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Lenovo NBD new glass C100, the latest project of Lenovo’s New Business Development Platform, is arguably one of the most anticipated device yet in the fast-growing wearable computing market in China. Lenovo NBD has sent out the test hardware to only a limited number of testers, and the one unit for me just arrived.
If you haven’t heard of the Lenovo NBD before, well, it stands for New Bench in Chinese, and specified as New Business Development(NBD) in English. It is a new internet-centric business platform in China aimed at startups, providing a vehicle where partner startups can leverage Lenovo’s resources such as software, hardware, sales channels and services utilizing their own innovative technologies and leading-edge concepts in product development. This collaboration is an example of a win-win outcome from sharing resources and can drive the development of more powerful smart devices for customers. The first wave of three innovative smart devices under NBD has already been launched last October, namely the new glass smart glasses, the new air smart air cleaner and the newifi smart router.
Unboxing
The unit we have received has very fascinating packaging. It ships in an expensive wooden box which, according to Lenovo, costs more than RMB100 ($16) to make. The reason that Lenovo invested so much in the packaging is that our unit is a collector’s edition, the retail version’s packaging will certainly differ.
You could easily find the Lenovo NBD logo on the wooden box. There is no sign of the all familiar Lenovo logo on anywhere of the packaging, so it’s clear that the products from the NBD Platform are marketed separately from Lenovo’s well-known PC and smartphone lines.
Opening the new glass packaging feels like opening a drawer, as there are two slide guides on the two side of the box, we simply need to push the cap away.
Everything inside the packaging has been well arranged and carefully fixed into the openings in a black foam.
Here are everything contained in the beautiful packaging, including a charger (5V-1A), a data/charging cable (Micro USB plug), a headphone with a single earbud, three clamps which help you fix the new glass onto your own glasses or sunglasses, a plastic frame, and the main body of the new glass itself.
The 5V-1A charger included by Lenovo NBD can easily be replaced by most of the smartphone chargers, which is good considering that you don’t always have to carry a separate charger for the glass and that any mobile charger can come in handy when the device runs short of juice.
Instead of a cylindrical cord, the USB cord ships with the new glass is wide and flat, making it really easy to wind up and less likely to get tangled. I’d really like to see more of these with other products such as smartphones and tablets.
A red headphone with a single earbud is also included. The good news is that it looks fashionable and aligned with the design language of the new glass, the bad news is that you might never want to use it because of its lack of quality and stereo effects. Fortunately it can easily be replaced by any pair of headphones, both my Monster Inspiration on-ear headphone and my Astrotec IEMs work like a charm with the new glass.
The plastic frame is designed mainly for non-shortsighted users, with two rubber nosepads affixed to attach to the bridge of your nose. Here I do feel the need to lament Lenovo’s choice of material, a more durable titanium frame would have made much more sense for a cutting-edge product like the new glass.
However, if you are short-sighted and don’t like using contact lenses, you can easily fix the main body of the new glass onto the frame of your own pair of glasses with one or two of these clamps.
Now let’s take a look at the main body of new glass. It consists of two major parts: a large battery pack that is designed to sit around the back of the wearer’s neck, and a main unit which is supposed to sit on the right-hand arm of the users’ glasses. With a small acrylic prism on the front, the main unit houses 1GB RAM, a 1.2GHz OMAP4460 dual-core processor, WiFi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth, GPS, 16GB of total flash, and more. The two major parts are connected with a red fixed cable.
On the front of the unit is an angled reflector which receives the projected light, and bends it towards the users’ right eye, allowing them to view the new glass display in all its glory. Lenovo NBD likened the display to viewing a 25-inch HD television from 2 meters away and it’s a claim I wouldn’t refute. The new glass display has a resolution of 800*480, and with all things considered, it looks phenomenal.
An 8 megapixel camera also sits on the front of the unit, next to a small light sensor. The camera could take pictures up to the resolution of 2592*1944, and record 1080P videos. Although it might not match the snappers on those high-end smartphones in terms of the quality of the photos, it is decent enough and certainly gives the 5MP camera on the Google Glass a run for its money.
Taking a photo is accomplished by single pressing the camera button on the top side of the unit. Pressing and holding that button, the new glass will start recording videos. The side facing the human face plays host to an earpiece for phone calls and voice assistant, and a proximity sensor.
On the back of the unit is a very well-designed touch panel, which makes it easy for you to use all the features of the new glass. Swiping sideways you can switch to the left or right page, swiping down then you will go back to the last screen. You can use voice commands as well, but they won’t be as easy or as accurate as the touch operations.
The battery pack design, now patented by Lenovo, is one of the major differences from the Google Glass. It may look like a blind fold, but it is constructed to sit around the back of your neck.
The bottom side of the pack hosts a Micro USB port for charging and data transmission, the opening is protected by a rubber lid which keeps the battery pack from dust and steam.
On the top side you will find a 3.5mm audio jack and the pinhole from which the fixed cable that connects the pack to the unit comes through.
The Power/Standby Key sits on the tip of the left arm of the battery pack. I personally hate the design as the button is too small and not always easy to press, besides, it is also not as clicky as we would have liked.
The battery pack is made of environmentally friendly material that is harmless to the human skin. And the area where the pack makes direct contact to the skin is made from thermal insulation material and curved in a way to keep your skin from the heat produced by the battery.
