Related
This guide is not meant to be as a whole and is not meant to be followed from beginning to end. There are several recommendations based on my own experience, some of them will give you big battery savings, some of them minor ones; I tried to recopile every config that helps to save battery, but every config is not suitable for everyone. (I´ll point it at the beginning of every section in bold blue).
You'll need a Rooted Galaxy Nexus, with a custom ROM and a custom Kernel.
The custom ROM will give you the ability to make a deep configuration of the device in terms of options. I'm actually using Liquidsmooth v1.25, but AOKP, CM9 and SlimICS have the same options (if not more) than my actual.
Some custom Kernels will give you the ability to change the CPU frequency and voltage, kernels are the main reason of some drainings or fantastic battery life, choose wise.
The normal Galaxy Nexus battery life is about 4 hours screen time. If you are not achieving this, the main reasons could be:
1. Some apps are draining your battery due to a continuous use (no deep sleep or continuous wake ups).
2. Screen too bright.
3. Bad kernels with draining problems.
4. Weak signal connections.
This guide is wrote by me, a simple user that is sharing his own experience of the last 4 and a half months with the device. Some statements may be wrong. I'll appreciate any positive recommendations in order to improve the guide and help the rest of the community to achieve the best battery life the device can give us.
I'm using actually Liquidsmooth v1.25 and PopcornKernel, in a GSM GNex with standrad battery (1700mAh), and I'm getting this results:
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SCREEN
Due to the big screen, this is one of the elements of the device that affects in a major way to the battery live. (Great Savings)
It has been checked that black themes have a great impact on the battery due to the fact that one black pixel does not consume any battery.
Some apps have a black theme option on them, if you choose it you will save some battery.
On the other hand the brightness is the other part in the screen that has a big impact on the battery. In a logic way, less the brightness more the battery life. (Greatest Savings)
Now the latest ROM's have a new amazing feature, we can change the interval the sensor works to achieve the ambient light, reduce the brightness minimum value (that's by defect way too high in low light conditions), and customize your prefered light levels (that are too way too high in default configuration).
By reducing the sample interval sensor a bit and reducing the minimum value a lot we can achieved abetter battery life in a great manner.
Also adjusting the light sensor levels to a more reliable one's that are by far lower than the default one's we'll achieved a more optimize system that consumes less battery.
Note: This are my actual, after 2 weeks of adjust, values but I'm still working on them, they are no 100% reliable.
CPU
The CPU is a great beast. In terms of battery is well adjusted, by as always, we can achieve a personal optimized system (this is Android, yeah!) that will balance performance and battery life. (Great Savings Underclock and Undervolt combo).
A very good speed and fluidness can be achieved with a very good optimized and well balanced performance-battery friendly system.. and yes, with the last advances in kernels and ROMs, we can have a perfectly smooth system with a top speed of 1000Mhz.
In the other hand Undervolt will help us to achieve a cooler system with some battery gain. With Undervolt we´ll limit the max. value of the Voltage for the specified frequency, if we have a kernel with Smartflex, this one we´ll allow lower voltages depending on the power need of the CPU.
Two important things:
1. It has been tested that the 700Mhz frequency is prefereable over the 300Mhz one, due to the drops on frequency signal of the phone.
2. Undervolt values are not the same for everyone, it can oscillate depending on the individual CPU. When I UV I always test my system with an Stability Test app.
Connections
GNex is a phone...also.. well, it's a super computer with phone capabilities. Due to the "always connected" philosophy the optimal baseband will save a lot of battery. An optimal Baseband and Radio (region optimized) will require less power and time to connect to the antennas and will have better connection always (less power irradiated). (Medium savings).
The Radio should be updated and region optimized, there's a magnificent post made by josteink that explains all the details concerning the Radios with links to every one available.(GSM)
[Radio] (GSM) Galaxy Nexus I9250 Baseband dumps collection & discussion
European Radio Recommended: XXKK6 (XXLA2 is giving too high "Phone Idle", resulting in drain problems)
For the CDMA version there is another magnificent post by ready5 with a compilation of every RADIO for the CDMA version of the GNex.
