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LEAGOO Venture 1 - Information & Reviews - 5.0" HD | MT6753 | 3GB | 32GB | Leather
LEAGOO Venture 1 (V1)
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Specs:
Dimensions: 148.5 * 71.8 * 11.1 mm
Weight:
Chassis: Metal Body with calfskin on the back
SoC: MediaTek MT6753
CPU: ARM Cortex-A53, 4x1300MHz + 4x1300 MHz, Cores: 4 + 4
GPU: ARM Mali-T720 MP4 600MHz, Cores: 4
Network: 4G Cat.4 (150MBps)
RAM: 3 GB
Storage: 16 GB/32 GB
Memory cards: microSD, microSDHC, microSDXC
Display: 5.0 in, IPS, 720 x 1280 pixels, 24 bit
Protection:
Battery: 3000 mAh, Li-Polymer
OS: Sec OS 1.0 (based on Android 5.1 Lollipop)
Back Camera: 3264 x 2448 pixels (8MP), interpolated to 13MP
Front Camera: 2560 x 1960 pixels (5MP), interpolated to 8MP
SIM card: Dual-SIM, Dual-Standby
Wi-Fi:
USB: 2.0, Micro-USB
Bluetooth: 4.0
Positioning: GPS, A-GPS
Other Features: Fingerprint Scanner
Colors: Black, Brown, Red
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Leaked News:
LEAGOO V1 Comes with Good Specs and Different Design
Maybe the LEAGOO T1 gained most of the media attention lately, but the company has already a new device ready for release, the LEAGOO V1, a device that differentiates from most current smartphones in terms of design.
LEAGOO markets the device as both a luxurious as well as a secure device. The security comes from two directions. The first is the fingerprint sensor that comes on almost low-to-mid devices and ensures that the device gets unlocked only by the fingers of the user. The second is its OS, called Sec OS (from Security) and is based on Android. No further details are known about it.
But what about luxury? To achieve a certain level of luxury, the company has decided to use real calfskin to dress the exterior of the device. Unlike other devices that had pseudo-leather back covers, the LEAGOO V1 is a combination of metal and leather.
On the hardware side, its main specs are:
- Octa-Core SoC
- Support 4G
- RAM + ROM: 3G+16G / 3G+32G, 128GB microSD support
- Fingerprint sensor
- LGQC 5V/1.5A (LEAGOO Quick Charge)
- 5’’ HD Display
- 8.0MP + 13.0MP front/back camera
- 3000mAh battery
- Sec OS 1.0 (based on Android 5.1)
More information can be found on www.leagoo.com
Reserved
Maybe the Leagoo T1 gained the most attention of the media lately, but the company has already a new device ready for release, the Leagoo V1 (or Venture 1), a device that differentiates from most current smartphones in terms of design.
From now to 18th October there will be a presale of the LEAGOO Venture 1 on AliExpress, with a nice discount.
Leagoo markets the device as both a luxurious as well as a secure device. To achieve a certain level of luxury, the company has decided to use handcrafted first-class calfskin to dress the exterior of the device.
And the security comes from two directions. The first is the fingerprint sensor that comes on almost low-to-mid devices and ensures that the device gets unlocked only by the fingers of the user. The second is its OS, called Sec OS (from Security) and is based on Android 5.1 (or maybe 6.0?, i'll ask a confirm for this)
UPDATE: Confirmed, Android 5.1 is here.
LEAGOO Venture 1 is here to against Vertu Aster T
Vertu is the company that does not need a further introduction when it comes to luxury devices. But recently LEAGOO Venture 1 also catches lots of attentionsdue to its similar luxury leather materials and design. Leagoo Venture 1 is here to challenge Vertu Aster T.
Why they are similar?
Both of them are used handcrafted first-class calfskin to dress the exterior of the device. Both of them can support the latest and faster 4G network. Both of them can be customized by customers’ need and can been crafted as an exquisite expression of refinded aesthetic. But depending on the different material, Vertu Aster T price will*also be different.
As for the specifications, Vertu Aster T is featured with 4.7 inches screen with a*resolution of 1080 × 1920 , 2.3GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, 13MP*rear camera with LED flash, 2.1MP front camera and it will be running Android 5.1.
Leagoo Venture 1 features a 5.0-inch 720p display and is powered by a MediaTek MT6753 octa-core chipset clocked at 1.3GHz. It also packs 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and 128GB maximum memory expansion. It adopts rear 13MP Sony camera with true-tone flash and an F/2.0 aperture. 8MP front camera with 84° wide angle adds more interest. The fingerprint sensor has become almost essential on today’s smartphones. Leagoo Venture 1 adopts it but Vertu Aster T does not. LQC v1.5 fast charging technology is used to charge the large 3000mAh battery on Venture 1, for a faster, safer and cooler charging. But Vertu Aster T is just only 2275mAh. Both of them are based on Android 5.1.
Besides, Venture 1 adopts Dual Secure OS to protect its security. It is possible to switch from the personal OS to business OS freely. Using hardware encryption, two separated OS should be able to work perfectly with no chance of info-leaking. All files are sealed in a private storage space and to ensure the safety of all files, the Venture 1 monitors every access, showing all history record of unlocking th Deata protection. In addition, by setting password, all Apps in the device can be locked and no one can get in without a password. (unless you manage to hack it).
I bought one!
Just to say that I've bought one of these Leagoo Venture 1 (V1) 'phones (16Gb, in the Amber Brown if you're interested...). I found information about them hard to come by so I thought I'd post a few thoughts a few days into ownership. If you have any questions, I'm not the person to ask as I don't visit XDA very often.
So, I took the plunge. I happened to be browsing AliExpress, looking for another item, when I spotted an advert for this 'phone. I was intrigued with the looks, that combination of leather and metal is hard to ignore. I clicked on the ad. and thought how striking looking the 'phone was, I also was rather taken by the looks of the launcher, with it's almost entirely black and white theme, I liked the simplicity.
Then, the price caught my eye. Just over one hundred pounds. At that price, I could almost afford to throw it away I reckoned. A few seconds later it was ordered. Delivery for me took eleven days although it was estimated at up to fifty days. Perhaps I was lucky in delivery? Other orders from AliExpress have taken sixty days, so maybe I was just lucky?
And what of the 'phone itself? It came in a reasonable quality cardboard box with a sleeve cut into a 'V' shape to highlight the 'Venture' brand on the front. Inside there was a SIM tray removal tool, charger with European pins and 100V - 240V capability, a micro-USB cable, headphones and quick-start guide. The 'phone had a screen protector fitted but this picked up so much grease and fingerprints I took it off after a day.
In use the screen is very clear, very bright and very sharp. As the resolution is only 1280x720 I wasn't expecting something this good. I've found no dead pixels so far either. The 'phone is very quick and responsive in general use, web sites load much much quicker than my previous Oppo R5 or Huawei P6 and I've noticed no slowdowns in use, nor any issues with excessive heating - again, both the Huawei and Oppo could get rather warm in use. The fingerprint scanner does take some time from putting the finger on the scanner to unlock the 'phone, though I suspect that the scanner works quickly, and the delay is in the unlocking as once or twice I've tapped my finger on quickly then removed it yet the 'phone has still unlocked with my finger off the scanner. The rear camera resolution seems average, it is claimed to be 13MP, pictures taken are ~4Mb in size and do look rather heavily compressed, the P6 and R5 possibly were both better in this respect. I don't suppose the camera is any worse than any other similarly priced 'phone though. For a while I had a Huawei P9 (Leica dual lens) and BlackBerry Priv, both had better cameras, I liked the BlackBerry Priv the most of all my 'phones for camera quality. I have an excellent Pentax camera for taking pictures with, I only use my 'phone if I've forgotten the Pentax or my reserve Ricoh cameras. If you use your 'phone for photography, perhaps consider something else? If I could add one thing, it would be NFC. I had a couple of 'phones for a short period which both had NFC and I really liked using 'Tap n Pay' so I would have liked to see this but it seems as though a minority of China made 'phones offer NFC as it reportedly isn't widely used in native China.
In the physical metal, glass and leather the 'phone looks very well made. It is rather heavy but this weight seems uniformly distributed and it feels 'right'. The metal on the sides has a quality finish to it and again, feels lovely. The metal surrounding the fingerprint scanner and camera lens looks to my eye to be cast aluminium and slightly lower quality but still very good. I can't say whether the leather is indeed calfskin as Leagoo claim, but it does look good. You probably could get some jealous looks from other people who might assume it is a Vertu (assuming they know what a Vertu looks like) as the two do look similar.
The 'phone has dual SIM capability, I haven't tried this only having one SIM and a microSD card in the 'SIM2' slot. It certainly works on the Virgin network in the UK (EE), again, I only have a standard 3G data plan so can't vouch for 4G capabilities.