The clamps can help you easily fix the unit of the new glass onto your own pair of glasses.
Both my GUNNAR computer eyeglasses and my Bally sunglasses can conveniently host the new glass with the help of those clamps.
You can also use the standard frame from the packaging if you are not short-sighted or prefer going out with contact lenses.
First impressions
This is what the new glass looks like when you wear it with the standard frame around your head. There is no denying that the device is striking and head-turning, and easily gets you a lot of attention if you wear it in the street. Some may love how it looks, others may hate it, but either way it is undeniably striking.
I remember posting this selfie on my Wechat Moments (similar to Instagram) and got hundreds of comments below in only a couple of hours, asking me what the new glass is and what I can do with it. So there’s no doubt that the new glass will attract lots of attentions for the wearers.
As a first generation product, the new glass doesn’t have an equally rich software ecosystem as the Google Glass, nor does it have as many features. The functions of the new glass are still pretty limited, we only have 5 preinstalled applications: Still Camera, Video Camera, Messaging, Navigation and Voice Assistant. I went out and took some photos with the 8 mega-pixel camera and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by its performance, auto-focus was fast, image production was fast. There were sometimes over or under-exposed pictures, but the overall performance was really really good. Let’s take a look at some of the snaps:
The functions of the voice assistant are very amateur, definitely no match for what Google Now or Siri is capable of. It only supports Chinese language at the moment, and may support other languages in the near future. Navigation worked as designed, useful, but far from perfect. As the new glass is currently running the earliest firmware, we assume that most of the functions will soon be improved by OTA upgrade.
A more detailed review of the Lenovo NBD new glass C100 will be posted here in a few days, please tell us what you think about the device and what you want to know.
welcome to lenovo NBD's offical forms ——www.newbandeng.com
wow,
a more detailed article about thr device wil be posted today.
Sent from my SM-T325 using Tapatalk
bnbhaohao90 said:
welcome to lenovo NBD's offical forms ——www.newbandeng.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately the official website and forum don't have English versions.
seven7xiaoyang said:
wow,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for reading.
Sent from my SM-T325 using Tapatalk
One step closer to becoming cyborgs.
Great post/article, jupiter.
Related
--
This screen.
1GB+ RAM.
Dual-core CPU with decent graphics performance (if need be, look to suppliers other than Qualcomm) - that screen will need a fair amount of processing clout to back it up.
A big-ass battery.
Nice looking
For me:
I'd like a device where I wouldn't have to touch the screen to scroll. Maybe a reactive sensor built into the case that I could slide my hand and scroll the screen. Not a wheel or buttons, but something integrated into the screen or case. See the red line in the pic.
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too much wasted real estate on your design.
Use the HD2 as a starting point and improve from there.
--
Your concept 2/HD3 one is what I'm talking about. Very industrial and sleek. Though for the capacitive keys at the bottom, I think a better design would to get rid of the bottom row, and instead, incorporate a hardware button on the side to toggle the onscreen/virtual buttons (menu, search, back, etc). Of course, having a realistic design is one thing, but for a concept, I think the future will do away with front buttons for a more cleaner look and thus having an effective full size screen from corner to corner with 3-4mm of bezel in between. I mean, looking back 5 years, you have hard keys gradually evolving into soft keys and it's only a natural evolution to have no keys at all. Virtual keys would be the new thing.
--
exactly! Though I know it's not for everyone, but if the intention of the idea/concept is to create a high-end smartphone for the future, everything has to be big, sleek and seamless. For instance, god forbid if I say this, but the iphone4 is heading toward that direction. You have a phone that doesn't have odd buldge from the camera or a hump in the back for the gps and whatnot and it's just a wonderful design sans the screen size. Rumor has it that Apple might be getting rid of the round button at the bottom and will probably utilize some sort of switch on the side to toggle the onscreen buttons/menus.
lude219 said:
I think a better design would to get rid of the bottom row, and instead, incorporate a hardware button on the side to toggle the onscreen/virtual buttons (menu, search, back, etc).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's something I've pondered about from time to time, except I envisaged a secondary layer to the screen using some form of transparent LCD/OLED tech that the function buttons would appear on, so that they were completely disconnected from the main screen and would still function if, say, an app had frozen, in the way that proper buttons continue to work even if what's happening on screen has started to mess up.
There'd still need to be some hardware buttons other than the power button though, otherwise how would we boot into recover/bootloader etc?
lude219 said:
exactly! Though I know it's not for everyone, but if the intention of the idea/concept is to create a high-end smartphone for the future, everything has to be big, sleek and seamless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, in that case, can't we do one better than Apple?
Especially if it's just going to be a concept...
Imagine a phone with completely rounded-off edges, kinda like two iPhone 3GSs placed screen-to-screen, only thinner of course.
You could have the screen cover the entire front half of the phone, including the front of the the curved areas. That'd be truly seamless.
Of course, that's just if you're limiting yourself to a semi-conventional design.
Given the potential advances in flexible displays in the next couple of years as well as recent breakthroughs in creating flexible circuitry, future smartphones could be very different indeed...
Well,I for one would like to see two high-quality stereo speakers,probably on top and bottom.That would be a true multimedia phone for me.