(CDMA) [RADIOS/HYBRIDS]*UPDATED* 4.0.4 FULL 2/6/2012 PLUS FRIED RADIO Halp!
In the GSM version on the other part the 3G, HSPDA consumes great great great battery juice. If you are not in WIFI and are not using the data connection, a great way to save battery life is changing from HSPDA or 3G to 2G networks (this is really noticeable if you travel a lot by car or train, cause you are continuing connecting a reconnecting from different radio antennas).
There's some ROMs as Liquidsmooth that allows when you are not on WIFI and after an specified delay, to change to 2G automatically (or low consuming) networks when you have the screen off. This is a great way to save battery when you are not at home, reducing the standby drain of the phone outdoors.
.
The automatic 2G when sleep is a main function of Juice defender. Thanks to a1exus for recommendation.
In the CDMA version the LTE consumes also great great great battery juice. If you are not in WIFI and are not using the data connection, a great way to save battery life is changing from LTE to 4G networks (this is really noticeable if you travel a lot by car or train, cause you are continuing connecting a reconnecting from different radio antennas).
Thanks to thenickisme for this!
WIFI
Wifi has a crazy history on the GNex. After talking and talking, posting and posting, it has been tested that WIFI always on while sleep is the best way to achieve a longer battery life. (Medium savings).
Also the new ROM's have amazing feature that change the WIFI interval (we normally stay at the same WIFI always), increasing the value will save batterty life reducing the continues scans that produce the WIFI Always ON requirement.
Services and Apps
The best thing of Android is that we can configure anything, one of the best and underestimated feature is the Freeze or Service Uninstall. We did it before in Windows and we can do it now. Through the Apps section in Preferences or the mythic Titanium Backup we can disable or uninstall an internal function of the systems that is normally used, giving more resources to the system and in some cases, saving some battery. (Low to Minimum Savings).
There are some ICS functions that no everyone uses. For example, I don't use any Bluetooth, NFC, Google Voice, Google Search or Speech function of the system, freezing or uninstalling them will optimize our system giving some battery juice.
Note: This is a dangerous thing if you don't understand what you're doing. Make always a Nandroid before Freezing or Uninstalling an essential function, just to be cautious.
According to the Apps we have to take in account the Background Syncing or Sync Interval, most of the time the apps don't need to be synced every 5 minutes, like weather, if we make longer updates we'll achieve a good saving battery related. (Great Savings if many apps with many connections).
Widgets, 5 homescreens full of widgets updating in real time could be detrimental to the battery live, take care when adding widgets and as said in the previous paragraph, change every widget preferences to update in longer times than usually they have by default. (Great Savings if many apps with many connections).
Bad Apps are the one's that not allow our device to deep sleep or wake up continuously our GNex. There are several on the market, Readability for example is a new one that wake up continuously our device attempting to download new articles, on the other part, some time ago Widgetlocker had some problems not letting deep sleep the GNexus (don't know now). (Great Savings if there is an apps giving deep sleep or wake ups problems).
Pointing on this, the best way to know if any app is not behaving well in the system is through 2 apps:
- BetterBatteryStats, that will look for any wake up of the device while sleep.
- CPU Spy, that will tell us if the device is deep sleeping ok or not.
Other things
There are other things that will help us in a great or minor manner to save battery life.
Sync Data usage (Google services like contacts, bookmarks, etc..) consumes battery, if you limit this usage, you´ll gain some juice. The new ROM's in the Powersaver tag will allow you to limit this sync usage. (Low Savings).
The Dial Pad Touch Tones and Vibration affects battery also (yepp it's true, and in a great way!), disabling this features will give you some extra battery juice. (Low to Medium Savings with combo sound plus vibration).
The Google Location services and Backup&Reset Data consumes great battery also, limiting this services will gave you some extra juice. (Medium Savings).