Battery life so far has been excellent. Having used it more than I would during any normal day while setting it up, restoring apps, text messages, adding widgets and the like, I've still had around 70% battery by bedtime. In comparison, the P6 would be flat, with less use, in about eight hours. I could eke the R5 to about thirty six hours with very light use. If I remember, after my first week is over, I'll update this thread to give a more thorough report on the battery life. [Update] I've now had the 'phone for around four weeks and I'm getting very good battery life. I'm only having to charge the 'phone after three days of use. I recently had a BlackBerry Priv and before that, a Huawei P9 (not the P9 Lite), both of those managed from 8am on day one to 10pm day two before needing a charge. The V1 can easily go from 8am on day one to 10pm day three before needing a charge, if I stretch it, I can just squeeze 10pm on day four. This is without needing to select the low power battery saving mode. I am a light user, but I'm not using this any more or less than the previous 'phones yet still getting great battery life.
[Update] The stock launcher is a little unusual (even for a Chinese 'phone) in that widgets can't be resized from their original dimensions. Usually long pressing on a Widget brings up some resize arrows that can be used to stretch widgets into custom sizes, the Venture 1 launcher doesn't seem to have that option at all (or at least I haven't found it if it exists). Similar to other Chinese 'phones, there is no App drawer. All the Apps are located on the home screens. There seems to be no way of selecting which screen is designated as 'Home', the first screen is seemingly fixed as the 'Home' one. I have also found a few other 'inconsistencies' in some of the Apps. Leagoo include their own App store which appears to be a close clone of the native Android Play Store, but with the addition of being able to indicate the version number of an App along with an option to not update that App, or to skip an update. I haven't used the App myself other than to see what it was and if it differed from the Play Store, so I might have misinterpreted the way it works a little. The Leagoo Email App again appears to be a clone of an earlier version of the Android Gmail App. It has a black theme which better fits the overall theme of the 'phone so I use it in preference to the Gmail App. It requires all senders to be individually given the right to display pictures which I'm sure an earlier version of the Gmail App did. It is seemingly classed by Google as an 'insecure' Application so isn't allowed to access a Gmail account unless permission for insecure Apps is granted. This initially makes it appear as though the Email App isn't working. When it is setup with your user name and password, it reports that it can't connect and your username or password are incorrect. This had me confused for some time, when I logged onto my Gmail account on my iMac I could then see the warnings about an insecure app trying to access the account. Once permission was granted on the iMac, the Leagoo Email App worked as expected. The Leagoo Messages App has one other 'gotcha' which I'll pass on. If you are trying to save an attachment, long press on the attachment, select save from the menu and you are sent to a screen with a thumbnail of the attachment with what looks like a back arrow, a tickbox by the attachment, and nothing else. Going back doesn't save, long pressing the thumbnail doesn't save. Hmmm... Looking really closely on the top right of the screen reveals two OK and Cancel options - written in black text, over a black (leather texture) background. Clicking the OK option saves the attachment. Aha! Three days on and off it took me to realise that!
In summary, I love it, at the price there can't be many other 'phones that look anything like it, the fact that it performs far better than I expected is the icing on the cake. I couldn't give it a higher recommendation.
There is a video review which can by found by searching for: Leagoo V1 (Venture 1) Review English [4k] which I thought rather informative.
Review (part 1)
Introduction
This is the LEAGOO Venture 1.
Hardware
This device is still powered by the pretty old, but rocking stable, Mediatek MT6753 SOC clocked at 1.3GHz, but thanks to the HD-only screen, there are no performance issues at all. It features 3GB of RAM, 32GB of ROM and a 8MP Rear Camera, unfortunately interpolated to 13MP.
Unboxing
Packaging comes with many accessories, just like all LEAGOO devices: 1x Micro-USB Cable, 1x 5V/1.5A USB Charger, 1x Quick Start Guide, 1x Warranty Certificate, 1x SIM Card Tray Eject Tool, 1x 3.5mm In-Ear Earphones (...cheap...) and the Smartphone (of course). A plastic screen protector (high-quality) is already applied and no TPU Cover is included.
Following Vertu's Design, this Venture 1 has a Leather Back Cover that looks amazing, together with a Full-Metal Chassis and Glossy Borders. In my opinion, the design is great, just like its build quality. This is probably the best built LEAGOO Smartphone after the T1 Plus.
It is 14.84x7.17x1.15cm, bigger than most 5 inches devices but it doesn't matter with this type of device. It weights 209g, considering the amount of Metal and the Leather Cover, it couldn't have been better.
On the front side there is the Standard (no 2.5D) Display and the upper front side of the device features the standard set of things: a Front-Facing Camera, an Earpiece, and the Sensors hole that includes Light, Proximity and Gesture Sensors. Is the Notification LED here? Yes, it is. (RGB)
The notification LED isn't the brightest you can find on a smartphone, and unfortunately, it isn't customizable. At least it is here though, still better than nothing.
On the lower front side there is the Soft-Touch Keys zone with Menu, Home and Back buttons, together with the Microphone in the Center.
On the back side there is the Leather Cover (non-removable).
The upper rear side of the device features the Camera Sensor, a Secondary Microphone for Noise Suppression, an Unknown Hole that i don't know what it is used for, a compact rounded Fingerprint Scanner and the Dual-LED - Dual-Tone Flashlight.
On the lower rear side there is just the LEAGOO logo, the Speaker is positioned on the left side of the device.
Device
Screen
LEAGOO choose to use an HD-only screen for this device, and considering the CPU, this is the best choice, but is it a good panel too? So and so. Color Accuracy and White Balance is OK, nothing to complain about, but there is a slight banding issue (visible in the Viewing Angles test).
Light Sensor supports partial light changes, this is its maximum brightness.
Viewing Angles are as good as you would expect from an IPS screen. Notice the Banding Issue i mentioned before.
Camera
Just like the T1 Plus, also this one features a Sony IMX219 Camera Sensor for the Rear Camera that is an 8MP Sensor, advertised as 13MP due to interpolation, and the result is as good as you would expect from an 8MP Camera, but with an issue.
Photos Quality is OK, especially while focusing near objects or for Macros with a great image details and low level of noise, but there are issues with the Auto-Focus, because i wasn't able to take a properly focuses shot for Panorama or any long-distance type of Photo. Somehow, this issue isn't here if you enable HDR mode so...this is funny.
"HDR off" on the left and "HDR on" on the right. HDR processing seems to work just fine.
Photos taken on medium light conditions are decent.
Macro Photos, as already said, are great.
As regards the Flashlight, it is sufficiently powerful to take some nice shots indoors, but not enough for outdoor shots.
As regards Video Recording, somehow LEAGOO capped the maximum resolution to 720p30 (why?). Anyway, the quality is decent and the frame-rate is stable enough.
Front Camera is a Standard Wide-Angle variant GalaxyCore GC5005 (5MP), something you will find on almost all Chinese Devices with this price target.
Audio
Speaker's Quality on this device is lower than average (no low-frequencies, low-medium volume), but i think this is due to the fact that the device is Waterproof so there may be an Water Filter that might be reducing the quality.
As regards the Microphone, the quality is great, but it couldn't have been worse thanks to the Dual-Microphone Configuration. In-Call quality is average, nohing to complain about.
GPS
Just like all MT6753 devices, the GPS is good with almost instant satellites lock and decent signal.
Indoors on the left, outdoors on the right.
Telephony, Mobile Network & WiFi
LEAGOO provides full european bands support (and also American, if you buy the "Version A" variant), with 4G Band 20.
3G Signal Reception is accurate too, actually I never managed to get connected to the 2G Network of my Mobile Operator because there was always some 3G Signal available. (luckily there are no coverage issues here)
4G Network Speed is low, lower than other devices i have reviewed in the past, meaning that there is a Software Issue somewhere in the Mobile Data management. I hope that this gets fixed with the next OTA update.
Somehow WiFi 5GHz is not supported here. Connected at 65MBps to my 2.4GHz network, i managed to obtain a maximum of 36mbps, with medium-high signal.
Battery Life
I have measured the real battery capacity using my USB Tester, and it seems that the real battery capacity is just slightly compared to what LEAGOO declares. (declared 3000mAh, real ~2930mAh).
This is the PCMark Battery Test. Minimum Brightness, WiFi On, Sync On, Airplane Mode Off. Considering the Battery Capacity, this is a great result.
As regards battery charging times, the 5V/1.5A charger is good enough to charge the battery in almost 2 hours.
Software
Just like all LEAGOO devices, this one doesn't have a Clean Android OS with AOSP-like GUI, unfortunately, but they choose to personalize the old Android 5.1 release, naming it SecOS. (i guess secure os)
What to say, the OS is smooth, but it feels a bit unpolished. Check some pictures attached below.
Just like other last-gen Mediatek Devices, there are some typical features such as Gestures, Scheduled Power On/Off, etc…
Luckily LEAGOO choose to include a Magnetometer/Compass here.