One more thing,to help out the gamers,would be something like a small,thin slide-out glass touch sensitive pad,on which the necessary buttons would appear for each game(like joysticks).
What I thought of many times would be the potential of a carbon-fibre-body phone.That,along with a scratch resistant glass(like gorilla glass) would finally make the phone much more sturdy and light.Although I don't know how it would fare with heat...
A nice addition would be a small "air pipe" that would go from top to bottom,with some special membrane that will let air go in and out but not water etc.That would help with the aformentioned heat problems!
Also,if it's not too much,a small projector on the back would be super cool.Although I don't quite place that in the mandatory section.
Other than that,the latest,most powerful hardware would suffice!Along with some new-technology battery to power the whole thing of course!
Maybe I'll come back with more,that's just a tiring days rant!
--
What I'd love is a dual-core landscape QWERTY. With a 4.3" high-res screen(SAMOLED+ etc) with a nice 5 row keyboard (nicely risen and spaced) with numbers on the top row, with a strong hinge. To be thin and light too. Have the screen cover most of the phone, so not a huge phone. Xenon flash with a nice camera, with good sensor too. There's a lot of other things I'd want too, just can't think atm haha.
Fuel cell battery? or any bigger battery. I'd rather have a thicker phone with more battery life than a thin phone with standard battery life.
Wireless charging, NFC.
Thunderbolt I/O Integration with faster onboard NAND? (SD cards and generally transferring anything over USB is horridly slow atm.)
HDMI out via a dock or a port on the phone? (I'm sure a dual core cpu would be able to handle 1080p)
15" tablet , 3mm thin , so u can cut a turkey in half wit it if ya dont have a knife on you on thanksgiving
nice disign
JWang158 said:
It would be hard to put components inside a seamless device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTC manages to get them into the Desire HD, Mozart and all the other handsets with the unibody aluminium bodies.
I don't see why this would be any different.
--
Well, there'd be a battery cover on the design I suggested as well, so it could be done the same way.
Skellyyy said:
What I'd love is a dual-core landscape QWERTY. With a 4.3" high-res screen(SAMOLED+ etc) with a nice 5 row keyboard (nicely risen and spaced) with numbers on the top row, with a strong hinge. To be thin and light too. Have the screen cover most of the phone, so not a huge phone. Xenon flash with a nice camera, with good sensor too. There's a lot of other things I'd want too, just can't think atm haha.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Def need a qwerty landscape, sorry I just love the clicky and you can type without watching your fingers for no frame of reference.
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For people who have never heard of this Chinese brand, it’s very easy to mistake it for the more celebrated French tablet maker: Archos. However, AOCOS is not just another copycat, it is actually owned by We Kuand Tech, a technology oriented company founded in 2004, way before the advent of Android tablets.
Ever since the marketing success of its superstar product – the AOCOS PX92 Hummingbird, which is known as the first Chinese tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard, AOCOS has been unstoppable. And now it is absolutely a major player in the Chinese tablet industry.
The advertising campaign of this AOCOS PX72 Peacock Mini 3G Tablet actually started by the end of last year. The narrow bezel design and the idea of RK3066 being paired with 3G mobile communication drew lots of attentions then. However, the slate hasn’t arrived until April, 2013, a time when tablets with MT6589 quad core chipset starting to take over the market and most of the curiosity and expectations for the PX72 have already worn off.
Yet, the mini7 Peacock is still quite a decent tablet, and I have lots of good things to say after using it for almost a month.
Key Features
◇198 x 113 x 9.6mm dimension size
◇7 inch 16M-color super IPS display at WXGA resolution (1280*800 pixels), 216PPI
◇Rockchip RK3066 SoC., dual core 1.6GHZ Cortex-A9 processor, Mali-400MP4 GPU, 1GB DDR3 RAM
◇Stock Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
◇16GB of built-in-storage
◇VGA front facing camera, 2.0MP rear-facing AF camera
◇Stereo speakers
◇Built-in 3G Module, Bluetooth V2.1, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct
◇HDMI TV-out
◇USB host
◇MicroSD card slot
◇1080p video playback
◇4200mAh Li-Po rechargeable battery
Design and Retail Package
I will start with the packaging. The AOCOS PX72 mini7 Peacock comes in minimalistic white box, on the front I see just the word “mini”, which comes in different colors, and on the back I see the white AOCOS logo with sky blue background color.
The real special beauty lays inside the box. The tablet itself, an OTG cable, an USB cable, are all carefully packaged in independent smaller boxes. I guess it’s fair to say that this is the most gorgeous packaging I have ever seen for an electronic device.
Let’s then talk about its design, what is striking is that AOCOS has pushed the screen bezel (left and right, portrait mode) of the PX72 to an all-time narrowest – just 5.8mm on each side of the display. Even compared to other tablets with small screen frames, the mini7 Peacock still easily stands out!
Above the display you will find the stereo speaker, which certainly looks very much like a telephone receiver, but it’s not. Next to the front-facing speaker is the VGA front-facing camera, which can be used for video phone calls and online chatting.
The backside of the device is made of aluminum alloy, which has a strong frosted feeling. The color is indigo blue for my unit, but there are other colors available. On the back you will find a 2.0MP rear side camera, an LED flash and the AOCOS LOGO.
