[Q] Questions about Chinese phones + recommendation - General Questions and Answers

I've been searching for a new phone and I'm considering possibly buying a Chinese phone. I know there are certain brands which can be trusted (Huawei, ZTE, Coolpad, Lenovo and a few others). The thing is that I want to know more about the chipsets that these phones use. So here's a few questions.
First, the two chipsets that I'm interested in are the MT6577 and the MSM8225 (S4 Play). How is the everyday user experience with both of these chipsets? I know that in general the MT6577 seems to be the better performer in terms of benchmarks being a Cortex A9 v. the Cotex A5 of the MSM8225. While I would like to do some gaming, I'm not really a hardcore gamer. But what's most important to me is the smoothness of everyday use. I'd like UI performance to be as fluid as possible and for apps to work well (again, not looking for anything out of this world, but steady). Also if anyone has had experience with more widely available chipsets from OMAP, Nvidia, or Snapdragon (especially the MSM8255, which I've had experience with) where would you place the performance of these two chipsets compared to those chipsets?
Second, is battery life performance. I know that the chipsets themselves aren't the only factor in battery life performance, but I'd like to know which one of the two is most efficient in general.
Also a couple of general questions.
I'm considering possibly getting a dual sim phone (well most of these phones seem to be dual sim). I was wondering if these phones have different [manufacturer specific] methods of managing the sims or if they are managed Android itself. I'm considering using the phone I get on a US pre-paid carrier (At&t/At&t MNVO) and what I'm thinking of doing is using the GSM slot for pay-as-you go minutes and text and the WCDMA slot for a daily use plan.
Also how's the call quality of these phones? The reviews on some of these phones that I've found seem to omit this. While I don't talk a ton, I would like to have a phone that sounds good and is easy to understand. I've taken calls at the place I work from cell phones that sound absolutely terrible lol. I don't want a phone that sounds bad.
There are a few other specs that I'm looking for in a phone (if you guys have any recommendations):
3.5 to 4.3 inch screen (maybe 4.5)
4GB ROM (I've heard that these phones also come with some manufacturer software that takes up a lot of storage in addition to Android itself)
5-8MP camera (not incredibly important. I know that MP aren't the only spec that makes for a good camera)
Price range is anywhere between $100-250. I might be interested in getting a Xiaomi phone as well, although I know that they are very hard to find and can be significantly out of my price range.

Related

Dual Core = Overkill

I know i'm gonna get burned at the stake for this one, since this is a tech forum, but dual core is just overkill AT THE PRESENT MOMENT. It's like computers. They are all now dualcore, most come with almost 4 gigs of ram. What in the hell would 95% of the population need AT THE MOMENT with something more powerful than that? LIke a quadcore with 8 gigs? NOTHING. It's just a ploy to get more money. Our 1ghz phones can run everything just fine. This isn't like the early days of android where it always felt like more ram and raw power was needed. We have hit a plateau where the current cellphone landscape fits MOST peoples needs. Can i really be the only one who thinks that it's just unnecessary?
Remember, xda only represents .0000000001% of actual real world use. I am talking about the layman who is actually gonna fall for the "OMFG ITS GONNA DO EVERYTHING SO MUCH BETTER AND FASTER", um no it's not. Most people dont even max out there current hardware.
Edit: Seriously people get a grip on reality. I'm not pushing my views on anyone. It's a ****ing forum, you know, one of those places where people discuss things??? The debate that has come out of this has been fantastic, and i have learned alot of things i didnt know. I'm not gonna change my original post to not confuse people reading the whole topic, but i can now understand why dual core does make some sense. Quit attacking me and making stuff so personal, it's uncalled for and frankly i'm about to ask a mod to close this topic cause it's getting so ridiculous. Learn how to have a debate without letting all the emotion get in the way or GTFO. YOUR the one with the problem, not me.
Xda doesn't care. We like specs, maxing out our devices, and most of all, benchmarking
redbullcat said:
Xda doesn't care. We like specs, maxing out our devices, and most of all, benchmarking
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Well as do i! I'm talking about the uneducated masses.
more cores mean;
more threads
meaning better apps
meaning better FPS
meaning HD everything
meaning more capabilities
meaning more fun with less devices.
Do you remember the days you had a cell phone, a PDA, an MP3 player, a digital camera AND a laptop? All that was missing is your bat symbol and cape. I like not having to have a utility belt of gadgets on my person.
