After reviewing some previous phones made by Vernee, I have the impression that the company can make some quality phones at affordable price. This time around we have the Vernee Mars, which has an outstanding build quality, good specs and more. Learn more in our full review.

Vernee Mars Review: VIDEO REVIEW

Vernee Mars Review: UNBOXING

In the box, you can find a fast charger, USB-C cable, SIM ejector pin and some paperwork.

Vernee was also kind enough to send me a very nicely-made wood smartphone cradle.

Vernee Mars Review: SPECS

Vernee Mars Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY

The very first thing you are going to notice is an outstanding build quality of the device. It is made entirely of metal and I absolutely love the design of the antenna inlays.

We have a 5.5” 1080p display, which is sharp and vibrant but it could be just a tad brighter.

Just above the display, we have a 5MP shooter, which sits next to the notification LED light.

The phone just looks and feels premium in the hand. Also, the buttons do not rattle and they are tactile.

As for the camera, we have 13MP shooter coupled with a dual tone dual-LED flash and PDAF.

We have a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, which is convenient to use. It is pretty accurate and it unlocks the phone 8/10, and it can do it straight from the standby mode.

The loudspeaker is placed on the bottom but the sound is kind of tinny and a little flat.

Vernee Mars Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

When it comes to hardware, the phone ships with an octa-core Mediatek Helio P10 chip with the clock speeds of 2.0GHz, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Helio P10 chips when it comes to gaming and the Vernee Mars is no exception. You should expect quite a few skipped frames and stutter if you want to play games like Asphalt 8 on the highest graphics. On the other hand, playing this game on medium graphics is much better and you may have some enjoyable gaming experience.

Vernee Mars Review: BENCHMARKS

Vernee Mars Review: USER INTERFACE

The Vernee Mars ships with the pretty much stock-looking Android 6.0.

There are not too many features to talk about except for the fact that there are some customization options like the ability to switch the position of on-screen navigation buttons.

Most importantly, I didn’t have any issues with the phone’s daily performance even after installing quite a few apps and I would say that the Vernee Mars is a pretty fast performer.

Vernee Mars 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.

When it comes to the image quality, the Vernee Mars can take some decent-looking images in daylight. I took most of the pictures in the cloudy day and they look quite good but there could be a little more detail. Also, some of the shots look under-exposed and the colors look washed out. Finally, the camera does not really impress in low-light as there is quite a lot of noise and grain in the pictures.

As for selfie camera, the image quality could be better. The selfies could look a lot sharper and there could be more detail.

When it comes to the 1080p video, it is kind of mediocre as the footage could look sharper. Also, there is no continuous auto-focus on board. See the video review for a video sample.

Download full resolution camera samples

Vernee Mars Review: CONNECTIVITY

The phone comes with a hybrid dual-SIM card tray, which can take either 2 SIM cards or 1 SIM and the microSD card.

When it comes to connectivity, I didn’t have any issues with the signal reception. Also, the wifi and the call quality are pretty good. The GPS signal may not be the best, but it may get the job done most of the times.

Vernee Mars Review: BATTERY LIFE

The phone ships with a 3000mAh battery that performs quite well. I could get around 4 or even 5 hours of screen-on time, depending on the usage.

In case you need to re-charge it, the supplied fast charge will do that in around 2 hours.

Vernee Mars Review: CONCLUSIONS

The Vernee Mars is yet another sub-$200 phone from China that aims to bring a lot of value to the table.

I have to say that it succeeds in quite a few ways since the device has a premium all-metal design, excellent build quality, and nice and sharp display.

Also, the Vernee Mars is a pretty fast performer when it comes to the day-to-day use and the battery life is pretty good.

However, the camera department is where the phone struggles. Sure, you can take some decent daylight images but the camera falls short in lower-lit or more challenging situations like cloudy days.

In addition, you have to know that the Helio P10 chip allows you to play the latest 3D games only on medium graphics.

At the end of the day, Vernee Mars is still a pretty solid smartphone for the price but you have to consider if the previously mentioned shortcomings are important to you or not.

At the moment, Gearbest has the Vernee Mars on sale and Gizmochina readers can get it for $199 using the coupon code 4ALLVMS.

Also, Gearbest has 13% OFF Coupon for phones. Coupon code: GBMBP

The post Vernee Mars Review – A Thing of Beauty! appeared first on Gizmochina.

Elephone Four Product Launch 2016 coming on the 15th

The Elephone Four Product Launch 2016 has now been given an official time and date, at 2.30pm (GMT+8) on January the 15th you will be given full details of four Elephone products.