When it comes to hardware controls, the AOCOS PX72 has taken the minimalist approach, opting for just a power/standby and a volume rocker. I personally love the simplistic design, but I have a tough time with the positioning. Both buttons are hosted on the lower part of the left edge, while I am using the tablet in vertical mode, the buttons are facing down, making it awkward for me to control them. On the middle of the left edge you will also find an SIM card slot, where you can use cellphone card of both GSM&WCDMA network.
The bottom edge of the slate plays host to most of the ports and slots. You will find a 3.5mm headphone jack, a 2.5mm DC charging port, a Mini HDMI port, a TF card slot and a Micro USB data port.
The tablet is 9.6mm thick. Although it is not the thinnest, it gives your hands a solid hold.
Display
Budget tablets typically make the biggest sacrifices on the display front. Not so with the AOCOS PX72, which is fronted by a very nice 1,280 x 800 IPS panel rated at 400 nits of brightness. While more pixels is always better -- the GOOGLE NEXUS 10 has already pushed the pixels on tablet display to the monstrous 2560*1600 -- WXGA feels perfectly adequate here. Text is rendered very well and 720p videos look great.
Other less quantifiable aspects of the display are also very nice. Viewing angles are top-notch, with contrast staying strong regardless of which side you're coming from. And, it's plenty bright, too, with decent outdoor visibility. In general, the display is just a lot nicer than you'd expect given the cost.
Sound
The audio of the PX72, however, isn't exactly fighting above its price. The speaker integrated in the front of the mini7 Peacock delivers an amount of sound that isn't very pleasant to listen to. Although it does pass the "loud enough to fill a living room" test, the quality leaves me reaching for my earphones.
System & UI
Like most Chinese tablets with RK3066, the PX72 ships with stock Android 4.1.1. And the modifications AOCOS has made to the stock user interface are next to none. Some apps do come pre-installed, but none of them AOCOS-exclusive.
Performance
The performance I encountered were more than enough. It is noteworthy that, compared with those so-called quad-core tablets with the actions ATM7029 chipset, the performance of this RK3066-powered tablet was clearly better. I have used it for almost a month and experienced no lockups, while running a dozen of applications. Although I did have noticed that the dual-core processor fairly quickly got in trouble with multitasking. With some big applications at work and with multiple browser tabs opened it felt a little bit slower. This problem is not insurmountable but a striking detail that should be listed and if you have many widgets on your home screen and using live wallpapers at the same time, the switching got significantly slower.
Cameras
Neither the front-facing nor the rear-facing camera produces satisfactory images. After taking a few testing pics I decided I would never use the rear-facing camera ever again. I really don’t understand why AOCOS would give a 5MP camera to a 10.1 inch tablet rather than a more portable 7 incher with 3G module and phone functions.
Connectivity
The PX72 has built in 3G module (GSM/WCDMA) , Wi-Fi and Bluetooth V2.1. It is also able to make and receive phone calls. The 3G network and Wi-Fi reception of the slate is decent, though not as wonderful as the Samsung Galaxy Tab I have been using, it certainly bests most of the 7 inch tablets I have tested.
Battery Life
Of course a tablet is only good for as long as you can use the thing. RK3066 is notorious for its high power consumption, and I have to admit I was worried about its battery life before receiving the slate. But after using it for several weeks, I was actually quite pleased with the longevity here. I came within spitting distance of 6 hours on a charge using out standard rundown test, which has the tablet connected on Wi-Fi and looping an online TV show endlessly. That's very, very good for a budget 7-incher and bests many other similar sized tablets.
Verdict
When it comes to “cheap tablets” you normally get what you pay for. They are dreadful – cheap is not a quality you will want to be exploring whilst sitting on the plane or sipping on a cappuchino in your favorite cafe.
But the AOCOS PX72 is not a “cheap” tablet. It is a high quality tablet at a low price. If you are looking for a budget 7-inch tablet PC with 3G and phone features for under 200 dollars. This 7-inch slate is probably the best option!
The good:
1. Great Build quality.
2. Decent overall performance.
3. Excellent display.
4. Built-in 3G module, built-in Bluetooth.
5. Phone Functions.
The bad:
1. No real receiver for phone calls.
2. Crappy cameras.
3. The sound of the speakers is of poor quality.
why sin't anybody interested in this。。。
Sent from my XT910 using xda premium
jupiter2012 said:
why sin't anybody interested in this。。。
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Iam, If this thread is still alive.
Aocos px72 rom help !
hi,
my shop this device a last week.
and than,
rom is probleme.
RKtool, this device is connet green part
pls this devece rom link .....
HELP
HELP
Just one day after MediaTek raised the curtain of MTK6592, Zoppo,the Chinese phone maker, held a press conference flaunting how its new flagship, powered by the Octa-core chipset, would be a monster. Henceforth, it spent about 2 months hyping (perhaps optimize,too) the so-called world’s first 8-core smartphone everywhere.
Clearly Zoppo was trying the same hunger marketing tactics by Apple, or its Chinese mimicry Xiaomi. That did intrigued me somehow, but I was left cold when I held the very stuff, namely Zopo ZP998, in hand at last.