MalwareBytes Anti-Malware analysis seems to detect some malwares on this device, two of them can be removed (disabling the app), but one is built-in (SystemUI)
The Fingerprint Scanner isn't one of the best i have ever reviewed, but it is still usable and accurate enough. Being an Android 5.1 device, the implementation isn't native so this is a limitation.
Review (part 2)
Benchmarks
I have used 3DMark, AndroBench, Antutu Benchmark, Epic Citadel, GeekBench 4, GFXBench, PCMark (Work 2.0, Computer Vision, Storage & Work 1.0) and Vellamo 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 is mediocre, something expected when this MT6753 is stressed to the max.
AndroBench – eMMC Performance is superb, comparable with high-end devices.
Antutu Benchmark – I won’t say a lot about this benchmark, this isn’t as reliable as others. I’m providing this just for benchmarks lovers.
Epic Citadel – 3D performance is acceptable considering the GPU.
GeekBench – CPU Performance is nearly as good as other CPUs with the same configuration (8x Cortex-A53), multi-core score is impressive though.
CPU
Compute
GFXBench – Well OpenGL 3.0 benchmarks are pretty intensive, and this is where an outdated GPU lacks power.
PCMark – Common MT6753 Performance here, not the worst neither the greatest.
Work 2.0
Computer Vision
Storage
Work 1.0
Vellamo – Just like previous tests, there are no gains compared to other MT6753 devices.
Conclusions
Summarizing all results, it is clear that this device isn't perfect, there are some minor issues here and there that can be fixed via an OTA Update. I consider this as a cheap reply to Vertu's Expensive devices.
This device has some great potential that can be easily unlocked. I know, it is still powered by the old Android 5.1, together with the old MT6753 chipset, but if you are not looking for the latest technology in your hands, and if LEAGOO fixes some issues (including the removal of Malware!), it might be one of the best choices for those who are in search for elegant and business-like devices, at a reasonable cost.
In the current state, i can't recommend it, unless you really like it.
Pros:
Impressive Build Quality
Fast eMMC Internal Storage
Dual Microphone
RGB Notification LED
Compass/Magnetometer is here
Cons:
Still running on Android 5.1
MT6753...just outdated nowadays
No Gyroscope
Bugged Rear-Camera Auto-Focus
Muffled Speaker Sound
Rating: 8.0
Packaging and Accessories: 9
Design and Materials: 10
Performance and Heat Dissipation: 7.5
Screen: 8
Camera: 7
Sound: 7.5
Battery Life: 8
Software: 7
OEM Support: 8
Price: 8.5
You can find full-res images (I know, Quality isn't excellent) here: http://imgur.com/a/5x6GD
Official Website: http://www.leagoo.com/mobile/V_Series/Venture1.html
You can buy it on many online shops. Official, and authorized, Retailers are listed in the LEAGOO website.
Thanks for the wonderful and detailed review.
I want to know if you have an idea when The V1 will be getting the android 6.0 marshmallow update? OR if it will get any updates at all..
Thanks
gykes said:
Thanks for the wonderful and detailed review.
I want to know if you have an idea when The V1 will be getting the android 6.0 marshmallow update? OR if it will get any updates at all..
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll ask LEAGOO and let you know ASAP.
Alberto96 said:
I'll ask LEAGOO and let you know ASAP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be great.
Looking forward to hearing from you
Any update as regards my question concerning marshmallow upgrade for the V1?
OR would it be possible to flash in a 6.0 ROM and keep the stock Dual Sec Os 1.0 launcher?
I just wanted to add an update to my comments on the Leagoo Venture 1.
I bought mine in February, at the start of June, I started getting pop up adverts appearing in my notification area. All the ads I saw were for Uber, every one. I tried to get rid of them but couldn't, they'd almost instantly reappear again. If I opened the 'recent apps' area, it would close again by itself, and if I tried to rearrange apps in the app drawer, any apps I was dragging and dropping would be dropped in odd places as the screen redrew itself every few seconds.
It took me some time to find out what was going on so I thought I'd mention it here so that should anyone else suffer the same fate they wouldn't struggle as I did.
I looked in: System > Device > Apps > All
I found I had two copies of 'Shell', one was ~750kb in size, one was ~30Mb in size. Selecting the ~30Mb one, I force closed it and then uninstalled it. This stopped the popup adverts. I then installed "No Root Firewall" and set it to run at boot. Watching the apps that then attempted to access the network, I only enabled access for essential services, I prevented the app called "Software Update" which claims to be written by com.rock.gota from accessing the network/internet at all and if I see it running, I close it. I can't disable or delete it as I haven't rooted my Leagoo.
Since doing this I've had no further problems. It could have been another app causing the popups, if they return, I'll update this post.
For those interested in getting a cleaner ROM that SHOULD not have the adverts issue, try this one: https://mega.nz/#!0U1wQJQD!qaUwFmjffsmDVJSMp95Y37wQnH0lGNCautRg4vOiyhY (Flash via SP Flash Tool)
It is made for the ikimobile kf5 bless (Venture 1 rebrand), but i adapted it to work on the Venture 1 just by replacing the scatter and preloader. 100% working fine here, tested.
Enjoy.
Alberto96 said:
For those interested in getting a cleaner ROM that SHOULD not have the adverts issue, try this one: https://mega.nz/#!0U1wQJQD!qaUwFmjffsmDVJSMp95Y37wQnH0lGNCautRg4vOiyhY (Flash via SP Flash Tool)
It is made for the ikimobile kf5 bless (Venture 1 rebrand), but i adapted it to work on the Venture 1 just by replacing the scatter and preloader. 100% working fine here, tested.
Enjoy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello there ,, i know this a very old thread but i have one Leago v1 and i want to ask you what are the proper steps to flash this rom.
I just flashed and the phone its not starting at all .... black screen. I am now on the official rom and the adverts issue its there.
propably i have to unlock boot loader ....
So if you please guide me step by step ...
Thanks in advance
colossus_r said:
Hello there ,, i know this a very old thread but i have one Leago v1 and i want to ask you what are the proper steps to flash this rom.
I just flashed and the phone its not starting at all .... black screen. I am now on the official rom and the adverts issue its there.
propably i have to unlock boot loader ....
So if you please guide me step by step ...
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NJcDBkLk8zMwyv2BTqRjn2NB_ZOWKjP1fRpSVr44Oxk/edit
Alberto96 said:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NJcDBkLk8zMwyv2BTqRjn2NB_ZOWKjP1fRpSVr44Oxk/edit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank alot m8. Really appreciate your help.
Hi All,
First review so please be kind. I have also posted this at Mod Edit: Link removed.
HomTom HT10 - The eyes have it?
HomTom is a brand who are trying to make a name for themselves by releasing devices at a low price point with interesting features. In reality, HomTom is a subdivision of DooGee so there is shared experience in making decent devices at a reasonable price. I've owned a few lower spec DooGee phones in the past and have found them reasonable given the price tag so will be interested to see how the HomTom HT10 can make a name for itself with a top end set of specifications.
Key Spec:
SoC MediaTek Helio X20 10 Core
CPU 2 x 2.3GHz, 4 x 2.0GHz, 4 x 1.4GHz
GPU Mali T880, 700MHz
RAM 4GB, 933MHz
Storage 32GB + SD Slot
Screen 5.5 inch, 1920x1080, 401ppi
Camera Rear: 21MP, Front: 8MP
Battery 3200mAh
The HT10 is touted as coming with the same Iris Recognition technology that the ill-fated Samsung Note 7 utilised.
Unboxing
The HT10 comes in a plain dark blue box with HomTom branding and with slight wood effect. Opening the box reveals the phone, charger and cable. You don't get any headphones in the package which I'm fine with but the overall impression of the packaging seems a little dated.
A tab reveals a 'secret drawer' containing a wood-effect flip case, and very rudimentary and superfluous instruction booklet.
The flip case actually replaces the removable back cover so doesn't add a great deal of extra weight or size to the HT10 which was a nice touch, though the front is just a simple flap, there is no magnetic magic to keep it shut. final point to note is that this had a screen protector installed which is a bonus.
On the whole a rather boring retail box, I'm not swayed by such things but may be pretty underwhelming for some.
Hardware
Looks-wise the HT10 reminds me of my old Samsung Galaxy S2. A fairly inoffensive shape, with an array of sensors and notification LED at the top and off screen buttons at the bottom.
The first major whinge here is that the buttons are not back-lit, in this day and age this is only excusable in the cheapest of budget phones and certainly at this price point, for a manufacturers top device this is a total no no.
On the top of the phone is a trusty 3.5mm audio jack, and at the bottom we find a standard micro-usb port, 2 speaker grilles and the microphone. On the right side is the power button and volume control.
The screen features the now obligatory '2.5d' glass curving at the edges, and is a decent size though there is a slight element of cheating as there is probably 1mm of black space around the viewable screen meaning that the visible bezels are artificially small.