I would rather see them work on battery saving and density technologies to eventually allow for one week [heavy usage] times.
iamnottypingthis said:
I would rather see them work on battery saving and density technologies to eventually allow for one week [heavy usage] times.
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Hard for you to believe, i know, but that's what having a multi-core does, it helps improve battery life (both in standby and in usage). Sure it's not a definitive answer to our battery problems, but it's a first.
Hey Lude219, I thought I'd post this as I thought you gave a good explanation on battery life and usage (fifth one down).
It really all comes down to the person's requirements. If someone requires to run several apps at once, or requires to watch movies at a higher frame rate, or requires to have the 'best phone on the market', then they'll buy a dual-core phone, no-one else will care (much). Most people I talk to agree and think that Dual-Core in a phone is unnecessary ('dual-core phone' it even sounds ridiculous lol), but, I must admit that I was surprised at how laggy my DHD was out the packet, and don't get me wrong, I know once it's rooted it will be much better just because the SW is cleaner, but most people will not even contemplate rooting their phone, so if it's not an option for them, dual-core will surely help.
Dual-core procs don't have a higher power consumption than single-core procs (or at least they won't if they design/implement them properly), so it shouldn't (fingers crossed) make power consumption any worse.
Personally, I'd also rather they put they're time and effort into making better batteries and improving general power consumption.
It'll be the next marketing point after the dual-core hype has ebbed (Now with Three Days Standby!! YEY!!)
Well i think most people who do buy these "powerful" devices have one important reason to buy, and that is to future proof themselves. But ey, i'm looking at the perspective of a tech savy guy, I suppose the masses simply want the next best thing.
But you are right however, it is a ploy to make money, but everything in business is, so there's no difference between dual core, one core, 8 mp camera, 5 mp, 720p. 1080p, it's all business. If there was no business then.. well, where'd we get our smartphones?
lude219 said:
Hard for you to believe, i know, but that's what having a multi-core does, it helps improve battery life (both in standby and in usage). Sure it's not a definitive answer to our battery problems, but it's a first.
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I can easily go into why you're wrong, but I won't waste the calories. Other things besides just adding a core are done to get those gains. If more cores equaled more power savings, ULV cpus would be octo-core.
Just a matter time when they get battery life ironed out in smartphones and to the OP i would agree in some aspect, but they are smartphones why not just keep improving them. Else if someone never thought outside box we would still stuck with dumb phones =no fun.
here a link for next gen snap dragons sounds promising.
I won't lie, right now dual core is overkill. But in time like everything else has computer wise, it will be the normal and will be the way all devices go, that's not just considering dual core. I'm talking pure multicore threading. It's not just the number of cores you're buying as well, it's the difference core to core when you compare say arm cortex a8 to the Tegra II's Arm Cortex a9, single core the a9 will be faster and more efficient and also produce less heat thanks to the die shrink, which then also means less power draw per core. Right now for phones, dual core is futureproofing a bit for when we do have android that is fully multithreaded, and apps that are as well.
There's also something you need to remember, XDA isn't really a big fraction of people using android devices and what not, but not every android user is on XDA. I also disagree with everyone maxing out their hardware, just running my Evo with a few of the aosp live wallpapers my evo runs terrible, and web browsing isn't the greatest either depending on the website.
Oh dude you should so post this one overclock.net, the beat down you would get would be hilarious. But anyway back one topic, as for phones, well for some people dual core is nice, for example me and my friends, when we head off to lecture, all we can do is browse the web on our phones, all of us, for some odd reason like to have at least 6-8 tabs open at the same time and for the phones we have (I have an iphone 3gs, theres a couple captivates, Droid Inc 2, and some others), they sometimes tend to slow down with all of the tabs open. Also when you open up numerous applications, you have to sometimes close out of some of them because the one that is open starts to slow down. Thats a couple reasons that dual core is nice, with massive multitasking. But with the computer part, where you say that no one needs a quad core processor, well think about it, there are a lot of people who want performance (not just XDA, theres overclock.net, techpowerup, EVGA, HardOCP, etc) and just random people who want fast computers for reasons such as video processing, gaming (this is probably a big reason), ridiculous multitasking (I fall into this category cause I have over 125 tabs open in chrome right now and I actually needed to upgrade to 8 gb's of ram because it was saying I was running out of ram with only 4), and some people that want just plain snappiness from their computer. So I would not say that a quad core processor is overkill for most people as the demographic I mentioned above does include a decent amount of people.