1. Design
iPhone 5/5s and HTC One have inscribed metallic surface and matte finish as major elements into the aesthetics of mobile phone design. The ZP998 seems looking for a breakthrough with its leathery plastic rear side, which, suggest more premium a feel than Samsung Galaxy S4’s cheesy case would do. That aside, the Zoppo handset’s overall design is not inspiring.
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Its front is a round-cornered rectangle, measures 5.96 inches tall by 3 inches wide, and is covered with an all-over piece of glass slightly above the edges. In a word, the handset has the magnified face of iPhone 5, plus a few compulsory tweaks such as touch-sensitive physical buttons at the bottom in place of iPhone’s home button, a wider earpiece outlet at the top to fit the ZP998’s oversize, and a bigger front camera on the earpiece’s right instead of top.
The trim encircling Zopo ZP998’s chassis is in fact made from aluminum, though the finish and color deliver a feel not as metallic as iPhone’s. The volume rocker sits on the upper left edge, and the right edge houses the power and camera keys. Between the phone’s face and edges, there is a distinct seam that shows lesser delicate craftsmanship.
The camera starter button, also the physical shutter, serves as Zopo’s messenger to tell us how outstanding the camera is, but it is placed so far that I must adjust my grip every time I want to reach it. I’d rather start the camera by the app icon and use the virtual shutter. Similarly, it can be quite a stretch to touch the back button if you hold the phone in your left hand, the inherent drawback for oversize cell phones.
A cool work looks cool and reasonable. In this sense, Zopo did not put enough sweat and tears into its new hit.
2. Display
Zopo’s has proved excellent in displaying system by its last flagship Zopo C2. The new one’s screen is just as good with the same resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels and a bigger 5.5-inch size.
While the added 0.5 inch decreases the ZP998’s pixel density to 401 PPI from C2’s 441 PPI, I don’t find major degeneration in image quality. The screen still shows extremely vibrant colors and crispy details.
Being edge-to-edge, the display helps cut Zopo ZP998’s body size a lot and its border is proof against accidental contacts. Both features are favorable except in one case: if you hold the phone tight (you normally use some strength to grip the phone when it is vertical to the floor) in your left hand, the border of the display is sensitive to your extruded palm flesh when you can’t switch home screens to the right by siding the thumb of the same hand.
Quibbles aside, Zopo ZP998 is paired with a fantastic full HD screen.
3. Operating System:
While the Mainland-China version of Zopo ZP998 runs Yun OS 2.3, an overhauled Android 4.2 system with flat icons and translucent notifications pull-down menu, the overseas version comes with the pure Android 4.2.2. The latter offers all the language options born with Android and has Google Play Store onboard.
Switch of home screens and Launcher layouts are smooth, though not very pleasantly fast. Annoying but tolerable delays were found during shifts between widgets layouts and between pictures in gallery. And I was able to open and close apps again and again without any hiccup.
Powered by an 8-core CPU and Mali-450MP GPU, the aforementioned performance indicates inadequate efforts on OS optimization.
4. Camera
Able to shoot 14MP pictures, the ZP998’s back camera uses an alleged F2.0 big aperture, bigger than that of any cell phone to my knowledge. Indeed, the camera is capable of drawing blur background and foreground with quite strong Bokeh effects.
However, the photos come out neither very vivid nor crisp in comparison with the 8MP iPhone 5, another proof that face-value resolution is not everything for a camera. The 5MP front camera has low contrast, too.
normal light, low light
with flash, under fluorescent lamp
background blur, foreground blur
5. Core Components
Before running some benchmark software on the ZP998, I tried 2 games that had never worked well on Android phones equipped with previous generations of MTK chipsets. Temple Run Oz, with all its thrilling high definition, vividness and 3 dimensions, always and frequently encountered skips of frames. And the blockbusting NFS: Most Wanted proved out of MTK’s ability to handle.
You can hardly say the cars are whizzing on Zopo ZP998, but the speed is about twice as high as it was with some quad-core MTK6589T-powered phones, and the background motion is nearly smooth. Skips of frames with the Oz have been reduced to an extent that you can really enjoy the game.
Yes, I did see considerable improvement in processing ability from the coordination of the 1.7Ghz MTK6592 CPU and Mali-450 GPU. On the other hand, Zopo’s mediocre software optimization gives me hope that some bigger phone makers, perhaps Lenovo, would forge some perfect stuff out of the chipset.
The Zopo handset notched scores of 8000 and 13000 on Quadrent and Antutu, respectively. Quadrent says the phone is better than HTC One X, and Antutu even says it’s better than Samsung Galaxy S3. But it’s weird that both benchmarks give the pixel density of 480PPI and front camera resolution of 8MP.
6. Battery Life:
I used the ZP998 for two weeks, including 3 and half a days with the display shut down after full charge (of course I need to activate the display a few times to see the power usage). The battery is able to last you for approximately 9 hours of light-to-heavy use, or around 11 hours if you don’t play games at all. Anyway, once-a-day charge is inevitable.
Antutu battery test gives the smpartphone a score of 486, between HTC Incredible S and Milestone.
7. Others:
The ZP998’s gesture sensor is more responsive than any Chinese phone I’ve ever tested. In the past, I nearly have to touch those screens to make my “air” gesture work out. NFC is another feature that often failed on Chinese phones, while Zopo ZP998 stimulated me a lot. It has no problem in data transfer with Xiaomi M3 and Sony Xperia. As for Miracast wireless display, most Chinese Phones are OK, so this one is not something exceptional.