The rear of the phone has the camera, another microphone and a single LED flash. Again that is a little disappointing as the standard for a top spec phone these days is to have dual-LED flash at least. The back panel is removable and rather cheap feeling plastic, but there are no creaks or areas which depress under pressure.
The sides of the phone are made from metal and look nice - mainly matte silver with a beveled shiny edge. The power/volume buttons seem to have a little lateral play though and could perhaps be slightly better sized to give a more premium feel.
In terms of look and feel I think HomTom have done a reasonable job here. Nothing groundbreaking or uber premium, but it looks and feels nice enough.
Software
The HT10 runs a skinned version of Android 6.0 which seems to be called HomTom Fire. This has inexplicably altered some of the generic Google App icons, such as Play Store and Maps, and as per the majority of import phones does away with the App Drawer in favour of having all apps accessible from the main screens. Though this is what any iPhone user has to deal with, many Android users find this a difficult concept to deal with, but a solution would be to use a third party launcher such as Google Now or Nova. The other option of course is just dealing with it!
There is not a great amount of bloatware on the device which is refreshing, and the majority of what's there can be uninstalled anyway.
Display
I was impressed with the display HomTom have provided for the HT10. Everything looks crisp and clear. The screen is capable of going very bright and I had it set on auto-brightness defaulting to around 40%, and had no issues both at night or in bright sunlight. I could find no evidence of light bleed on my unit which you might expect from a 'budget' device.
Performance
This is where the HT10 really excels. The HT10 comes out very well against more established flagship phones using the main benchmark apps.
Geekbench results below.
Device - Single Core - Multi Core
Oneplus 3 - 1698 - 4015
HT10 - 1655 - 3298
Huawei Nexus 6P - 1212 - 2848
Antutu results below.
Device - Score
Huawei Honor 8 - 94164
HT10 - 87631
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge - 81087
What this shows us is that the HT10 benchmarks very well against phones that are more than twice the price. The Helio X20 SoC that powers the device definitely seems to hit the sweet spot, and we can presume that it's just the Mali GPU that is hindering the scores, but this shouldn't make too much difference if you're not a hardcore gamer
Obviously statistics don't really tell the full story but I've had no issues whatsoever in daily operation of the HT10. I can run all the apps I want with no discernible slowdown.
Iris Recognition Unlocking
Of course the elephant in the room that I've not discussed as yet is the HT10's USP, the 'Second Generation Iris Recognition Unlocking'. What this means in reality is that to unlock the phone you press the power button, then look at the screen. A small window opens up to show you what the iris recognition camera can see, and will tell you to move closer or further away if required. The iris recognition function was present in the top end Lumias released last year, but they were hardly big sellers, and the less said about the Galaxy Note 7 which also has this feature the better.
Apparently iris recognition is much more secure than fingerprint scanners, though I thought fingerprints were unique so I'm not really sure why the wheel needed to be reinvented. The iris recognition works perfectly well in standard light and even darkness, but is very flaky in even moderate sunlight outside. If the iris recognition is unable to match, you are reverted to the standard pin unlock, however irritatingly you still need to confirm the pin meaning an extra screen press when most devices now will unlock automatically after a the right pin is input.
Another annoyance is that the iris unlock takes precedence on the 'unlock screen', so if you are used to your music app telling you what song is playing on this screen you will need to unlock the phone in order to see this.
Overall, this feature is not a disaster, in fact it is certainly pretty cool and definitely (mostly) unique thing to have. I just wish it worked a bit better, and remain to be convinced that it in any way improves on fingerprint unlocking.
Camera
Unfortunately even though the camera in the HT10 (IMX230 Exmor RS) is the same as the one in the best camera phone I've ever owned, the Honor 7, the results from the HT10 were patchy to say the least.
In a well lit situation I could get some of the best photos I've ever got from an 'import phone' (though still miles away from the Honor 7's quality), but as soon as the lighting conditions were less than perfect the photos suffered massively.
In low light both inside and out photos had very poor detailing, with a flattening of features and a watercolour effect.
Hopefully HomTom will be able to resolve this with a software update, as well as the annoying bug which caused the LED flash to activate all the time in auto-flash mode, even in bright sunlight.
If anyone can advise the best way for me to share images I will do this
Other features
Battery life on the HT10 is pretty good. While I'm no power user I managed to get through every day with plenty to spare, at worst I managed to get it down to around 40%, but through general internet/app use and listening to music you'll have no issues at all. The device does apparently feature 'Pump Express' fast charging, but in reality I found it quite slow to charge the 3200 mAH, it took about 3 hours to complete a full charge from flat, though this may be because the charger supplied was not UK spec so I had to use a different one.
Connectivity is fine, I had no issues with my wireless speeds or range, and could get 4G everywhere that I'd expect. The HT10 is touted as a 'Global 4G' phone so all in all the connectivity gets a thumbs up. Bluetooth connected quickly and worked fine in my car for both music and phone functionality.
GPS worked absolutely fine both driving and walking. MediaTek phones have caused me a lot of woe in the past due to poorly performing GPS so they have clearly upped their game.
Music sounded fine through headphones. The loudspeaker is a little flat for music and could be louder for calls but even still it is acceptable.
Conclusion
Taken as a complete package the HT10 really does take some beating for the price. The Iris Recognition seems slightly pointless, and the camera performance isn't anywhere near flagship standard, but in every other area the HT10 performed well, so much so that it has become my 'daily driver' when not reviewing other devices.
Score: 8.5/10
Price when reviewed £199
Review sample kindly supplied by those lovely chaps at LightInTheBox. Head over to Mod Edit: Selling site link removed. for the cheapest price available!
Got myself a HT10 and I agree in your conclusion, but I experienced some touch freeze and poor LTE reception from time to time.
I really hope they fix the camera software asap. The quality is a deal breaker as for now, but the videoquality is strangely very good.
Thanks for the comment.
I've had one occasion where an area of the screen seemed to be unresponsive but this was resolved with a restart. I've not had any 4g problems but am in built up areas most of the time.
The camera performance is the biggest issue and if not resolved would be the one thing that turns me off this device, fingers crossed that it can be solved by an update.
recently bought the Ht10 super great phone feels amazing but i cannot get it to connect to verizons network to call, text or browse any ideas on how to get it working
My main complaints with the HomTom HT10
HARDWARE ISSUES
compass isn't available
NFC isn't available (it was advertised but removed!)
OTG isn't available (it was advertised but removed!)
network reception is bad (3G/4G)
Wi-Fi reception is bad (3G/4G)
not detecting/connecting 5Ghz Wi-Fi networks
audio speaker quality (distortion and not enough bass)
battery losing energy way too quickly
camera quality is bad on low light situation
SOFTWARE ISSUES
- battery saving mode is too aggressive (cannot easily modified for a bunch of Apps)
languages preferences are lost if IDLE or turned off (if you set french language it will comeback later to Netherlands. it could be because Belgium country has multiple official languages (french/nederlands/dutch) or if because the smartphone was shipped from .nl post)
- defaults apps choice in settings is too limited
- If you choose to protect your device with a password (PIN/password/pattern) for intrusion your device is going to freeze and you will have to reboot !
- hardware navigation buttons cannot be modified / edited
- HomTom OS is much less complete than MIUI8 (or even UMI OS)
MAJOR MISC PROBLEM:
There is no official forum to post bugs reports !
There is no updates or fixes for those issues announced.
There is no tutorials yet to flash/root.
Yes, same problem here....
Very HORRIBLE DEAL!!!
One Solution to ROOT FIND ! ! !
KingRoot apk finally works !!!
I tried this version: V4.9.7
by this file: NewKingrootV4.9.7_C152_B341_xda_release_2016_11_14 _20161115194410_105243.apk
IMPORTANT NOTE:
1) I find some bloatware that doesnt wipe out neither with a factory reset
2) the root is factoryreset resistant.
3) Some issue with Wathsapp only when sending stored images.
Best regards!
If you are happy with this please tnx me!
If you have trouble, please share!
Kingroot did not work for me
Westboy82 said:
Yes, same problem here....
Very HORRIBLE DEAL!!!
One Solution to ROOT FIND ! ! !
KingRoot apk finally works !!!
I tried this version: V4.9.7
by this file: NewKingrootV4.9.7_C152_B341_xda_release_2016_11_14 _20161115194410_105243.apk
IMPORTANT NOTE:
1) I find some bloatware that doesnt wipe out neither with a factory reset
2) the root is factoryreset resistant.
3) Some issue with Wathsapp only when sending stored images.
Best regards!
If you are happy with this please tnx me!
If you have trouble, please share!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This method did not work for me, anyone else has any other suggestions on how to root this device?