Oh and I forgot to mention watching Hi def videos, your average intel integrated graphics card cannot play a 1080p video without issues so thats why you might need a faster processor and a faster GPU to play those videos in an HTPC.
But yes for your average everyday joe, a simple nehalem based dual core would suffice for everyday tasks such as web browsing and such but it cannot do much else.
xsteven77x said:
I know i'm gonna get burned at the stake for this one, since this is a tech forum, but dual core is just overkill AT THE PRESENT MOMENT. It's like computers. They are all now dualcore, most come with almost 4 gigs of ram. What in the hell would 95% of the population need AT THE MOMENT with something more powerful than that? LIke a quadcore with 8 gigs? NOTHING. It's just a ploy to get more money.
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Which is why netbooks took off for a while there (until people realized those were a bit too slow)
Our 1ghz phones can run everything just fine. This isn't like the early days of android where it always felt like more ram and raw power was needed. We have hit a plateau where the current cellphone landscape fits MOST peoples needs. Can i really be the only one who thinks that it's just unnecessary?
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I completely disagree. The difference between dual and single core for mobile devices is *huge*. There is a *huge* difference between everything running "fine" and everything running "great". The biggest difference is for games and web browser, which most people absolutely care about. There is also the wide range of more powerful apps it enables, which for now is more important on the tablet, but that will come to phones as well.
Dual core is not overkill, for one, its future proofing your phone, most ppl buy the phones on contract and in a couple of months dual cores will be the standard for high end smartphones, second, it allows for better GPU performance which leads to better games and overall experience, there are many benefits to it, too many for me to list...
iamnottypingthis said:
I can easily go into why you're wrong, but I won't waste the calories. Other things besides just adding a core are done to get those gains. If more cores equaled more power savings, ULV cpus would be octo-core.
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Yea, it's better if you don't, because I dont think you have any substantial knowledge on the matter to go against the research and knowledge of all the computer engineers out there. The reason why it's not octo-cores yet is because it's called a BUSINESS. But I wont waste the calories in telling you why that is until you go and read up on "economy of scales."
It'll be interesting at least to see what develops. See if they'll start doing proper separate GPU Die's or if they'll dedicate GPU cores on the proc (i.e quad core chip with 2 CPU cores and 2 GPU cores).
Hope people don't start to get burnt when they begin maxing out/overclocking their cores.
Funny, if you stop developing you get nothing because you are satisfied with nothing.
Us at XDA are techies and you give us more core more ram more battery we will figure what to create with the new abilities. That is how progress is done.
As far as the masses, let marketing depts do their thing to them........we do not care, never did. As for me, I have a 12 core motherboard with 32 gigs of ram.etc and I jack it to 85% demand almost every day, and I am sure that there are very very few computers that have this capabilities.
The funny thing more innovation make more efficiencies my computer under a full load uses less than most of the gaming rigs out there and has 50% more muscle.
On the phone dual core allow one to create algorithms that will make the battery use way more efficient.
More cores more ram === win win win for everyone, but us in XDA and other forums like this it is just great great great for us.......... don't worry we will use what ever is created 110% and make it better.
If dual core in your Nokia 3210, yes it's overkilling, but if dual core in your cad workstation, it's been overkilled. All depends on the user, usage, and design of the device.
Actually it's an arueable question whether dual-core cpus are an overkill today, they have several advantages but most of those can be applied to netbooks and tablets rather than phones.
1. When there are several CPUs, multi-threaded applications can be really run concurrently (and basically, even if one application is performing, the scheduling overhead for multi-core system is lower and background tasks like gui/hardware drivers can be executed on a separate core).
2. Another use case (although this is a misuse and abuse of CPU anyway) is the use of multi-core systems for encoding/decoding media. It brings absolutely no advantages to the end user, but when the CPU is powerful enough to handle the media stream, one may use it instead of a proper DSP processor which Google will likely be doing for VP8/WebM
3. SMPs can be useful in tablets and netbooks - for example, tegra2 will outperform intel atom in most cases (first of all, it is dual-core. and secondly, it has a very powerful GPU). I am personally using debian on my tablet (in chroot though) and many people are using ubuntu on toshiba ac100 - arm SoCs are a fun to hack and give an incredible battery life. But this is IMHO only acceptable for geeks like us and I think dual-core (or x-whatever-core) ARM CPUs will be useful for consumers (hate this word but whatever) if some vendor releases a device which will run a full-fledged linux distro with LibreOffice, math packages like octave/maxima, development environments like kdevelop so that it can be used as an equal replacement of an x86 netbook.