The last little thing that will help you save batt life will be the Automatic Date&Time option, disabling it will give you some extra juice also. (Lowest Savings, practical minimum).
Live Wallpapers, they are very nice but will drain your battery quickly. Static Wallpapers are preferred, and if posible, dark ones. (Medium to Great Savings).
Experimental
This are new tweaks that normally appear in new/advanced kernels, his use according to battery save is still not really tested or can have a detrimental on the physical conditions of the device/battery. Use them with caution or if you really know what you are doing.
[MOD][KERNEL]Battery Life eXtender (BLX), this is a tweak created by the popular Ezekeel and in his owns words: "Older types of rechargable batteries exhibited a 'memory effect' which made it neccessary to completely charge/discharge the battery when using to prevent degradation of the capacity. Modern Lithium-Ion batteries like in the Nexus S do not show this problem and thus it is not necessary to use the battery in complete (dis)charge cycles. In fact on the contrary, it is commonly accepted that both very low and very high charge states accelerate the degradation of the battery capacity (that is why you should store Li-Ion batteries at around 40% charge).
While a low charge state can be simply avoided by charging the device more often, the battery in the Nexus S by default is charged to around 95% capacity and I could not find any app or tweak to stop the charging at a lower capacity. Thus the only way was to use the manual override and pull the cable which is annoying since one had to monitor the charge state." (Unknown Savings).
Galaxy Nexus is charged by default to the 96% of this capacity, with this new tweak you can gain this 4% (don't know for sure if you can get the 101%) of battery life, in 4 hours screen time, more or less 10 minutes, but it can be detrimental on the long way to the battery physical life.
You can found this tweak in the last nightly of Franco's Kernel, and can be activated via his own app.
You can find more information in Ezekeel post here at XDA.
[MOD][KERNEL]Undervolt of IVA and CORE Voltage, new patches let undervolt the IVA (hardware media decoder) and CORE (GPU Voltage), I'vce been playing with this all the day and I've managed to undervolt a 15-20% de original frequencies. (Unknown Savings).
I understand that with this we are limiting the maximum voltage they can use, letting them to use lower ones according to GPU load. I'm not sure at this (GPU uses smartflex also ¿?) but with a descent of 20% on the voltage could result in longer battery life while playing games or seeing movies.
I'll try further undervolts, but this are my actuals on a stable system.
You can play with this voltages via the last nightly of Franco's Kernel, and via his own app.
Take care playing with this, could result in system instabilities, reboots, freezes, etc.
Links of interest
- BetterBatteryStats, A high battery drain is often a limiting factor for a great user experience.
With BetterBatteryStats you can analyse the behavior of your phone, find applications causing the phone to drain battery while it is supposed to be asleep and measure the effect of corrective action.
- CPU Spy, This is a simple app to display the time the CPU spends in each frequency state. This can be a useful tool in diagnosing battery problems or tweaking your over-clock settings.
It also displays the current kernel information.
- StabilityTest, StabilityTest is a stress-testing tool for android devices with error reporting.
StabilityTest is a CPU, GPU, RAM/memory stress-testing tool for your device, whether stock and unrooted (limited functionality) or rooted and overclocked with SetCPU, SetVsel or similar tools.
Extended Battery
At the end, the best way to extend the battery life is with an Extended Battery, they are not very expensive and only increase a little bit the thickness of the device. They can be bought at several places through the typical places as Ebay, Expansys or Amazon.
Important: Take in account that the CDMA and GSM versions have different batteries and they are not compatible, normally the GSM one is longer and black and the CDMA is wider and blue.
Borrowed from Buddy Revell
Calibration
Once a month we´ll have to calibrate our battery so that the information to be shown on screen is accurate and true. The steps are as follows.
1. Charge the Nexus until the indicator shows us is 100%.
2. Disconnect it and let it discharge until it turns off by herself.
3. Then load up fully charged. Note that this state is reached after one hour approx. since it shows that is already loaded.