Please double check the process, is the only way right now to root our Toilet-phone :fingers-crossed:
PS the updated version of the kingroot is here:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/devdb/project/dl/?id=22115
Poptel P9000 MAX - Info & Reviews - 5.5" FHD | 4+64GB | 13+5MP | IP68 | 9000mAh
Poptel P9000 MAX
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Specifications:
Brand: Poptel
Model: P9000 Max
CPU: MTK6750V/CT
Cores: 1.5GHz, Octa Core
RAM: 4GB RAM
ROM: 64GB
Screen resolution: 1920 x 1080 (FHD)
Screen size: 5.5 inch IPS
Screen type: Corning Gorilla Glass
Back-camera: 13.0MP
Front camera: 5.0MP
Battery Capacity (mAh): 9000mAh, 9V/2A Quick Charger
Global Network: FDD-LTE,TD-SCDMA,TDD-LTE,WCDMA,GSM
TD-SCDMA: TD-SCDMA B34/B39
FDD-LTE: FDD-LTE:B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B20/B26
CDMA1X: BC0/BC1
CDMA 1XEVDO: BC0/BC1
TDD-LTE：B38/B39/B40/B41
Wireless Connectivity: Bluetooth, GPS, GSM, NFC, WiFi
WIFI: 2.4G/5G
I/O Interface: 2 x Nano SIM Slot,3.5mm Audio Out Port, Micophone, Micro USB Slot,Speaker, TF/Micro SD Card Slot, Type-C
OTG : Yes
SIM Card Slot: Dual SIM Dual Standby
SIM Card Type: Nano SIM Card
Sensor: Geomagnetic Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Gyroscope
External Memory: TF card up to 128GB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Official Product Page:
https://www.poptelmobile.com/product/POPTEL-P9000-MAX-1.html
Development & Support:
Coming Soon...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Reviews:
My own review: Post #4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will be updating the thread with new News, and Reviews.
Poptel P9000 Max Review
Looking great. I like it because of 9000mAH battery capacity, 5.5" FHD screen, and 4 LED light for torch. I hope you will be add the review soon.
i want to see the quality of rear camera.
I ordered this from GearBest, and it's currently in the process of being shipped to Canada. If you guys have any questions, let me know. When it arrives, I can answer them for you. I will also post my impressions later.
This phone claims to be a "tough" & "rugged" phone. And I will put that to the test in real life situations. I work out all week in the gym, and my phone routinely falls or gets exposed to water.
My last phone was the "Leagoo Elite 1". Here were my problems with my Leagoo (and what I will be looking for improvement for, in the Poptel):
I routinely listen to streaming music, watch, & download videos on my phone. After 6 hours in the gym, with this media usage, my Leagoo battery drops to 5% to 10% battery. The Poptel P9000 claims to have a long-lasting battery...so I will be excited to see excited to see if it can survive my heavy daily usage.
Apparently, both the "Poptel P9000" and my "Leagoo Elite 1" utilize "Gorilla Glass 3". This claims to be strong. But my Leagoo suffered a crack on the left side from a short accidental drop on hard surface. Through that crack, the screen messed up due to small water exposure. So right off the bat, I am a little skeptical about the P9000 glass material.
My "Leagoo Elite 1" had terrible OS glitches. If you held the home button long to bring up the task manager, the entire OS would crash. This was never fixed in the two years I had the phone. Then an even worse problem was that the Leagoo camera or background service installed a program every anti-virus flagged as a trojan. This happened after the first year after one of their updates. It was very difficult to disable, and while installed it created many performance & internet issues. Speaking of updates, there hasn't been a single one in the last year for my "Leagoo Elite 1". So I will see how much Poptel supports their phone. But I am not so confident, because I looked at their FaceBook page, and it seems PopTel is already releasing a new phone...so I am worried they may stop supporting the P9000.
Poptel P9000 Max Quick Review
I am writing the review just after receiving the Poptel P9000 Max Orange version.
It’s available in three colors: Green, Orange, and Black. Let’s start, what I got in the box?
Unboxing
The Poptel P9000 max comes with a lot of accessories. The box is containing the phone, User Manual, Warranty Certificate, USB Type-C cable, OTG Type-C cable (Also for Reverse Charge), 9V/2A Quick Charger and screen protector. The earphone is here in the box too.
Design
Starting from the design, good use of rubber and plastic to protect the phone from shock and drop. The device feels really solid, probably one of the best-rugged phones in the price category, and overall the build quality is decent. Being a rugged phone, it isn't possible to expect the most compact device. Due to the huge battery and body cover with multiple layers of rubber, I feel it cumbersome and bulky (16.80 x 8.30 x 1.70 cm / 6.61 x 3.27 x 0.67 inches approximately for weight 320g); although heavy it seems to be balanced in handling.
On the front side, Poptel adopts 5.5-inch FHD 1920 x 1080p resolution, the glass uses Corning 3rd generation gorilla. The upper front side of the device features a Front-Facing Camera, an Earpiece, and the Sensors hole that includes Light and Proximity Sensors. As regards the lower front side, there isn't anything at all except a nice-looking Poptel logo, primary microphone, and type-c port. On-screen keys are used here.
The upper back side of the device features a big camera sensor and 4 high LED lights. On the right side of the LED lights, there is a little hole that seems to be for the secondary microphone. The fingerprint sensor located just below the LED lights. On the lower back side, there isn't anything at all except a stereo speaker grills and some words about the device protection certification.
On the right side of the phone, there is Volume up and down buttons. Another button located on the right side is for direct open the torch or use it as a camera shutter.
On the left side of the phone, there is one button for On/Off the device and card slot.
There is an audio port located on the top of the phone.
On the bottom of the phone, there is USB-Type C port.
Screen:
The Poptel P9000 Max adopts 5.5-inch FHD 1920 x 1080p resolution, As regards the screen, it is just perfect. It’s Bright enough for a decent outdoor usage. I found it pretty good, with excellent color accuracy and an overall nice viewing experience.
Camera:
An outdoor phone needs to be a great camera. Thanks, Poptel for not adding the fake dual camera. Its equipped with a 13MP camera, the manufacturer of the camera not mentioned. The autofocus works quickly, on-screen shutter button and physical button both work very quick. The pictures are usually sharp, the colors look natural and the contrasts are also great. Even in Low light, the Poptel can still deliver great images. It has a 5MP Front camera for a selfie.
Very good in daylight / good light, but in low light, you can't get the result.
Hardware:
It’s powered by MTK6750V octa-core processor; it can run at the rate of 1.5 GHz. With the support of the 4GB RAM, 64GB ROM, and a Mali T860 GPU, the processor can perform every task smoothly. That’s mean you can watch HD videos and play heavy games without any problem.
Battery:
As we know that, outdoor phone need to have a big battery with quick charger and it is a vital part of the rugged phone. Poptel p9000 max has 9000mAH battery with 9V/2A charger.
Software:
Poptel chooses to use a pure Android OS for this device. It runs on Android 7.0 Nougat with May 2018 security patches and no bloatware pre-installed. The OS feels smooth.
Audio:
Poptel added one stereo speaker system which provides pretty high and decent sound quality. It has Minor distortion at maximum volume. Overall there is no major problem in the audio section.
IP68 certification: it has IP68 certification that means it can survive in water, dust, and unexpected drop.
OTG: its supporting OTG function and it can charge your Android and IOS devices
Sensors: if we talking about the sensors than Poptel P9000 Max comes with all important sensors like an Ambient Light Sensor, E-Compass, Geomagnetic Sensor, Gyroscope, Proximity Sensor.
NFC: Thankful to Poptel for adding NFC on the device.
GPS: Excellent GPS result, too many satellites with strong signals I got outdoor and indoor as well.
Product Link: https://www.poptelmobile.com/product/POPTEL-P9000-MAX-1.html
Coming SOON
Detail Cameras result, Battery life, GPS, mobile network and wifi, Antutu Benchmark
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where are the SIM cards located and what size are they? What is/are the best US major carriers that support the phone? I have Red Pocket right now, paid like $220 for 365 days of service (5 GB data unlimited text/calls) using a Moto G5+. The P9000 would be to replace this phone. The card slot on the side is for a microSD card? - if so what is the max capacity it can handle? I went to the product page and these question are not answered there.
Thanx in advance!
Manual?
Anyone have a link to an owner/user manual, preferably in English. Scary part to me about this phone is support. Nor sold yet but I am really wanting this phone.
samileo31 said:
An outdoor phone needs to be a great camera. Thanks, Poptel for not adding the fake dual camera. Its equipped with a 13MP camera, the manufacturer of the camera not mentioned. The autofocus works quickly, on-screen shutter button and physical button both work very quick. The pictures are usually sharp, the colors look natural and the contrasts are also great. Even in Low light, the Poptel can still deliver great images. It has a 5MP Front camera for a selfie.
Very good in daylight / good light, but in low light, you can't get the result.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I disagree with this evaluation.
Your samples look pretty dark & rich. As if there's too much contrast.
There was another recent YouTube review - which compared pictures from the "Poptel P9000" & the "Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro" (at 5:00 in the video):
https://youtu.be/kT1J3kTDHto?t=298
As you can see from this comparison, it's the same problem.