As for the popular arguement about power consumption - surprisingly, but there is little correlation between the number of cores and power drain. Newer SoCs are more energy efficient because they have improvements in technical process (literally the length of wires inside the chip), more devices are integrated into one chip, more processing blocks can be put to sleep states. Even if you compare a qualcomm qsd8250 running at 1GHz with a GPU enabled, it will use less power than an old 520 MHz intel pxa270. Besides, as I have already mentioned, a multiprocessor system can execute tasks concurrently which means that the computation will take less time and the processor will spend more time in a power-saving state.
Basically multi-cores are a popular trend and is a good way to make consumers pay for new toys. For me personally the reasons to change a device have always been either the age of the device (when it literally began to fall apart) or the real improvements in hardware (I updated from Asus P525 to Xperia X1 because ever since I had my first pda I was frustrated by the tiny 32 or 64 mb ram and awful screens with large pixels that were really causing pain in eyes if one used them for long) but unfortunately the situation now is the same as it is in the desktop world - software quality is getting worse even faster than hardware improves. Hence we see crap like java and other managed code on PDAs and applications that require like 10 Mb ram to perform simple functions (which were like 100 Kb back in winmo days). I do admit that using more ram can allow to use more efficient algorithms (to reduce their computational complexity) and managed code allows for higher portability - but hey, we know that commercial software is not developed with the ideas of efficiency in mind - the only things corporations care about are writing the application as quick as possible and hide the source code.
lude219 said:
Yea, it's better if you don't, because I dont think you have any substantial knowledge on the matter to go against the research and knowledge of all the computer engineers out there. The reason why it's not octo-cores yet is because it's called a BUSINESS. But I wont waste the calories in telling you why that is until you go and read up on "economy of scales."
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That and yields for Nehalem 8 cores aren't so high. Bulldozer yields are working out okay so far, but then again it's not a real 8 core cpu...

[Q] Is a dual-core Windows Phone coming this year?

I thought one of the main disadvantages of WP7 has been inferior hardware.
For the original release Microsoft only supported the old snapdragon CPU with 1Ghz and Adreno 200.
Now for Mango, they did obviously update their support
for 8X55 and 7X30.
None of those are actually dualcore SoC's.
How are they going to keep up with Android if they continue offering inferior hardware specs? Or did I miss something?
I wish they do relase one which does. but they dont need dual core for the os so why burden the battery
"inferior hardware"
wow really?
dude, 1ghz, on a phone, thats everything else but inferior
it may be the truth that andoid is goin to need dual cores to give users a good looking and fluid experience, but windows phone is not.
no matter what handset you get, its working faaaast. no lags, no hickups, almost no loading times (and with mango its getting better)
so why would windows phone need it ?
However I would really like to have dual core phone,jut like to think that I have one of the fastest phones. But its true windows os is so smooth it wont make a perfermonce differnece, only thing that can help is using NAND memory instead of SD. Howver I want a better GPU so we can play faster games with good FPS and better quality, not saying that the quality is poor atm its great but it can always improve.
webwalk® said:
"inferior hardware"
wow really?
dude, 1ghz, on a phone, thats everything else but inferior
it may be the truth that andoid is goin to need dual cores to give users a good looking and fluid experience, but windows phone is not.
no matter what handset you get, its working faaaast. no lags, no hickups, almost no loading times (and with mango its getting better)
so why would windows phone need it ?
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I agree with you wholeheartedly, but the problem is it's not about "why would WP need it".
The average consumer, who is used to buying PCs based on their specs, will look at an Android phone and a WP and compare them. If they don't know the difference between the two OS then they'll be looking at the specs.
What do you think they're going to choose..?
Casey_boy said:
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but the problem is it's not about "why would WP need it".
The average consumer, who is used to buying PCs based on their specs, will look at an Android phone and a WP and compare them. If they don't know the difference between the two OS then they'll be looking at the specs.
What do you think they're going to choose..?