Note: There are several apps in the Market that help calibrate the battery, although I have heard that in ICS Google has changed the file location does. Log of our battery so many of them may not work well if they are not updated.
great post especially for a new gnex user. will look through these options thoroughly.
Very nice. Thank you! Took a few suggestions.
Looks like I've got some work to do =D
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
edited out
Cool story bro! Lots of good tweaks to maximize battery.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
What rom is that? You should state that ...
Awesome. Those custom backlight levels are going to save a good amount of battery. I tried using a filter, but it made using the phone in sunlight impossible.
It's working inside well and based on what I see from the custom levels, it should have no issues once I take it outside.
As for the underclocking, comparing iOS and Android isn't fair. iOS has an advantage with its closed ecosystem. I personally overclock the GNex to achieve the same snappiness I had on my iPhone 4S. Sure the underclocking will save battery, but I might as well be using an older phone if I'm going to underclock.
When it comes down to it, everyone's battery is >50% screen consumption. Your custom levels are going to tremendously increase battery life.
gogol said:
What rom is that? You should state that ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's in my signature, Liquidsmooth v1.25.
myrdog said:
Awesome. Those custom backlight levels are going to save a good amount of battery. I tried using a filter, but it made using the phone in sunlight impossible.
It's working inside well and based on what I see from the custom levels, it should have no issues once I take it outside.
As for the underclocking, comparing iOS and Android isn't fair. iOS has an advantage with its closed ecosystem. I personally overclock the GNex to achieve the same snappiness I had on my iPhone 4S. Sure the underclocking will save battery, but I might as well be using an older phone if I'm going to underclock.
When it comes down to it, everyone's battery is >50% screen consumption. Your custom levels are going to tremendously increase battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
With the iPhone comparison I just tried to emphasize that sometimes underclocking results in the same snappiest system, but yes, is a little unfair though (but I can assure that with the latest Kernels and ROMs that have been released, I have a totally fast and smooth system with only 1000Mhz).
Well done good job
Good guide. Rather than seeing multiple thread's about awful battery life its nice to see people talk about how to maximize their battery life
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Good guide—thanks for taking the time to make it—but along with it’s very good parts, it has quite a few inaccuracies, is misleading in some places, doesn’t fully explain the ramification of making many of the changes that are proposed and makes questionable changes for very little gain. Amongst other things, my major issues with it are:
You wrongly assume a device that does not get four hours of screen time is not optimized—this would be incorrect as one can get four hours of screen time with the stock ROM and default configuration.
The stock ROM does not allow you to customize the backlight and CPU—so you should point this out.
It’s condescending to the iPhone (while the GN might be better in many ways, patronizing another device has no place in a “guide”).
BinkXDA said:
Good guide—thanks for taking the time to make it—but along with it’s very good parts, it has quite a few inaccuracies, is misleading in some places, doesn’t fully explain the ramification of making many of the changes that are proposed and makes questionable changes for very little gain. Amongst other things, my major issues with it are:
You wrongly assume a device that does not get four hours of screen time is not optimized—this would be incorrect as one can get four hours of screen time with the stock ROM and default configuration.
The stock ROM does not allow you to customize the backlight and CPU—so you should point this out.
It’s condescending to the iPhone (while the GN might be better in many ways, patronizing another device has no place in a “guide”).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, but the guide tried to be a compilation of many procedures that would give you a longer batt life. Some of the recommendations give you maybe 4-5% more autonomy, some of them 0,5%, don't know because I'm not an engineer and don't have the tools and time to measure the actual rate of discharge of the device, I'm only a user that took some time in share his personal experience in the last 4 and a half months with the device.
1. It was a way of talking, did not tried to assume anything because was not thinking in anithing out of the people that are not having more that 3 hours batt time, was a simple way of selling something (a well/bad introduction depending on the eyes or mentality of the reader)
2. We are at XDA and this is a developer device, I asume a minimal technological base, I was assuming this. But I point this out because I also think that will help some people.