The P9000 handsets will be shown along with full product details and specifications, hopefully including a chance to see a finalised version of the P9000 Edge, as whilst most of the phones specs are well documented having been covered as part of the recent crowd funding promotion, the P9000 Edge has yet to be seen in the wild, hopefully it can live up to the renders that have been shown previously.

Their will also be coverage of the Elephone W2 watch, from what we have seen and been told so far it will feature a stainless steel case comparable in quality to those produced by high end watch manufacturers such as Longines and Ronda, along with an internal movement used by makers like Cartier, these are certainly very bold statements to make and a lot of people will doubt them, so lets wait and see if the W2 watch lives up to them.

When it comes to features a cool looking illuminated night light, and will support smart functions such as sleep and sports monitoring, sedentary reminders, call reminders and is compatible with both IOS and Android operating systems.

Overall the design looks high end and is visually pleasing, the changeable real leather watch strap should also add to the sense of quality and give it a touch of style.

Elephone will be giving a 50% discount on the watch as part of the Elephone Four Product Launch 2016, but we will need to wait till the 15th to find out exactly what we need to do in order to take advantage of the 50% off offer and if it will be limited to a certain number of applicants.

Another handset that will be covered as part of the Elephone Four Product Launch 2016, is the M3 Business phone, it will come in two different specification levels, with the differences between versions being the camera and memory specifications.

The top of spec M3 includes a 5.5″ LG screen, USB Type-C 3.0, 21MP Sony230 camera, Android 6.0 and fingerprint scanner.

Both versions of the M3 feature Network B allowing them to be used all around the world including America.

The aviation grade aluminium body will come in a range of three colours rose gold, champagne gold and smoky grey.

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Elephone M3 Pro details of upcoming  handset released

Elephone will be releasing not one but two versions of their latest M3 Business handset, a standard M3 and more feature ladened Elephone M3 PRO.

Both the M3 and Elephone M3 Pro will be built from High-tech aircraft-grade aluminium and both will also be rocking the Octa Core Mediatek MT6755 Helio P10 CPU along with support for USB type-c (3.0) and a 5.5” LG screens. 

But the Elephone M3 Pro will also feature a much better camera in the form of the Sony IMX230 21mp rear camera,

It also seems that the Elephone M3 Pro will have native support for US based LTE networks ensuring true worldwide usability and cheaper Android handsets for the American market.

On the rear of the Elephone M3 Pro you will also find a finger print reader, something that should help to future proof the handset as support is now built in to Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

For the fashion conscious amongst you Elephone have anounced that the Elephone M3 Pro will be available in a selection of three colours, these are Rose Gold, Champagne Gold and Smoky Grey, the picture below shows the rose gold option.

As yet we have not been made aware of the expected Rom and Ram configurations for the M3 Pro, I would hope that the Elephone M3 Pro will come with at least 3GB of Ram and 32gb Rom but I will have to let you know for certain as more information is released.

Please leave any questions or comments below.

Regards Shane

Original article posted on Gadgetz.tv

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At the start of the year, Mediatek rebranded its high-end lineup as the Helio series. While the Helio X (X stands for Extreme Performance) series was meant to cater to the needs of a flagship with top-notch performance, the Helio P series (P stands for Premium) was targeted at the mid-range flagship smartphones.

Mediatek unveiled the Helio P10 MT6755 octa-core chip on June 1st, however, we have not yet seen a smartphone running this SoC. As a result, the performance of the handset is still not known.

Yesterday, Mediatek MT6755 or the Helio P10 was spotted on the Geekbench results, revealing the performance of its eight-cores for the first time. According to the results, the P10 managed to score 882 in the single core test, and 3371 in the multi-core test. In comparison, the Snapdragon 615 scores only about 700 points in the single core and 2700 points in the multi-core tests on an average. As a result, it looks like the Helio P10 will be much faster than the Snapdragon 615 chipset. However, we have to take into consideration that the 615 is a year old chip. When it comes to performance, the new Snapdragon 620 will definitely give the Helio P10 a run for its money (acc. to rumors).

Other specs of the Helio P10 include 2GHz, True Octa-core 64-bit Cortex-A53 CPU, 700MHz, Dual-core 64-bit Mali-T860 GPU, WorldMode LTE Cat-6, MediaTek’s CorePilot for optimized system load management, and MediaTek’s Non-contact Heart Rate Monitoring which uses the smartphone’s video camera to take heart rate readings.
Well, things are definitely going to get interesting in the mid-range and high-end smartphone segment in the coming months, with a number of powerful chips including Helio X20, P10, Snapdragon 820 and 620 expected to release before the end of the year.

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