8. Conclusion:
Zopo ZP998 is still a typical phone made by a typical second-tier Chinese phone maker. It is a storehouse of trendy technologies, while each of them doesn’t bring stunning user experience. What’s interesting is that the 8-core mobile phone has the same or lower price than some 4-core Zopo-branded ones.
Let me be less cynical! After all, Zopo ZP998 is sold not with a super price, so I shouldn’t have expected a super phone. In spite of all its embarrassing drawbacks, this is a worthy product, for sum-up.
A brief video review about Zopo ZP998: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwJ3tyn4HUQ
The whole review you can read in a nicer format, full resolution pictures and newest updates on my blog :
http://klonom.com/inew-v3-plus-review/
The iNew V3 Plus is the improved version of the iNew V3. It has an octa core processor, 2 GB RAM and a 5″ HD Display. The mobile itself I kindly received from Antelife Shop. It can be bought for roughly 140€ plus sending from here.
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Specifications:
-Android 4.4.2
-5″ HD IPS Display (1280×720, OGS)
-Second Generation Gorilla Glass (according to iNew)
–MTK6592M 1.4GHz Octa Core Processor
-2GB RAM / 16 GB ROM
-MicroSD Slot
-5 MP front camera, 16 MP back camera (according to iNew)
-USB OTG
-1.85 Ah (according label)
-GPS
-WiFi, Bluetooth
-Dual SIM
-Sensors: Light, Proximity, Acceleration, magnetic field
Items delivered:
The iNew V3 Plus is delivered in a slightly brown box. Beside the mobile phone itself, the following things are given beside: A flipcover with window, an additional pack of screen protector foils (one is already applied), a white headset, an USB wall plug (5.5V, 700mA), an USB charging/data cable and a user manual. The user manual is the first manual I have seen since a long time at smartphones, which actually live up to the expectations of an user manual. It has about 60 printed pages explaining the phone. Although probably it won’t be used too much by the most people, it is still a refreshing contrary to the usual 5 pages of “Quick Start Guide to Android”. What’s all in the box:
Unboxing Video:
First Impressions:
Since I never owned an “original” iNew V3, I can not really compare the newer version to the first one. Based on other experience reports it seems to be that the case of the new version is identical to the old one. The iNew V3 Plus has a very valuable looking outer appearence. The back is pleasently smooth, while the sides are a special highlight, since they have a metal bordering. It feels cool when touched and gives the phone a very high-quality character in my opinion. The power button is placed in the left upper third. It is round and also made out of metal. A Small engravings of the On/Off Symbol adds up to the valuable character of the phone.
On the opposide side, the volume rocker is placed. This is also from metal and is surrounded by small letterings.
Both controls have a nice pressure point. In the turned off state, the front does not have any visible control elements. The transition between display and frame is hardly noticeable. If the display is turned on and touch at the bottom, the Android controls light up (Menu, Home, Back, from left to right). Here I like very much that the Home button is not a standard home symbol, but a kind of light blue rhombus (can be seen in the review video).
The camera, the flash, a loudspeaker as well as a iNew lettering can be found on the backside. Also several small symbols are on the bottom part, like for example the CE-Symbol.
The phone uses two SIM-Cards (“normal” (mini) and micro size) and a MicroSD-card. The battery is supposed to have capacity of 1850 mAh.
On the bottom some kind of openings are placed, which resemble a bit to the loudspeaker of the iPhone. But I guess that these one are fake, since the actual sound is coming from the loudspeaker on the back.
Flipcover:
A bit unusual, but I thought I would lke to devote a small chapter just to the flipcover included . The flipcover has a relatively big transparent window. Additionally a magnet is placed in the cover, so the phone automatically turns on respectively turns off while opening or closing. The flipcover fits well and it does not let the iNew V3 Plus appear much bigger. However, the accessoire is not fully thought through. The flipcover on the picture has still the protection foil applied, is is not a screen graphic. Because one like that does not exist. The system is not modified for the smartcover (excepct the wake-up function). When the phone is woken up with closed cover by the power button, then the normal home screen is shown. Since this screen can be partly configured, this is not too bad. But calls are a bit annoying. If you get called, the normal calling screen (…which is not suited to the window place/size) appears on the screen, also when closed. So you can not really see through the closed cover who is calling you. Then already the next hurdle is appearing: The window is made out of relatively thick plastic, so the touch is not getting to the screen. So even if the UI would be modified, you would be still not able to pick up calls through the cover. You have to open the cover and answer like usual. Here one of the major keys of having a flipcover with window is lost in my opinion. Anyhow, since the flipcover is given with the phone for free it is still a nice gesture.
UI/Android:
The iNew V3 Plus is delivered with Android 4.4.2 KitKat. It uses a slightly modified launcher. The style resembles a bit to the newer versions of iOS with its flat icons. I personally like it, since it is not too colorfull. The browsing through the menu works without stuttering.