3. Tried to emphasize that while the over sold as an ultra-quick device is only 1Ghz Dual-Core, the GNex can be as fast and reliable as the iPhone 4S with the same speed, and also saving batt (and in addition you have 450 more Megaherzs if you want to use them.. if you root). It’s not condescending cause if I would have liked to buy an iPhone I would bought one as the 99% of the people here.
I am a simple user, as everyone here, trying to help people as people has helped me developing great ROMs and Kernels I like positive and concrete recommendations over vague and negative ones.
hey op,
SrTapir said:
If we take in account that the Mega-Ultra-Cool-Fashion-Posh and "Ultra Quick" iPhone 4S has a only Dual Core 1Ghz processor, we can assume that with the same speed we can achieved a very good optimized and well balanced performance-battery friendly system.. and yes, with the last advances in kernels and ROMs, we can have a perfectly smooth system with a top speed of 1000Mhz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think the iphone is clocked at 800mhz even it has 1ghz
king23adrianc said:
hey op,
i think the iphone is clocked at 800mhz even it has 1ghz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ups!
SrTapir said:
Ups!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all thanks to all the people for your comments!
I've updated the first post with your recommendations, and added a couple little things.
SrTapir said:
First of all thanks to all the people for your comments!
I've updated the first post with your recommendations, and added a couple little things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Calibration section is a little confusing. It only takes 1 hour to go from 0% to 100%?
Also, do you know anything about calibration with ROMs that only allow you to charge to 99%?
myrdog said:
The Calibration section is a little confusing. It only takes 1 hour to go from 0% to 100%?
Also, do you know anything about calibration with ROMs that only allow you to charge to 99%?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it takes 1 hour after the GNex indicates is fully charged. I'll try to change it in order to clarify.
No, sorry, maybe you can "delete battery logs" via recovery. (I never did it, and don't know if can be detrimental).
I was thinking the other day, "What if I could lower my screen quality and save battery that way?" So I did some googling and found the quoted text below at http://www.droid-life.com/2013/03/2...nge-display-qualities-based-on-battery-level/ . Has anyone heard of work done on this kind of thing? Note that it mentions only disabling blur and animations; what about screen quality?
"Battery life in a mobile device is very important. All your fancy specs won’t mean anything if you can’t keep it turned on more than 15 minutes, so we’re seeing companies either putting bigger batteries in their phone like Motorola’s MAXX line or trying to innovate to make batteries last longer. Seeing as how the display in a device is usually the biggest battery drain on a device, Google has just been granted a patent that allows Android to read the battery life of a phone and change the display accordingly.
In this listing, the fine print lays out the procedure of how this patent will work. Depending on the amount of battery left, the operating system will change the display to lessen the amount of power it draws by disabling blur and animations between screens. If the battery is extremely low the operating system can even lower the resolution of the display."
I haven't seen or heard, probably since I never thought about it would be neat to turn down an HD screen to reserve battery. Only thing i can think of which is says the animations such as; moving through apps or landscape to portrait rotations
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
Check out Alberto's review of it here!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=67482521&postcount=12
http://www.cubot.net/smartphones/dinosaur/
Cubot's new phone, the Cubot dinosaur will offer a jurassic experience. They want to solve the biggest issues we experience in cell phones today, namely battery life, performance, and the footprint of the phone. This phone will be 8.8mm thick while packing a 4150mAh battery, and Cubot hasn't been known to lie about their battery capacity. THey are also putting in 3GB of RAM that should help with performance, but are using the MTK6735? Which is a little strange, but hopefully the 3GB of RAM can make up for not using a Helio X10. It also comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, which is an extremely nice surprise from a chinese manufacturer, as they are generally released with Lollipop.