The Xiaomi's photos are more brighter and cleaner looking - while Poptel's colors look overly rich & dark.
More importantly...human skin looks much better on Xiaomi's camera - whereas Poptel's camera makes human's look ugly & pimply!
samileo31 said:
Poptel chooses to use a pure Android OS for this device. It runs on Android 7.0 Nougat with May 2018 security patches and no bloatware pre-installed. The OS feels smooth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a great selling point! :good:
Coming from Xiaomi (with its custom OS that conflicts with many apps) & Leagoo (which installed a widely flagged TROJAN via their camera "beauty" app)...the fact that Poptel is providing a normal Android installation & no bloatware is much appreciated! :angel:
jpr9845 said:
Where are the SIM cards located and what size are they?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I recall correctly, it has a dual sim tray. You can see its location on the phone, and how the tray looks, in this YouTube video (at 3:07 of video):
https://youtu.be/wKzlbYeeOjw?t=188
jpr9845 said:
Anyone have a link to an owner/user manual, preferably in English. Scary part to me about this phone is support. Nor sold yet but I am really wanting this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right after I ordered this phone two weeks ago, Poptel announced that they are releasing a newer model called the "P10":
https://twitter.com/poptel_global/with_replies
This is so unfair. I bought the P9000 thinking it was new...and they would at least support/upgrade it for one or two years.
Then all of a sudden, they release this new model.
What especially bothers me is that the "P9000" has Android 7...and they're saying the upcoming "P10" model will have Android 8.1.
To me, this sounds like they'll never update the P9000! :crying:
jpr9845 said:
Where are the SIM cards located and what size are they? What is/are the best US major carriers that support the phone? I have Red Pocket right now, paid like $220 for 365 days of service (5 GB data unlimited text/calls) using a Moto G5+. The P9000 would be to replace this phone. The card slot on the side is for a microSD card? - if so what is the max capacity it can handle? I went to the product page and these question are not answered there.
Thanx in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2 x Nano SIM card or (1 x Nano SIM card + 1 x TF card) slots 4GB RAM , 64GB ROM and extendable Up to 128GB Via Micro SD Card
Red Pocket GSM uses AT&T's 850 and 1900 Mhz network
Poptel P9000 Max Support following Networks:
GSM：850/900/1800/1900
CDMA1X：BC0/BC1
TD-SCDMA:B34/B39
WCDMA:B1/B1/B4/B5/B8
CDMA 1XEVDO:BC0/BC1
TDD：B38/B39/B40/B41
FDD：B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B20/B26
jpr9845 said:
Anyone have a link to an owner/user manual, preferably in English. Scary part to me about this phone is support. Nor sold yet but I am really wanting this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
User Manual is in different languages. Please, you can ask questions here.
thanks
jaibubwan said:
I disagree with this evaluation.
Your samples look pretty dark & rich. As if there's too much contrast.
There was another recent YouTube review - which compared pictures from the "Poptel P9000" & the "Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro" (at 5:00 in the video):
https://youtu.be/kT1J3kTDHto?t=298
As you can see from this comparison, it's the same problem.
The Xiaomi's photos are more brighter and cleaner looking - while Poptel's colors look overly rich & dark.
More importantly...human skin looks much better on Xiaomi's camera - whereas Poptel's camera makes human's look ugly & pimply!
This is a great selling point! :good:
Coming from Xiaomi (with its custom OS that conflicts with many apps) & Leagoo (which installed a widely flagged TROJAN via their camera "beauty" app)...the fact that Poptel is providing a normal Android installation & no bloatware is much appreciated! :angel:
If I recall correctly, it has a dual sim tray. You can see its location on the phone, and how the tray looks, in this YouTube video (at 3:07 of video):
https://youtu.be/wKzlbYeeOjw?t=188
Right after I ordered this phone two weeks ago, Poptel announced that they are releasing a newer model called the "P10":
https://twitter.com/poptel_global/with_replies
This is so unfair. I bought the P9000 thinking it was new...and they would at least support/upgrade it for one or two years.
Then all of a sudden, they release this new model.
What especially bothers me is that the "P9000" has Android 7...and they're saying the upcoming "P10" model will have Android 8.1.
To me, this sounds like they'll never update the P9000! :crying:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stay Tuned for the News of P9000 Max updates.
hi
im looking forward for the
1. root & recovery ...
2. the suitable audio like viper & dolby atmos
3. the original rom link
thanks for sharing
some info about the fact
http://bollywoodvivs.com/unlock-bootloader-poptel-p9000-max/
seems too bad support around !
found that the device compass not show correctly the right direction eg west/east !!
how to solve this ?
What is the status on rooting this phone? The bootloader is definitely unlockable (I just unlocked mine) but before I try anything else I wanted to check on experience with root.
Guys, I am having a crazy experience with this phone. :crying:
So a few days ago, this phone was delivered.
And now I discover the audio jack is defective :crying:.
When I asked them for help on FaceBook, they gave me a strange response.
So I own "Xiaomi Mi In-Ear Headphones Pro".
I bought this from Amazon, and it works in ALL devices I ever tried (laptops, phones, PS4, etc.).
But the support guy from Poptel told me it wouldn't work in their phone because "P9000 MAX can only match the headphone of 18MM pin".
I never heard of such a thing, so I asked for more information in a follow-up.
They responded: "3.5mm jack is ok, but the length shoud be 18mm".
I listen to music all day, and love Xiaomi headphones. And they tell me it doesn't work with their phones.
Okay, I thought, let me just use their stock headphones.
Then today...even their stock headphones stop working!
It's clearly a defective hardware issue. Something is wrong with their audio port.
So now is the big test. I asked them for help tonight.
If you are curious about Poptel's customer service...stay tuned.
I will let you know how they respond...hopefully, they have good customer service. :good:
Poptel P9000 Max ROM
https://mega.nz/#!KDpAACjb!XWSKLbwBdJg6VJm9P_2-ndB69qqj8gPjBlQNc9MbbVE
Flash Tool
https://mega.nz/#!mf5gCABD!9bktnoqDGYo82qhoDqcxSBTD70IZ4dFjBEvEDiRgYcY
Drivers
https://mega.nz/#!LLo02QDJ!_v1JFpnpsZWW31hdZnZgjpQVu7OSgm21DUjLtBS4vks
who can can help & come out with root access + twrp much appreciate ... thanks
jaibubwan said:
Guys, I am having a crazy experience with this phone. :crying:
So a few days ago, this phone was delivered.
And now I discover the audio jack is defective :crying:.
So now is the big test. I asked them for help tonight.
If you are curious about Poptel's customer service...stay tuned.
I will let you know how they respond...hopefully, they have good customer service. :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey guys! Great news! I contacted Poptel via FaceBook.
I showed them video proof of my technical problem. They gave me no trouble.
We explored many options such as complete phone replacement or partial refund.
I chose partial refund (which was no small amount), based on typical cost for audio-port repair in my area.
This is because school was starting, and I had desperate need for a phone.
Poptel sent my Paypal account the exact amount discussed. I am now able to take my phone to a local repair shop for possible solution.
I have spent a few weeks with this phone, and set it up with lots of different media & workout apps.
I've used it for jogging and weight-lifting.
I've dropped it accidentally on hard tiles and carpet.
It lives up to its durable claims.
Later on, I will post some pictures of a great armband I found that works with this phone. It's especially useful if you use this phone outdoors & during physical activities like jogging.
The only issues I ever had was with apps. But those were app developer issues, unrelated to anything the manufacturer controls. One of the best things about this phone is the Android stock OS. This means you never have to worry that some strange OS issue is interfering with your apps. All my app problems were solved quickly after contacting developers & applying Play Store updates.
If anyone has any specific questions, let me know.
I'm a big expert in this phone now, and I can try to answer them in more detail.
But keep in mind, for me, this is more of a media device. I don't use this for phone calls.
So I can tell you more about performance & playback.
@ jaibubwan
my compass not working or show the wrong direction ! how to fix this
Got it but not sodisfied
So i rooted with magisk i wanted to try IP68 features so i put it in water 2 minutes and the phone is became crazy ..personally i think it's a fake IP68 ---
for the rest it's too heavy
NFC don't support all NFC CARD types
YOU CAN MANGE IT WITH hiSUITE (HUAWEI ) SO MEEN IT'S HUAWEI CLONE I'M TRYING TO FIND WHICH ONE WITH hUAWEI Multi-Tool 8
Hi, how did you root with magisk?
Hi, could you explain how you managed to get root access. I have tried several methods but all fail for one reason or another.
Thanks.
ashdjto said:
So i rooted with magisk i wanted to try IP68 features so i put it in water 2 minutes and the phone is became crazy ..personally i think it's a fake IP68 ---
for the rest it's too heavy
NFC don't support all NFC CARD types
YOU CAN MANGE IT WITH hiSUITE (HUAWEI ) SO MEEN IT'S HUAWEI CLONE I'M TRYING TO FIND WHICH ONE WITH hUAWEI Multi-Tool 8
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Leave a Review of the Honor 8X and Win Another One as a Christmas Gift!