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to be frank, the average customer knows a superficial knowledge of cell phones...and many still market dumb phones as the approach for all user needs. Nokia has addressed the h/w issues ad nauseum, so it wouldn't surprise me if Nokia would be the first wp7 with a dual core. In fact, I would love to grab a Nokia phone...
i thought of your point too
its true the specs are taken in consideration
but currently im not aware of any device that stand out..
i think the average people would think
2x cores = 2x power needed = half the battery
battery is a major aspect
so still, why build a dual core if nothing is using it, besides the battery
like i said, android may be able to to make their os fast & fluid
but why cant they do it on the current specs
you simply dont need heavy processin unit on your mobile device, as long as you wont do heavy processin on the device. the phone wont need it, but the tablet does.
the average user is used to windows
the average user uses the phone for not much more then phone, text, surf, game.
last but not least, the price, i dont know much about dual core phones (do they already exists?) but double the cores, may raise the price by a lot.
this year we wont need no dual cores....
To be honest, I never really felt the need of such a powerful processor in a phone. What can you use it for apart from games with high graphics?
I'm sure opening office docs, web pages, utility apps, music...everything at once still won't slow down the processes. It's a phone guys. Not a desktop PC.
Many years ago, I had a 1.2 GHz CPU running windows XP, which in fact ran heavy programs without any lag. And today, our phones have 1GHz CPU running a phone OS and apps that hardly go above 50mb.
What's the need, seriously?
I don't care about dual core yet, but would like to see some higher end devices. All first gen releases were very generic.
Newer Gen CPU/GPU (dual core not necessary till things are coded for it)
High Quality Material/build
32GB or 64GB Internal ROM
Super AMOLED/next gen if avail
512MB RAM
Good Battery
Good Quality Optics (iPhone4 or better (like Nokia N8))
Thats all I want. Maybe a FFC just for ****s n' giggles, but thats not high on my priority list.
[email protected] said:
Now for Mango, they did obviously update their support
for 8X55 and 7X30.
None of those are actually dualcore SoC's.
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Well just like you said they have added support for new processors but neither of the new ones are dual core. We've heard rumors that ST-Ericsson will be supplying dual core chips for Nokia's Windows Phones but for now Qualcomm says they're the only WP7 manufacturer.
I don't doubt Windows Phone will see dual core support in the future. I have a feeling that Nokia won't be launching their Windows Phone alongside the others in September/October, but later in November or even December. That's when I think we'll see the first dual core Windows Phone. (Just speculation. No evidence for this.)
dtboos said:
I don't care about dual core yet, but would like to see some higher end devices. All first gen releases were very generic.
Newer Gen CPU/GPU (dual core not necessary till things are coded for it)
High Quality Material/build
32GB or 64GB Internal ROM
Super AMOLED/next gen if avail
512MB RAM
Good Battery
Good Quality Optics (iPhone4 or better (like Nokia N8))
Thats all I want. Maybe a FFC just for ****s n' giggles, but thats not high on my priority list.
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Well you just described Nokia N9 except for the screen ... only Sammy can put Super-AMOLED and the RAM is 768MB
PS. I though someone from Microsoft or Nokia I can't recall said that WP7 is already dual-core ready, so maybe it doesn't need new coding or I'm terribly wrong
kainy said:
Well you just described Nokia N9 except for the screen ... only Sammy can put Super-AMOLED and the RAM is 768MB
PS. I though someone from Microsoft or Nokia I can't recall said that WP7 is already dual-core ready, so maybe it doesn't need new coding or I'm terribly wrong
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Aye Why I know the phone I want is easily within reach. That would be more than powerful enough for the next couple years. This is also why I was excited about the Nokia deal because they have some excellent quality hardware & optics in some of their phones.
Android needs dual-core because the OS is so cluttered and filled with junk. WP7 phone have "inferior hardware" yet still run smoother than any Android phone would.
yea it should b strong

Shall i get a Mediatek device?

There are alot of great Mediatek phones out there and now, since they even have 4G i plan to get one. Haven't decided which one yet.
But the real question is, if its a good decision to go with Mediatek. Some of my friends said that i shouuldn't get one because they are no comparision to qualcom's snapdragons etc. What are pros and cons on those mediateks.
Btw, my phone should be a bit future proof. well,a bit at least. until now i always installed a custom rom on my devices when i had them about a year.