Full Specs:
MT6735A 1.3Ghz CPU
3gb RAM, 16gb ROM
Android 6.0
4150 mAh battery
5.5" 720 IPS Screen
MicroSD support
13MP (interpolated) / 5MP Front Camera
4G LTE
Dual SIM
USB OTG
8.8mm Thick
when can i buy it?
PetaX8 said:
when can i buy it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it's on presale right now but I believe by the end of april.
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CUBOT Dinosaur confirmed specs:
4150mAh high-density (650 Wh/L) battery, 3GB RAM, 16GB ROM, Android 6.0, 13MP Rear Camera with f2.0 aperture, 185g.
Dinosaur pre-sale started from April 26th, offering a nice surprise pack with many useful accessories.
http://www.cubot.net/dinosaur-pre-sale/
Ordered at Tinydeal
I'm just sad it doesn't get 3G in Canada.
Is there anyone here who already got the device?
Mine has been shipped, but it will take a while to arrive. (no express courier)
Hi.
Yes, i got one and i'm writting a review.
for now, i have some trouble trying to root the device.
if anyone can give me a tip for rooting, i will appreciate.
Will it have Adoptable Storage enabled?
got this device had it for few days very pleased so far a few teething problems but its running ok I like the marshmallow and the movement of apps new UI I had to set the sd card up on first use to choose it. but it automatically puts apps on the sd card for you it joins the sd card in with the internal rom as far as I can make out
Sent from my CUBOT DINOSAUR using XDA-Developers mobile app
Review
Introduction
This is the CUBOT Dinosaur
Hardware
This device is powered by a Mediatek MT6735A SOC clocked at 1.3GHz, with a plenty amount of RAM (3GB) and enough ROM (16GB). It has an 8MP Rear Camera (OmniVision OV8856), photos interpolated to 13MP, and a 2MP Front Camera (GalaxyCore GC2355), again interpolated to 5MP . Follow my next paragraphs to know more.
Unboxing
Packaging comes with some accessories: 1x Rugged TPU Cover (amazingly robust), 1x Micro-USB Cable, 1x 5V/1A Charger, 1x Quick Start Guide, 1x Compliance Regulation paper and the Smartphone (of course). No Headset included.
Unlike most devices from CUBOT, this one has a Plastic Chassis, with a Metal Chassis inside, this makes the whole device robust and lightweight in the same time. Pretty interesting, probably the first time that I see a device with something like this. To know more, just look the CUBOT Dinosaur teardown that can be found on the CUBOT YT Channel.
It is just 15.5x7.9x0.96cm, pretty slim considering that there is a 4150mAh battery inside, and it weights 201g, lightweight enough.
On the front side there is the usual 2.5D Curved Display enclosed in a plastic frame. Sincerely, on this device the plastic frame is pretty noticeable, I don’t know why. The upper front side of the device features a Front-Facing Camera, an Earpiece, and the Sensors hole that includes Light, Proximity and Gesture Sensors, and rare Notification LED. (only Blue color is supported, not RGB)
On the lower front side of the device there are the Soft-Keys Navigation Buttons (not retro-illuminated), and almost hidden Microphone Hole. (on the left)
On the back side there is the removable plastic back cover, with a nice texture similar to the Xiaomi MI4s.
The upper rear side of the device features a flat Camera supported by a Single-Flash (Single Tone) configuration.
The lower rear side of the device features some words about Model & Certificates, and the huge Speaker hole.
Inside, there all the slots are indipendent, smarter than other devices featuring a common slot where only 1x SIM-Card can be used at the same time if you use also a Micro-SD card.
Device
Screen
CUBOT, even if they do not declare it, choose an high-quality IPS screen on this device, made by AUO. But, it requires some a bit on work on the calibration, because color temperature and other factors are not as they should be. A software update might calibrate it.
Brightness is great, without no issues at all under direct sunlight. The Light Sensor works great too, and supports smooth light changes making auto-brightness much better.
About Viewing Angles, the screen doesn’t suffer any kind of issue, it behaves perfect in every single condition.