Performance:
I expected a kind of high performance from the iNew V3 Plus, since from just looking at its rough specification it looks like it should score high results in benchmarks. But here I was surprised by an Antutu 5 result of roughly 20000 points. This is obviously not a bad result and the device is fast enough for the majority of most available applications, but it seems to be that something went wrong in the finetuning of the system components. To compare, the ThL W200C which basically uses the same SoC (just not the “M” version), but only has 1 GB of RAM, scores 7000 points more. This is roughly 35% more. Anyhow, benchmarks are also just limited to a specific degree to determine the performance of a device. I did not notice any lags or similiar while using.
Memory:
According to the specification on the iNew website, the V3 Plus is supposed to have a memory of 16 GB. In the default state about 13.1 GB are available. Here I was surprised positively, since there is no division between internal and phone memory. There is only one partition which can be fully used also for apps. The memory can be extended with a microSD-card (according to specs up to 32 GB, just tried this size). It also supports USB OTG, which I tested successfully.
Camera:
...Check out my blog post for the camera pictures and rating
http://klonom.com/inew-v3-plus-review/
Display:
As I already wrote, the iNew V3 Plus has a 5″ display with a resolution of 1280x720p with IPS-technology. As typically for IPS displays, the viewing angle is quite constant. The colors of the display are very strong and make a decent picture. When I took the phone the first time in my hand, I was actually impressed by the combination of the nice display and valuable-feeling outer.
Sensors:
The V3 Plus has four different sensors according to the specifications: Light, Proximity, Acceleration and magnetic field. Additionally to these, the app “Sensor Box” shows a gyroscope sensor. This one did not have really any output and I guess it is maximum an emulated gyroscope by the magnetic field sensor. I tested all “official” sensors successfully (not tried the automatic brightness yet). Strangely Google Maps does not connect to the magnetic field sensor, so there is not automatic orientation. I do not really have an idea what could be the cause of this.
GPS:
The first GPS fix was relatively fast with about 12s. In the next half minute the accurancy rised to 5m. Shortly after that, the connection was lost, but picked up again automatically after that. I just noticed this behaviour once, since that the navigation works for chinaphone-levels quite good. I did not notice any connection losses and just a very small drifting of the signal while fast stops. I used the GPS out-of-the-box, no GPS tweaks or similiar.
Reception:
The mobile reception as well as the WiFi reception works for me without problems. I did not notice any connection losses or similiar.
Misc:
The phone has a notification LED in the upper right corner in the colors red and green (you can see them in the review video). They work out of the box as a notification led for apps etc. I received my V3 Plus unrooted and with Google Apps preinstalled. The battery seems to be kind of small with 1850 mAh. In general, the battery is enough for one day usage in my case. Although, the battery shows a kind of unpredictable behaviour at less than 10%. Occasionally, the 10% were gone in less than 5 min. The iNew V3 Plus does not have NFC like the first V3, although this is not a problem for me, since I am not a fan of NFC .
Review Video:
Conclusion:
In total I like the iNew V3 Plus for its kind of low price very much, since it make a very high-valuable impression and its display has intensive colors. Anyhow, I can not get rid of the feeling, that it is a kind of “show-off”-mobile, beginning with the nice but not really thought-through flipcover, the good sounding camera chip, which at the end makes nice, but not outstanding pictures, to the senseless “loudspeaker-openings” at the bottom. But all in all the iNew V3 Plus has still a good price/performance ratio, since the enumerated things a not really drawbacks.
...Added the Unboxing Video .
Thanks for the review. This was really helpful!
Thanks for the feedback !
Inew V3 Plus support NFC?
Krystyna said:
Inew V3 Plus support NFC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, unlike the previous version, the iNew V3 Plus does not support NFC.
Elephone P3000S : 4G, 5"IPS Gorilla-Glass, octa-core, Mali450 GPU , 2GB, Fingerprint
Just some weeks ago we saw in the market a new lowcost smartphone, with very interesting specs.
I’m talking about the P3000S, from the Chinese company (but based in Hong Kong) Elephone, created in 2006 with the philosophy of innovate, very far from other asiatic companies more focused on copying fisrt brand products.
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I want to highlight that point before starting the review because I’m really tired of talking to people that have bought the last clone of Samsung and later on complaint it’s not working well...it’s having a lot of FC, it’s not restarting after updating. It seems that those companies have done the biggest investment on copying the exterior rather than presenting a well-working phone.
We find each time more chinese manufacturers presenting new products based on a good quality-price ratio.
Needless to say that if the last Samsung Galaxy costs around 600€ and you buy a smartphone for less than 100€, even if it looks great, the difference on the price will not be only because of the brand and the marketing campaings.
Lets start the review
The P3000S is an evolution of the previous model P3000, the improvements are in the hardware part, moving from 4 to 8 cores, 8 to 16GB of storage and 1 to 2GB of RAM. The rest is mostly the same.
The packaging looks well, it’s not as great as in iPhone or Samsung last models, but is elegant and simple. Once opened, we see the terminal carefully wrapped and next to it, the charger and a plastic protector for the screen, nice detail!
First pros and cons. I like having that screen protector included but, where are the headphones??
Honestly, nowadays it’s essential to have headphones, specially devices that are so multimedia capable. And this one is perfect for multimedia with that big screen and powerful hardware.
The phone looks very good, made in plastic but very good, nice touch and with quality. I’m surprised of finding the 4g logo on the corner, I guess it’s to highlight that capability, since there are not many phones on that range of price that can use 4G networks.