MediaTek is Taiwan based company established in the year 1997.Snapdragon was established in the year 1985. Both of the processors are more of less similar but Snapdragon chipset are made for high multitasking. It does not mean that MTek cannot do multitasking. There are a bunch of 4G enabled SoCs from Mtek. I would prefer you MTek if your budget is less than $300. MTek Processors have not such consistent performance as compared to Snapdragon but now I have seen that MTek processors performance have improved a lot. You can buy a MTek based phone, it would not sad you.
MediaTek marketing strategy is huge production in cheaper price while Snapdragon market strategy is to make best processors with higher capability, without being affectef by the price . At last I want to say you that you shall buy a MTek processor.
Hit thanks if this helps you
If you want to have a proper Custom Rom support you should try to avoid MTK based Devices, because there is often no kernel source available, which means, that you will not be able to change anything kernel related. That might change with the Google One Phones, but you can't be sure.
On the other Hand, they give you a proper Performance at a very cheap price.

[Q] Chinese Budget Mid-Range phones - Help me to choose ! ;)

Hey guys,
I would like to start a discussion that would aggregate meta-data available on the Chinese budget phones under £200 with mid-range specs, firstly in order to help me ,but also others to decide the correct one as there is scarcity of reviews and lots of them are paid for stubs and contain lots of misleading data.
I have spent last two weeks researching on my leisure the best possible option for the chinese budget mid-range purchase. I have been hoping to get a device priced well under £200 that would field a solid camera, 4G (800mhz) ,superb hardware perf. CPU, GPU and GPS, have solid battery 2700mh+ (ideally with quick charge function) have appealing design and ideally max up to 5" of display size with the Lollipop upgradeability.
I have seen and read lots of reviews including yours and concluded on following:
- Mediatek did really break out of its shackles and these new 64bit SoCs ARM A53 Cortex with 6732 and 6752 are real deal breakers, so I have found a plenty of quad core 5" phones that satisfy my hunger for the performance stuffed by features - >
- Kingzone N3 Plus , Elephone P6000 (and possibly P3000s) , Lenovo P70 and also a bit more expensive Zopo ZP920 magic.
--- > now from what I have seen about these devices they are united under one oblivious problem that I cannot simply overlook despite being on low budget. And that is the overall quality of their cameras. Here we can easily conclude that they generally suck, although Zopo Zp920 is one of the favourites together with ZTE Blade S6 ,but here had battery life really swept all my hopes into oblivion. One of the issues I ve found here is that almost every budget manufacturer simply loves to overstate the resolution capability of these phones, I have been digging deeper just to find out that Elephone and Kingzone simply equip their devices with a lower quality Omnivision or Sony (ElE has even issued two different sensors for the same phone due to shortage of stock) that are really just 8Mpx interpolated to 13 MPx. I have not seen many useful reviews for N3 Plus despite it's appealing design and functions comparable to P3000s, but I assume the camera problem will be exactly the same (as it is with the alleged overstated battery capacity). Despite this problematic, I have found out that the camera on P6000 is kind of controversial.
P6000 is slacked as most of the same priced phones for underperformance in low light situations., however, I have found several contrasting reviews that even claim that its low light/night images are even better that on the famous Xiaomi Mi4. From pics I ve seen I wonder whether the varying quality can be a result of different sensors used or for example that pictures have been taken on its native 8MPx res rather then extrapolated 13MPx . I am writing this really because, P6000 seems to be after all my best choice together with its 32bit brother P3000s. I have tried to look out for some comparison between these two especially camera wise (talking about rear cameras, as I am not really that concerned about the front ones), but I failed. Problem is that Ele nor reviewers really state what sensors are these phones using. But P6000 seems (at least from some outdoors pictures) quite sharper and with better dynamic range, but I am still undecided.
Is camera on these phones also fixable software wise as I am not really into vanilla camera apps.
Now first questions on you. Firstly, do you know about any device currently priced under £200 that would match my criteria or at least that would have really exceptional camera for this price range ? Is Elephone P6000 superior to P3000s in terms of performance and camera or are they pretty much comparable ? Also how much of difference we talking in terms of GPU between Mali T450-M4 and T760 M2 ? It seems that finding a solid camera that would boast at least with pretty standard Exmor 214 sensor with a solid battery life is almost impossible, or I have largely overlooked something.