Camera
Rear Camera works as on all other devices with the same camera sensor, nice quality but high noise level. Focus is pretty fast though, even better that what I thought.
As you can see, HDR makes photos brighter just like it should.
Flashlight is powerful enough for nice shots, and it is almost required because even with medium light the camera sensor suffers a bit.
As regards Video Recording, there are no major issues. 1080p videos (Video Quality – Fine) are recorded with a decent level of details, just remember that there is no OIS so you can’t expect stable videos. It is just me or there is a slight purple tint?
V Just check my sample here V
Front Camera is decent, but it is just 2MP so do not expect superb quality or high-detailed photos.
Audio
Built-in Speaker is...excellent, similar (be careful, not identical) to the Ulefone Vienna. It is loud, and low-frequencies are here, even if not too much, and it has a nice clarity. Well Done CUBOT!
Unfortunately, it is positioned on the back, and, as I have already said for many other devices, if you place the device on a table you could experience volume issues, but this doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing. As always, what matters here is the quality.
Nothing negative to say about the in-call/telephony quality.
Telephony, Mobile Network & WiFi
Thanks to the 4G Band 20 support (some other Chinese Smartphones don’t have it), I’m almost always and everywhere connected to the 4G Network of my Mobile Network Provider (TIM Italy).
Also 3G Signal Reception is accurate, actually I never managed to get connected to the 2G Network of my Mobile Operator because there was always some 3G Signal available.
4G Network Speed is decent, it highly depends on your Mobile Operator and mine isn’t pretty good. While 3G Network Speed, is just fine.
There is no WiFi 5GHz support here, but WiFi 2.4GHz speed isn’t extremely low, I managed to get connected to my network connection at 65mbps, and Speed Tests reach more or less 35mbps.
Battery Life
I have measured the real battery capacity using my USB Tester, and as you can see it is even higher than declared. (declared 4150mAh, real almost 4900mAh) WOW!
Battery Life is just great, thanks to the huge battery. More than 10 hours of screen-on time are achiveable on this device. My PCMark’s Battery test confirms it.
If you are worried about charging times, well...you have to. It doesn’t come with a Quick Charge power supply, so it takes a more than 2 hours to full charge. Maybe they should have used the same charger used on the CUBOT H2 with 5V/2A output, because with my own AUKEY charger, it manages to use nearly 1.4A. The included 5V/1A charger isn’t enough I think...this is a little mistake made by CUBOT. My advice is to use another charger with at least 5V/1.5A Power Output.
Software
Unlike previous devices from CUBOT, this one comes with a completely clean Android 6.0 release, without any customized lockscreen or anything else. Only the Settings app has been categorized, but nothing else. Excellent!
Just like other last-gen Mediatek Devices, there are some typical features such as Gestures, Turbo Download, etc…
The UI is extremely responsive and smooth, no lags at all. Performance is great too, and you’ll see it on the next paragraph, probably the fastest MT6735 device.
Benchmarks
I have used 3DMark, Antutu Benchmark, Epic Citadel, GeekBench 3, GFXBench, AndroBench, PCMark (Work & Storage) and Vellamo (Browser & CPU Tests) to stress the device to the limit. I won’t test Games or Video Playback because there are already some related tests included in these Benchmark suites.
3DMark – GPU Performance isn’t extremely good, OpenGL 3.1 & 3.0 tests require lots of power, and this is where almost every mid-range GPU falls. OpenGL 2.0 tests are pretty good though.
Other 3DMark tests can be found on my Imgur album linked at the bottom of the thread.
AndroBench – eMMC Performance is the highest I have ever found on a MT6735 device.
Antutu Benchmark – I won’t say a lot about this benchmarks, this isn’t as reliable as others. I’m providing this just for benchmarks lovers.
Epic Citadel – As you can see, 3D performance is decent, enough for almost all games.
GeekBench – CPU Performance is nearly as good as other CPUs with the same configuration (4x Cortex-A53), enough to handle almost every type of activity.