Now is your chance to win a gift for someone for the upcoming holidays. Share your love of the Honor 8X by leaving a review of the phone in the comments below. Three lucky winners will be selected to receive another Honor 8X that they can share with a friend or family.
Rules:
One detailed review per person
Three Honor 8X prizes for random winners
Reviews should be a minimum of 150 words
Out of the total amount of reviews, the ones that fall on the 18%, 58%, and 98% markers will be the winners
Giveaway dates 12/11/18 - 12/24/18
Update: Winners are Shashank1320, oslo83, and Sukhi
Some of the original winners have been replaced due to cheating using multiple accounts.
We thank Honor for sponsoring this post. Our sponsors help us pay for the many costs associated with running XDA, including server costs, full time developers, news writers, and much more. While you might see sponsored content (which will always be labeled as such) alongside Portal content, the Portal team is in no way responsible for these posts. Sponsored content, advertising and XDA Depot are managed by a separate team entirely. XDA will never compromise its journalistic integrity by accepting money to write favorably about a company, or alter our opinions or views in any way. Our opinion cannot be bought.
I own Honor 8x and using it since last one month.
Device is gorgeous in terms of looks.
It is beast in terms of performance as I play PUBG daily no lags and frame drop.
RAM management is decent.
Network is great VOLTE works great and wifi too.
Now comes to main part which is important to all is CAMERA.
Rear camera is great but it can be more improved through OTA.
Front camera is great in detail capture but it looks weird when portrait mode on.
Edge detection can be improved in both rear and specially needed for front.
When two or more people there for selfie portrait shots looks rubbish.
Overall great device.
Improvement needed for Camera specially front and improve algorithm can be improved for edge detection via OTA. Also need to activate EIS for both camera.
I love my honor for various reasons
Pros:
1. 6.5-inch Display(Edge To Edge display)
2. Build Quality Design
3. Kirin 710(Is a Beast)
4. Battery Life
5. Camera(Night Mode)
This are the major pros of this device. For the price point, you can get a powered phone with a sleek design. Compare to all android skins Huawei skin is the lightest skin and the fastest.
And yes there are some cons also for this device as a review I should mention that also s here are the cons.
Cons:
1. EIS is not there
2. Type C
3. Front Camera is average.
So this are the cons of this device I just wanted to mention it.
As a whole, I love this device and at that price point, I would say it is 'Budget Killer'.
The Honor 8X has one of the largest displays we've seen so far on a Honor device, sporting a 6.5-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD (2340 x 1080) panel. There is a notch at the top of the display — as is becoming the norm — but it is narrow enough that it isn't annoying. Like the Honor 10, you get the option to hide the notch in the display settings.
The panel itself is quite decent, offering vibrant colors and great contrast levels. You get the usual features that are standard across all Honor devices — a blue light filter and ability to adjust the color temperature
— and there's also the option to reduce the resolution to 720p to conserve battery life.
It also offers a face unlock feature that works reliably in both well-lit and dark environments, and it's just as fast as using the fingerprint sensor.
There's the obvious AI-assisted feature that's now standard across all Honor phones, and you also get a Night Shot feature that lets you take better photos in low-light scenarios. Up front, there's a 16MP shooter with the usual slate of beauty effects and filters.
The Honor 8X has one of the largest displays we've seen so far on a Honor device, sporting a 6.5-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD (2340 x 1080) panel. There is a notch at the top of the display — as is becoming the norm — but it is narrow enough that it isn't annoying. Like the Honor 10, you get the option to hide the notch in the display settings.
The panel itself is quite decent, offering vibrant colors and great contrast levels. You get the usual features that are standard across all Honor devices — a blue light filter and ability to adjust the color temperature
— and there's also the option to reduce the resolution to 720p to conserve battery life.
It also offers a face unlock feature that works reliably in both well-lit and dark environments, and it's just as fast as using the fingerprint sensor.
There's the obvious AI-assisted feature that's now standard across all Honor phones, and you also get a Night Shot feature that lets you take better photos in low-light scenarios. Up front, there's a 16MP shooter with the usual slate of beauty effects and filters.
The Honor 8x is a budget phone with the feel of a flagship. It has many of the Features found on modern day flagships such as a Notch, good display, reasonable processor, latest OS and a few gimmick up it's sleeve, dual rear cameras and a single front camera. It's aimed at budget markets and provides an overall good experience. The prize isn't that high for the specs it offers.
The 8X has a Good screen. Full HD+ display, albeit it's a LCD it has great colours and although not the deep blacks of an OLED panel, colors are certainly good and you won't have any problem looking at it in the sunlight. The notch, while I personally am not a fan of it, the fact that I can hide it via Toggle in the settings and that real estate doesn't go to waste is amazing and a feature I wish other OEM would implement.
The audio-quality is also good but as with all Bottom Speakers it easily gets muffled if you hold it. Other than that it's loud and you won't have any problem listening to music. The availability of the head phone jock is also a novelty not many phones offer now-a-days.
One of the Key Features of the phone is the AI camera and it certainly live up. The phone takes excellent photos and post-processing is also Good. Front Camera is also good at taking photos and the Portrait mode on this phone, while nothing like the Pixel 3's, is nothing to laugh at. The camera can take excellent photos and they hardly feel like they are taken from a Mid-Range Phone. Video Recording is at 1080p at 60 FPS. Photo resolution is 20M. Two features of the camera that I liked are the portrait mode and the night shot. While they are nothing like the Portrait mode and night sight found on the Pixel 3, they are nothing to laugh at and can produce good photo. However the Master AI often produce over saturated Photos so I disable it.
The Performance of the phone is good. While you can't play Fortnite Mobile, you can easily play other games without lag like Asphalt 8/9 or the recently released Call of Duty. And if you like to play PUBG the in built GPU-Turbo is an excellent Optimization that increases the Performance and reduces battery usage. The UI is also smooth in day-to-day usage and I hardly found any Lag. App Opening is quick and phone has no problem keeping up. Even with several apps open in the back ground, the phone didn't lag.
However, after the good, also comes the bad and like every other Huawei/Honor phone out there the only thing I could find bad about this phone that really bugged me was the Software. EMUI is bad. Not just bad but terrible. It feels unpolished and for some many people, myself included it's a deal breaker. The software is the part that you use the most of a phone and a Bad software really breaks the experience. In my case, on EMUI 8, any app I had open in the background would be killed as soon as I left it. The excessive amount of pre installed apps is just annoying. And not to mention the HiCrap. The excess of Huawei apps that no one ises just end up taking space. The settings menu is a pain to navigate through. And there is no third party customization options.
Battery life is awesome. Phone can easily give a day+ of battery life. The fingerprint is also fast and secure and face unlock is a cherry on top.
I also have a personal problem with Huawei/Honor phones and that is the Bootloader Fiasco. But that's a whole other matter.
All in all, the 8X is a great phone and I have no problem recommending it to someone as long as you don't mind the software. And the locked Bootloader but that's for another day.
Review :
Design :
It has premium look with 91% STB and minimal chin which is undeniably impressive with its glossy textured glass back finish with its dazzling light reflecting properties, metal trim, notched display, and eye-catching looks all around.
Even though the phone is little big to hold in small hands its thin 7.8mm profile helps to compensate it.
The rear fingerprint scanner placement is perfect on a handset of this size, but the volume rocket is perhaps a little high up the phone to reach comfortably.
Display :
The Honor 8X sports a 6.5-inch LTPS LCD display with a 2340 x 1080 resolution, producing a density of 397 pixels per inch. Even given the large display size, the Full HD+ resolution appears plenty sharp enough.
It gives a great viewing experince when viewing videos and playing games on the FHD+ display.
If you are fan of small screens you can just enable one hand mode and use it with single hand, which is one of the most useful features of EMUI.
Hardware :
The hardware specifications for the Honor 8X hover somewhere between mid- and low-end. On the processing side, there’s a distinctly mid-range Kirin 710 SoC, which offers powerful Cortex-A73 CPU cores but a lower end Mali-G51 GPU.But combined together they give solid performance for any average user.The handset also includes a reasonable 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of internal storage.
There’s just a single bottom-facing speaker on the Honor 8X. The top mounted speaker is only used for calls. The speaker sounds fairly decent and pumps out plenty of volume, but the mono presentation is a notable drawback.
On the plus side, the phone sticks with the tried and tested 3.5mm audio jack, so our existing headphones will work just fine. There’s also a dual SIM slot, microSD card port, along with NFC and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity. The rear fingerprint scanner is highly responsive and face recognition is also very speedy.
Performance :
The inclusion of big power Cortex-A73 cores inside the Kirin 710 help elevates the phone above the feel of other low-cost handsets, offering consistently snappy performance across apps. Multitasking doesn’t pose any problems either.