I also understand that if camera wise my 5" quest would prove unsuccessful I will have to go phablet wise and I am although kinda reluctantly to do so. Here I have researched my field on comparable level.
My finalists are Jiayu S3 , Kingzone Z1 and Eco E04 Aurora (P7000 and M1 are excluded as they re not supporting my LTE band 20) On E04 side I am quite baffled as it initially looked as a superb device , but many responses pointed out its inaccurate GPS and also camera seems to be exaggerated as 16MPx with unknown sensor model. I have seen some really great shots, but also some not very good - again probably due to extrapolation perhaps. Also it only comes with 2GB at the moment and without NFC support. So in phablet side S3 seems to be the king - yet, I have seen some really crap videos took on this devices, where reviewer admitted that this is a firmware error and that fix is on its way, so the S3 leaves me with the only really big concern and that is the battery recharge time that is apparently the slowest around here (up to 4hrs !!! ) which again made my enthusiasm cease. And then we have here Kingzone Z1. Apart from only HD display, it is stuffed with features and seems to be a direct competitor for all 5.5s of its price range. However, despite being out there are no reviews that I can hold on, so for me this device also represents a great unknown.
Equally, I have been checking camera comparison for the upper-midrange flagships like Meizu Mx4 and OnePlusOne just to find out that not even these guys despite their renown are capable of great shots under low-light conditions.
Also I am in a preference of 64bit processors especially the new Mediatek 6732 and 6752. I am ready for your tips and advices, also if you can bring in links to some camera comparisons among these phones and more in depth reviews I d be glad. Also will happy if you bring up some real data about camera sensors and other modules that are under suspicion to be lies presented by manufacturers.
And if you own any of the phones mentioned, state a brief overview about their pro/cons.
Waiting forward to your responses
Thanks
Six
HUAWEI fanboy here. :thumbup:
Sent from my HUAWEI Y536A1 using XDA Free mobile app
I recently discovered Xiaomi and think I will never go back! Good quality and low prices
I have RedMi Note 4G which is a fairly perfect phone for its price range. Never had a problem. It hasn't 800 MHz LTE though, but it's worth checking out other Xiaomi phones too.
---------- Post added at 01:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:03 AM ----------
Also, I would reccomend avoid mediatek devices if you can. They are generally poorer in video performance than Qualcomm / Intel ones. I had a huawei G700, while specs say it's a great phone in my experience it was not. Lags and slowness was frequent issues.
Mediatek also has a bad reputation in open source community, modding/upgrading/installing recovery and custom ROMs would be impossible or at least harder.
I am very happy with my Xiaomi and maybe you could be too!
udda90 said:
I recently discovered Xiaomi and think I will never go back! Good quality and low prices
I have RedMi Note 4G which is a fairly perfect phone for its price range. Never had a problem. It hasn't 800 MHz LTE though, but it's worth checking out other Xiaomi phones too.
---------- Post added at 01:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:03 AM ----------
Also, I would reccomend avoid mediatek devices if you can. They are generally poorer in video performance than Qualcomm / Intel ones. I had a huawei G700, while specs say it's a great phone in my experience it was not. Lags and slowness was frequent issues.
Mediatek also has a bad reputation in open source community, modding/upgrading/installing recovery and custom ROMs would be impossible or at least harder.
I am very happy with my Xiaomi and maybe you could be too!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got a Xiaomi Mi Note (Dual Sim and dual 4G) from China recently, which is fast (3G RAM), smooth (iphone style ROM) and good quality and just a little over £200.
But please bear in mind that it only supports FDD-LTE B3/B7, which means if your carrier is Vodafone UK (I'm in the UK by the way) you can not use LTE outside of London,Manchester and Birmingham.
(I don't have permission to post an outside link yet, but if wiki 'LTE-Advanced' you can see Vodafone UK is using B20 throughout the UK and B7 in 3 cities an the moment)
Only 3 and EE use LTE B3/B7.
GeorgeZZzz said:
I got a Xiaomi Mi Note (Dual Sim and dual 4G) from China recently, which is fast (3G RAM), smooth (iphone style ROM) and good quality and just a little over £200.
But please bear in mind that it only supports FDD-LTE B3/B7, which means if your carrier is Vodafone UK (I'm in the UK by the way) you can not use LTE outside of London,Manchester and Birmingham.