GFXBench– GFXBench score is low, but you can’t expect something better with this CPU.
PCMark – As you can see, only Writing score is a bit low. Pretty good.
Work
Storage
Vellamo
Browser score is decent, as good as other MT6735 devices.
The same for the CPU score.
I didn’t expected so high performance on this device. An excellent work has been made by CUBOT engineers, and I hope that they’ll continue to update this device for even more improvements.
Conclusions
With an huge battery, even more powerful that the value declared by the Manufacturer, and with excellent performance, this device is a nice compromise between quality and price.
Do I recommend it? Yes, if you need a long-lasting and powerful enough device, then this is the best choice. If you need a device for heavy-gaming, well...it might be better if you choose something else. Light Games run without any issue though.
Pros:
AUO Screen
Battery Capacity higher than declared
Smooth and Clean Android OS
Notification LED
Cheap
Cons:
Low-End Camera Sensors (Rear & Front)
Single-Color Notification LED
Screen needs to be Calibrated
No Compass/Gyroscope
Rating: 8.6
Packaging and Accessories: 8.5
Design and Materials: 8.5
Performance and Heat Dissipation: 8
Screen: 8
Camera: 6.5
Sound: 9
Battery Life: 9.5
Software: 9.5
OEM Support: 9
Price: 9
You can find full-res images (I know, Quality isn't excellent) here: http://imgur.com/a/tz1Kk
Official Website: http://www.cubot.net/smartphones/dinosaur/
You can buy it on many online shops.
Amazing review, @Alberto96. Many thanks!
Enjoy this Official Video made by CUBOT;
Thanks Alberto! Your review hsa been placed in the first post
hi guys i just bought this phone yesterday & it's awesome as hell...but one thing i can't do is root it coz i want to remove bloatware & install xposed and gravity..anyone who has had success rooting it?
killaflow said:
hi guys i just bought this phone yesterday & it's awesome as hell...but one thing i can't do is root it coz i want to remove bloatware & install xposed and gravity..anyone who has had success rooting it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can root this device.
Just flash custom recovery TWRP with SP_Flash_Tool. (https://mega.nz/#!fYkkSSIY!tcpvabiGf1JUPo08pSt22el55LYQIGdA1kh-MNe1vAs) Archive contains TWRP and scatter file for dinosaur.
After that you can flash SuperSU By Chainfire from TWRP.
I just started using this phone and second your awesome its a all good rounder I not sure if I root it its fine for me at the moment as far as I can see its pretty well 98%marshmallow in my opinion ?
Sent from my CUBOT DINOSAUR using XDA-Developers mobile app
How do i boot to recovery with the dinosaur? i flashed the recovery. it seemed to have worked. when i boot i hold down vol(-). a chinese menu appears with a single english entry (english factory) wich i chose not to do. did i do it right? the booting i mean.
wiedster said:
How do i boot to recovery with the dinosaur? i flashed the recovery. it seemed to have worked. when i boot i hold down vol(-). a chinese menu appears with a single english entry (english factory) wich i chose not to do. did i do it right? the booting i mean.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's wrong. Volume Up + Power
thx. im such a jackass. didnt work when i tried. didnt try again. i could boot into twrp but now im stuck at the welcome screen. cant swipe to continue. touch controls dont seem to work. is there a non touch based recovery for the dinosaur?
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Nice - i can confirm that the battery is great. Never has a phone with such good battery life.
But sometimes i wish i could deactivate all energy saving options, because from time to time it seems that some apps lost the possibly to wake up from standby.
How do i setup my phone to use black and white when i'm reading a book? I want to take full advantage of the AMOLED display and save both my battery and eye's.
I believe the phone does that automatically and switches to low Energy mode by reducing the Speed of the processor in cases of activities that don't require high Performance. You can as well activiate the Adaptive Power Saving which learns the usage Patterns and reduces or increases the Performance (therefore the power needed).
You download an ereader with support for amoled, true blacks.