which phone offers a better user experience.

(Source)

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Meizu has confirmed that it will announce the Meizu M3 Note mid-ranger on April 6. Despite that, we seem to be getting a steady stream of leaks about the Meizu Pro 6 flagship which should debut only in the next couple of months. Thanks to a render released by the company’s VP, Li Nan, we got to know about the unique antenna lines on the device. Now, for the first time, the real-life image of the front of the Pro 6 has been leaked.

One of the first things you’ll notice is the lack of visible bezels. The company seems to have trimmed down the bezel size on the sides to a considerable extent, at least, that’s what we can see from the image. However, like most phones, the Pro 6 might have some black borders on the sides, which unfortunately, we can’t confirm yet. Another thing we can see is the presence of what looks like 2.5D glass as well as the mBack home button, which should most likely feature a fingerprint sensor.

The back of the device was already leaked, and this could be the same phone that we saw in the earlier images. The Pro 6 will reportedly feature an updated design with rounder corners and a compact form factor. Like mentioned above, the antenna lines are a bit different on the device. Also, it seems that the phone will come with a ring flash along with Laser Autofocus in between.

READ MORE: Meizu Pro 6 With Helio X25 Scores Nearly 100K On AnTuTu

Moving to the specs, the Pro 6 flagship is confirmed to come with a pressure sensitive display as well as the new Helio X25 deca-core chipset. Other unconfirmed features of the phone include an all metal design, 4GB of RAM, 21MP rear camera, dual SIM card slots and Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS with flyme UI on top.

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Today was a busy day for Mediatek as it announced two chipsets in China, namely the Helio X20 and the Helio X25. The chipmaker had already announced the X20 a few months back, but this seems to be its release event. Anyways, we have seen Helio X20 perform, thanks to ZOPO’s first deca-core flagship, the ZOPO Speed 8. From the benchmark results, we came to know that the company was targeting the upper mid-range market with this chip, while the Helio X25 will be taking care of the top-end segment.

Now that these two chipsets have been released, we are waiting for phones with them inside. We already know that Meizu Pro 6 will be the exclusive smartphone with Helio X25 (at least for the next few months) and now LeEco executives have confirmed that the second generation Le 2 smartphones will feature the mid-range Helio X20.

Although ZOPO was the first manufacturer to release an Helio X20 powered device, it looks like LeEco will be the first true large-scale manufacturer to adopt the chip. What’s more, LeEco’s President of the Mobile department, Feng Xing said that the company will prepare a stock of more than 1 million units of Helio X20 powered products. That’s pretty impressive and shows the confidence of the company in the chip.

However, if you are not a big fan of Mediatek, don’t worry, it is said that there will be a Snapdragon 820 powered Le 2 version as well. And if the phone looks anything like the renders we have come across recently, fans are definitely going to love the overall package.

LeEco is expected to release the Le 2 flagship sometime before the end of March, which means we could see an announcement in the next couple of weeks. Apart from LeEco, manufacturers like OPPO and Qihoo 360 (smartphone division) are also expected to release Helio X20 powered smartphones.

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The chipmaker Mediatek has just announced a brand new processor for the top-end market called as the Helio X25. This will be an upgraded version of the existing Helio X20 chipset, clocked at a higher frequency.

The basic design between the Helio X25 and the Helio X20 remain the same, so the new chip will also come with a tri-cluster architecture based on 10 cores. However, the performance cores namely the Cortex A72 cores will be clocked at a higher frequency, from 2.3GHz to 2.5GHz. The other two clusters remain the same, meaning the new chip comes with two sets of 4 x Cortex A53 cores.

Even the GPU will get a bump up in the frequency, from 780MHz to 850MHz. This will make sure that the chip is ideal for the top-end flagship segment which requires much more power than what the Helio X20 offers. Interestingly, MTK says that the power consumption of the chip will not increase.

Now, if you remember, this is not the first time we are hearing about the Helio X25. Earlier, we had reported that Mediatek was preparing a variant of the X20 called as the Helio X25 and today, the company made the details official. Given the performance of the Helio X20, it was not suitable for the high-end segment. But the X25 seems to be the ideal choice.

Now, it is confirmed that Meizu Pro 6 will be the world’s first flagship to use Helio X25 chip. This is not so surprising given that Meizu’s VP Li Nan had said a couple of days back that Meizu Pro 6 won’t be using Exynos 8890 or 2K display. Considering that an analyst revealed the Snapdragon 820 chip is costly, a chip like the Helio X25 could be the company’s best bet.

Other specs of the Helio X25 include Cat 6. LTE connectivity, 4G+ with download speeds of up to 300Mbps and support for the latest Pump Express 3.0 fast charging which can charge a device up to 75% in just 20 minutes.

As for the release of the Pro 6, we may have to wait for a few more months.

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Meizu has been relatively quiet in the first two months of 2016. The only major announcement that came from the company was that of the Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition, released at MWC this year. Further, the potential release of the Pro 5 Mini was spoilt due to the earthquake in Taiwan which caused damages to one of the company’s suppliers. Later, reports about the Meizu MX6 surfaced which said that the phone will launch sometime around April-May.

Now, one of the industry insiders says that Meizu will release a new smartphone in a brand new lineup. So, this won’t be a part of the company’s existing series like the Pro, Blue Charm or even the MX lineup. However, he didn’t reveal the name of the new series. But what he did say was that the new phone will feature an enhanced version of Helio X20 chipset, most likely called as the Helio X25. This MT6797T chip will be clocked at a higher frequency and will be much more powerful than the existing X20 chip.

Since there are two lineups, namely the MX series and the Pro series from Meizu, which feature powerful smartphones, this new lineup could be placed in between the low-end Blue Charm series and the MX series.

Another interesting information revealed by the insider was that Meizu as well as LeEco are set to release smartphones based on the new Helio X25 chipset. We have heard rumors about the Le 2 featuring powerful specs at an affordable price tag and it could be this model that the insider is hinting about. However, since we still haven’t seen many phones with X20 on board, it could be a little early to expect phones with the new chip to debut in the market.

What do you think? How good will this enhanced Helio X20 chipset be?

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