Chinese Superphones!

Going back to the UK in 2 days time and unfortunately the tablets are still in China so won't be able to play around with them at all. Well, on the bright side I can sell my ThL phone on eBay and buy something else to review! How I wish I can review phones for free :)). One can always dream.

Seeing all the new chinese smartphones makes it difficult on deciding which phone to buy next. So this post serves as a way for me to objectively decide which phone I should buy next. Meet the contenders!

1) XiaoMi Mi2

SOC: Snapdragon APQ8064 1.5GHz
GPU: Adreno 320
Screen: 4.3" IPS 1280x720
RAM: 2GB
ROM: 16GB/32GB
OS: Android 4.1, Jelly Bean with MIUI interface
Camera: 2.0MP(Front) and 8.0MP(Rear)
Battery: 2000mAh
SD-card: No
Retail Price without shipping: USD 430 (16GB)

Reasons to buy:

• Quad core
• Supposedly good camera
• MIUI so expect excellent software support
• Biggest RAM capacity among all current superphones. Same as the new Galaxy Note.
• Next generation GPU.

2) Lenovo lephone K860

SOC: Samsung Exynos 4412 1.4GHz
GPU: Mali-400 MP
Screen: 5.0" AH-IPS 1280x720
RAM: 1GB
ROM: 8GB
OS: Android 4.0
Camera: 2.0MP(Front) and 8.0MP(Rear)
Battery: 2250mAh
SD-card: Yes
Retail Price without shipping: USD 448

Reasons to buy:

• Quad core, same as Galaxy S III
• SD Card slot
• 5.0" screen
• Lenovo is a huge company so expect quality control to be better than competition
• SD Card slot

3)  Beidou Little Pepper Tegra3

SOC: NVIDIA Tegra 3 1.5GHz
GPU: ULP Geforce at 520MHz
Screen: 4.65" IPS 1280x720
RAM: 1GB
ROM: 4GB
OS: Android 4.0
Camera: 0.3MP(Front) and 8.0MP(Rear)
Battery: 1630mAh
SD-card: Yes
Retail Price without shipping: USD 400

Reasons to buy:

• Quad core
• SD Card slot
• Can play Tegra 3 exclusive titles without any tweaks.

4) ZTE Grand Era U985

SOC: NVIDIA Tegra 3 1.5GHz
GPU: ULP Geforce at 520MHz
Screen: 4.5" IPS 1280x720
RAM: 1GB
ROM: 4GB
OS: Android 4.0
Camera: 1.3MP(Front) and 8.0MP(Rear)
Battery: 1800mAh
SD-card: Yes
Retail Price without shipping: USD 385

Reasons to buy:

• Quad core
• SD Card slot
• Can play Tegra 3 exclusive titles without any tweaks.

5)XiaoMi 1S

SOC: Snapdragon MSM8260 1.7GHz
GPU: Adreno 220
Screen: 4.0" IPS 854x480
RAM: 1GB
ROM: 4GB
OS: Android 4.0 with MIUI interface
Camera: 2.0MP(Front) and 8.0MP(Rear)
Battery: 1930mAh
SD-card: Yes
Retail Price without shipping: USD 350 (16GB)

Reasons to buy:

• Supposedly good camera
• MIUI so expect excellent software support
• SD Card slot
• The fastest dual core SOC available

6)Tianyu K-Touch Treasure V8 II

SOC: NVIDIA Tegra 3 1.5GHz
GPU: ULP Geforce at 520MHz
Screen: 4.5" ASV 1280x720
RAM: 1GB
ROM: 16GB
OS: Android 4.0
Camera: 1.0MP(Front) and 8.0MP(Rear)
Battery: 1820mAh
SD-card: Yes
Retail Price without shipping: USD 400

Reasons to buy:

• Quad core
• SD Card
• Press release says it has good speakers. Sometimes referred to as a music phone.

7) Huawei Ascend D1 Quad XL

SOC: HiSilicon K3V2 1.4GHz Quad Core
GPU: 16 cores unknown GPU
Screen: 4.5" IPS+ 1280x720
RAM: 1GB
ROM: 8GB
OS: Android 4.0
Camera: 1.3MP(Front) and 8.0MP(Rear)
Battery: 2600mAh
SD-card: Yes
Retail Price without shipping: USD 500

Reasons to buy:

• Unique to Huawei quad core SOC.
• Marketted as having extra long battery life thanks to combination of in-house developed software and hardware by Huawei. They are using Apple's approach (having total control over their device).
• Huawei is an establised brand so should have good quality control.
• Rear camera is backside illuminated should should take acceptable pictures indoors.
• Confirmed to have Gorilla glass to protect the screen.

Thoughts

Personally, I am only interested in some of these devices. 

• I WILL buy the XiaoMi M1S to check out the camera first.
• If it is as good as they said it would be then I would sell it and buy the Mi2 :)
• If not, I will sell it and buy a Nokia Lumia 920 on contract haha.
• Will you guys be interested in  the Lumia 920 review? Doubt it :P
• If somehow I become rich, I would review the K-Touch Treasure V8 II  primarily to test out the speakers and the Ascend D1 Quad XL to test just how the in-house SOC fares compared to the others. 

So, in short expect a review on the Xiaomi M1S in the coming 2 weeks :). 

Till then.

Regards,
YS.

ThL W3+ (with MTK6577) ordered!

Just a brief update, I have been contemplating whether or not to buy a phone with the MTK6577 inside.
Not because I need a phone but because I was curious of its performance :).

For those of you who still wonders what this chip is, it is designed by MediaTek which is currently the hottest chip designer in China. They are better associated with media players so when I first came across this chip my interest was piqued and then money started flowing out of my bank account.

There are scarce information about the real life performance of this chip which is really frustrating. The important details are:

Dual-core of Cortex A9 at 1GHz.
PowerVR SGX531 Ultra GPU.

The GPU side is really interesting as there is virtually no information on this particular model. The PowerVR SGX531 itself was introduced way back in 2008 so to say it is outdated is really an understatement. I really have no idea whether the Ultra suffix really exist or not but guess we will just have to wait till my phone arrive.

If you are interested in this SOC, these are some of the choices available. All of these phones have 1GB of RAM as I do not think 512MB is really practical in today's world.

Model:Amoi N820

Screen : 4.5" with resolution of 960*540.
Battery: 2000mAh


Model:ThL W3+

Screen : 4.5" with resolution of 1280*720.
Battery: 2000mAh


Model:Newman N1

Screen : 4.3" with resolution of 960*540.
Battery: 1700mAh


Model:Jiayu G3

Screen : 4.5" with resolution of 1280*720.
Battery: 2750mAh


Model: Huawei ShanYao 3G 

Screen : 4.3" with resolution of 960*540.
Battery: 1930mAh

Looking at these specs, I really really really wanted to buy the Jiayu G3. Unfortunately, it is still not released (pre-order) with no firm release date. Infact, the only one currently available to purchase is the ThL W3+ and is the one I purchased. I really like the JiaYu G3 design but I guess the ThL W3+ will have to do for now. If the SoC perform satisfactorily, I will just sell the phone and get the JiaYu :P. 


Review coming next week! Assuming DHL delivers it on time that is :).
Till then!

Regards,
YS.