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