Moving the phone, we see the power and lock button on the right side, on the left the volume control, on the top the microUSB for charging and the Jack 3,5 for the headphones. On the bottom, just the small hole of the microphone. The 5” screen is a HD JDI IPS with Gorilla Glass 3rd gen, we can also see the front camera (8MP), the speaker and the navigation touch buttons.
If we turn the device, on the rear part we find first the 13MP camera (with OV Camera lenses), the LED flash and just below them, the fingerprint reader, one of the strengths of this smartphone.
Centered we will see the Elephone logo (I find it quite cool, something like Transformers!) and the handsfree speaker on the bottom.
Turning it on.
It boots really fast and we don’t have to make the 1st config like in other Android models, so we can just start and use it, leaving for later the account configuration.
After setting up the WiFi, I receive the notification for a new update, great! We like updated products!
It’s really fluid, moving screens, opening apps,... We don’t see any lags or delays. The quality of the screen is awesome! It’s not the iPhone 6 , but is far better than other chinese phones.
Lets go for the fingerprint reader. Enable the service and...
We have to pass 10 times our finger (the same finger) to complete the process, the secret is not to pass it very fast. I was able to complete the registration on the first try for the 10.
Now lock the phone, press unlock, pass the finger and works perfectly! Again, don’t pass it very fast, keep in mind that this is a real fingerprint reader/scanner and not the TouchID that we see on the iPhone5S and succesive models, that just checks some points.
Point to improve, the sound. It’s very low, watching a video we realise the image is great and the sound... Must be higher.
What about the camera? Promising 13MP is not giving them...
We can see an improvement compared to other lowcost phones, but it’s not yet a great camera. When taking outdoor pictures with a good light, the pictures will look good, sharp and clear. But when using the flash or with poor indoor ilumination... Pixelated images.
The voice control for the camera also works well.
All the applications I have tried work very well. When we ask for more computing power like watching movies or playing games... Is when the P3000S shows all his heart. The Mali450 GPU works perfectly in combination with the octo-core CPU and the 2GB of RAM. If you like playing, you’ll like this device.
Other functions like NFC or gesture recognition (with locked screen) also do what promised. In fact they’re very useful, for example to open the camera or the music player without unlocking (if you have fingerprint or other security you will have to pass it). They should change that, to be able to take pictures without accessing the gallery.
Surfing the web is really fast, either data or wifi webs load very very fast and all the navigation, changing tabs, etc is fluid.
Special mention for the battery!! It looks infinite. You’ll see the percentage going down, but having an iPhone5 with the battery of 1440mAh and charging it at least once everyday... those 3150mAh on the Elephone and more than 2 days with normal use are a delight.
To conclude, the SView cover is very useful, it fits perfectly the phone, shows that cool Elephone logo on the rear part and allows us to continue using the fingerprint scanner. Also leaving the quote “Keep expecting and be surprised” for our thoughts about the brand... Nice detail.
With the circle window on the front part, we can see an analog clock (can be digital) that shows automatically when we close the cover. Touching that window we can change between the watch and the musice player, without having to unlock the phone.
ATTENTION: just until next 12th of January, you can get a discount of $14 in GeekBuying using the coupon MXOMAATR if you also want the SView cover, don’t miss the extra coupon XSGBXTGB. I don't get any commission, just got the coupon when acquired my phone, you can benefit.
Summary: if you’ve read until here, you have surely understood that I like this phone, it has gratefully surprised me. In the last year I have tried several chinese smartphones and after using them you see why the price is so lower than first brand products.
When a brand bets for showing something new, the products have much more quality than the brands trying to copy/clone top seller products.
I have tried clones of Galaxy S4 and S5. From outside they could confuse us, but when using them... Slow answer, random changes, FCs...
This Elephone P3000S has some very good things and some things to improve. But we cannot overlook that we will have a mid-high range smartphone for less than 200$, it wouldn’t be fair to compare with the last 800$ from top brands
Great review of the elephone P3000S!
I was checking this mobile as well and there are some points which you didn't mention and I guess there are important:
- First update for the phone, by default the mobile is rooted and everything works fine. However, the company released a new version of this ROM with some improvements, but you loose the root privileges. Just use the OTA updates in the phone. Later it is really simple to root again the phone, you can use iroot or root_genius, both of them work fine!
- GPS position, the localization is fine but the pointer position is all time looking for the right direction, even if its giving you the good address. To improve a little this issue, you can use fastergps (you need to be root) to download the closest gps coordinates for your country.
- App permission management tool, its amazing how to can discriminate some features or access in the applications.
- Dual SIM feature, the 4G works fine in both SIM slots. The mobile allows you differentiate between the SIM and give permission to them.
As I mentioned before, here you have a couple of pictures of the phone settings and features:
I got this phone in May well the P3000s-64Bit version. The difference's in the one I have is it has a 1080P screen, 3 Gigs of Ram and the Mali-T760 GPU. Also capable of 64bit HOWEVER, the have not release a 64 but android version. Stuck with 4.4.4
It is fast reliable and everything I throw at it just works. Its a speed demon. aNTUTU I scored 38139 and on the 3DMARK Ice Strom Extreme Benchmark I got 6548. The only con is the sound it is quiet. I use a bluetooth speaker for my audio output.
All in all for the price it cant be beat.