(I don't have permission to post an outside link yet, but if wiki 'LTE-Advanced' you can see Vodafone UK is using B20 throughout the UK and B7 in 3 cities an the moment)
Only 3 and EE use LTE B3/B7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the end I went with Jiyau S3 Advanced, bout £160 and I cannot complain. Flashed it into Flyme OS and man this machine rocks the socks ! The resurrection of Mediatek - this 64bit M6752 Octacore smites Snapdragon 610 with an easy apparently.
Also camerawise - Sony Exmor IMAX 214 RS really delivers the promise - Removable battery makes it a dream. After 2 weeks of research, I am only happy I did not fell for anyother device, - plus supports Band 20 /800 Mhz @4G so it's GiffGaff & O2 ready.
Xiaomi phones are pretty good in many aspects. I'm planning on getting one in the near future. Some of my friends have Xiaomi devices and so far they haven't had any complaints.
sixtheninth said:
In the end I went with Jiyau S3 Advanced, bout £160 and I cannot complain. Flashed it into Flyme OS and man this machine rocks the socks ! The resurrection of Mediatek - this 64bit M6752 Octacore smites Snapdragon 610 with an easy apparently.
Also camerawise - Sony Exmor IMAX 214 RS really delivers the promise - Removable battery makes it a dream. After 2 weeks of research, I am only happy I did not fell for anyother device, - plus supports Band 20 /800 Mhz @4G so it's GiffGaff & O2 ready.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good for you. I'm still looking for the solution to unlcok LTE B20 on my Xiaomi MI Note LTE...
This post is not working for me...:crying:
yea, i'd look into the xiaomi options. it's surely gonna be my next purchase, although im also a bit of a lenovo fan.
now i have a jiayu g2f, i spent about 100 dollars on it at the time. i can say that it beats the quality of my previous(samsung) phones. In speed it is definately similar to my tab4 10.1. only thing is that it heats a bit more.
so like was mentioned, i'd also look into the jiayu s3 if i was you.
You can choose Huawei
I am a chinese and now i am in china ,I think Huawei is a good choice.Huawei have many patents and their devices is so good.Now i am using Huawei honor 6.(my english is so bad,if i had a misspelling,please pardon me)

In terms of future proofing, is it better to have greater software support or better hardware?

I'm planning on buying a new phone and the most important thing that I'm looking for is longevity, that is, to get a phone that will last as much as possible before I need to replace it, something like 4+ years.
The two phones that are within my price range and that I think will fulfil this criteria are: Poco F3 and Samsung Galaxy A52s
Now, I'm in a bit of a dilemma of deciding which of these two phones I should take, and the only thing that remains is to decide which of the features of these phones provide better future-proofing.
Poco F3 for example, comes with amazing specs for it's price range (SD870 CPU, Adreno 650 GPU, 8GB (DDR5) RAM, UFS 3.1 Storage speed) which seem to be flagship grade, and it does have IP53 rating. However, from what I've read, it does come with a weaker / sluggish software, that is, it's operating system MIUI, and less update support.
A52s on the other hand comes with weaker specs that are mostly aimed towards midrange phones (SD778 CPU, Adreno 642L GPU, 6GB (DDR4) RAM, UFS 2.1 Storage speed), but it does come with a bit more stable OS, more software support, and IP67 rating.
Both phones have specs that are overkill for my minimal use cases. I don't do a lot on my phone other than browse the net and watch YouTube videos, and I try to avoid dropping my phone on the ground and water so I'm not sure how much the IP ratings are relevant here. The only remaining factor in deciding which of these two phones I should get is whether or not taking a phone with better hardware (F3) has an advantage of taking a phone with better software support (A52s)?
On the one hand, if I take F3, I'll have better hardware, but less updates to push that hardware to it's maximum efficiency, and due to my use cases, I wonder if I should even bother with stronger specs, whereas if I take the A52s, I'm worried about the opposite, if it's midrange CPU (SD778) will be enough for those years ahead to push things through smoothly and without stutter, and if all these software updates will eat up more and more (of it's limited 6GB) memory.
I know that I'm probably overthinking this, but seeing how the prices are quite similar (with A52s being around ~30$ cheaper), in your opinion, which of these two would you take if you wish for a that will last you as long as possible?
IMO only the hardware specs are decisive. The OS at any time can get changed.

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