The Mali-G51 MP4 GPU isn’t a high-performance gaming class component but it has been compensated with GPU Turbo which helps us to play games which require high specs ike PUBG or Fortnite.
Software :
The Honor 8X runs Android 8.1 Oreo skinned with EMUI 8.2 on top.
Earlier EMUI used to get a lot of criticism for its interface making a impression like iOS but from EMUI 8 its changed a lot and now its gives a more resemblance like AOSP when you use the corresponding themes.
Themes are great for EMUI and are easily customizable which provides a great user interface for all kind of users.
EMUI 8.2 includes a few extra tweaks. If the traditional navigation keys aren’t your thing, Honor provides the option to switch over to the single-key navigation.
The software’s motion controls are also rather handy, enabling features like raising the phone to your ear to automatically answer calls or flip the phone upside down to mute. App Lock and Filesafe also provide ways to keep bits of information secure behind your fingerprint.
HiTouch can be used to identify products on a page using Amazon Assistant. Just touch something on your display with two fingers at once to active it.
Battery Life :
With a 3,750mAh battery, the Honor 8X has no problem surviving a full day with even the most demanding user.
If for some reason you find yourself short of juice, the Honor 8X packs in two power saving modes.
The regular power saving mode limits background activity, reduces visual effects, and turns off email syncing to save on power.
The more extreme ultra power saving mode limits the phone to just a selection of apps to greatly extend battery life up to several days, which helped me to use my phone for two days with just 45% of charge when I traveled for a distant place without a feasibility to charge my device.
Camera :
There’s a familiar looking dual camera setup on the back of the Honor 8X. The primary sensor offers 20-megapixels of resolution with a f/1.8 aperture and Phase Detection Auto Focus. Video recording is capped at 1080p 60fps, Obviously there is no 4K recording option here considering its a budget device.
The 20-megapixel camera offers up plenty of detail in well-lit shots and I never had the trouble with finding the correct exposure.
The front-facing camera is a 16-megapixel affair with a f/2.0 aperture give good selfies and performs upto its mark, but there can be more improvement in the portrait mode of the camera.
AI Camera :
Like all latest Huawei/Honor Devices 8X camera also houses AI capabilities which gives good images when enabled.
It detects most of the scenes and tunes the camera accordingly to capture good shots.
Pros :
1. Stunning design uses max screen with a notch
2. Two-day battery life With 3,750mAh battery on board
3. 3.5mm headphone jack
4. Budget friendly with value for money.
5. Dual VOLTE which is he most requiring feature for Indian users
6. Dual sim support with dedicated slot for SD Card.
Cons:
1. It doesnt support Wifi 5G.
2. No EIS
3. Uses MicroUSB instead of Type-c (but can understand the decision as its a budget device)
4. Camera quality can be improved , mainly the front camera portrait mode on front camera just looks too wired.
5. Doesn't have option to set up multi user
Final Thoughts :
Compared to other budget range devices my vote goes for this device as its power packed with Kirin 710 it can handle most of the things thrown towards it by an average Joe.
The thing which attracted me most is its battery backup can hold up to two days on a normal usage and morethan one day on heavy usage.
Mostly importantly different color variants are eye catchers the Red version is so beautiful.
Build quality is good compared to many other devices.
Launched in September’18 and then making its debut in Indian market in October’18 during Honor fan fest in India, Honor 8X has sidelined almost every other player in this budget segment and is coming up with great reviews every now and then. Below is my personal review about Honor 8X. I am using this device for a week now and ready to give my initial impression about the phone.
Powerful Processor with GPU turbo- Initially I was not very sure about the new processor, coming from Kirin 970, but the phone has been doing really well in terms of performance and inhouse 12nm Kirin 710 is doing an amazing job under the hood with AI capabilities and comes with Android Oreo, EMUI 8.2 out of the box and GPU Turbo boost the graphical processing preserving the FPS and stability and at the same time reducing the power consumption. Kirin processors are known for this right?
Look and Build Quality- So when most of the OEMs does not focus much on the build quality and only adds bunch of feature in the phone, Honor has done a commendable job. Instead of cheaper and regular build quality, Honor has provided a flagship level quality and look to the device. I am in love with this design not recently but since the time of Honor 8 launch (2 years back). It looks expensive than it actually is with its grating effect glass body and superb build quality.
Display- With roughly around 91% screen to body ratio and 6.5-inch FHD+ display with 2340 x 1080 pixels resolution, display covers almost the entire front view making the device look stunning still manage to fit in the same phone size of a 5.5-inch phone, making for an easier to hold even with bigger size. Users who plays a lot of games or watch videos on their phone will definitely love the display and enjoy watching the content on nearly borderless display. Display looks vibrant and color reproduction are really good and allowing users to change the mode to vivid or natural colors which is even better.
Battery- With massive 3750 mAh battery and fully optimized EMUI 8.2, Kirin 710 and GPU turbo, battery does really well and last for over a day with moderate to heavy usage. Various inbuilt battery saving technologies are an added advantage here which preserves the juice for those critical hours. Even though, phones come with a massive 6.5 inch screen, I would say battery life is excellent on this phone and I could easily get 8 hours of Screen on time and over 1 day of battery backup.
Camera- Probably the USP of all Honor phones in any segment they gets launched. All performs to the expectation and 8X is not lacking behind. Dual AI Camera performs well and delivers more than you can imagine. Coupled with 20MP+2MP AI dual rear camera and 16MP front facing camera, you can take amazing picture and no need to carry an additional device specifically for clicking pictures as your smartphone is your best companion for the same. Honor has added the night mode directly without any need to navigate across options and settings. AI does make a difference and there is AI switch given which makes it easier to click pictures with or without as per user's need. Super Slow-motion video does really well and produces interesting and fun to watch videos. I have clicked few pictures and they looks awesome considering the price range.
Sound- Volume through earpiece is good and no challenges there and also the volume through the sound grill is loud enough for regular day to day usage. Certainly, better than my couple of other phones. There are various options available for headphone sound known as Histen Sound effect which can change the sound effect based on the mode you select or the type of headphone you are using, also you can enable/disable 3D sound effect and customize your equalizer. Initially there was some issue and when you speaker volume was more than 70% there were intermittent vibration during music, YouTube play but has been fixed by OTA.
Software- EMUI 8.2 on top of Android 8.1 is really optimized and phone doesn’t lag even with heavy usages. Game Assist, Party mode are added advantages for users who use such feature. Mine is global version so not much bloatware and there is VOLTE support for JIO, Vodafone (tested only these 2). Phone was received with JSN-L21C900 B120 version and got 3 updates within a week B125, B130 and B133 and most of the issue that were there in phone were fixed and no more issues with magazine unlock or the vibration on higher volume. EMUI 9.0 can hit the phone anytime and as I have tested with my other Honor phones, EMUI 9.0 really improve the responsiveness and fluidness by some amount compared to EMUI 8.0 or earlier versions.
Storage- Phone comes in 3 variants, 4/64, 6/64 and 6/128 GB versions. Mine is 4/64 variant and you get around 54.9 GB of free storage on first boot. As phone supports dual SIM+additional SD card support, you need not to worry about running of space and can use external card to store your media, music files.
Call quality and network- Call quality is just awesome; network signal reception is good. One of the advantage on Honor 8X is the dual sim and SD card slot unlike hybrid slot in many other phones pushing us to compromise on dual sim or expandable storage. Wi-Fi supports 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac bands and I would say the time to connect to a Wi-Fi and network speed is pretty well.
Apart from above great features, below are few additional stuffs which makes this phone great-
AI shopping and scene recognition
[*]Dual SIM with Dual VOLTE with dedicated slot for SD card.
[*]Face Unlock
[*]Fully optimize Smart EMUI 8.2
[*]Super Slow motion
[*]Super Night shot with AI and multi-frame stabilization
[*]Inbuilt storage up to 128 GB storage and triple card slot
[*]Full View Display with Nearly Border-less Design
[*]Widevine support
With so many eye catching features, Honor 8X definitely ticks all the boxes to be your first choice while you decide to buy a phone in this range. This phone is beautiful, delightful yet powerful and with the competitive price tag of 14,999, has created a buzz in the segment and has sidelined many competition to become a clear choice for many.
Starting my review with a thanks to "Honor & XDA" for bringing this opportunity to share our reviews on Honor 8X, Hearing reviews directly from the users, it's a best way to bring the best devices in the future!
Honor X-series smartphones - The X - Factor, For the past couple of years Honor has been a company that is growing constantly better with each release of their Honor phones.
Starting with Honor 6X(My first Honor device) to 8X, every year Honor bringing the best possible devices in terms of Design, Specifications, Eye catching color options etc.
So let me go through my experience with Honor 8X after being using it for almost 38 days,
SPECIFICATIONS
Honor 8X - (4GB/64GB or 6GB/64GB/128GB)
Color Options - There are a total of four available color options, including Black, Blue, Red and Pink.
Processor - Kirin 710 SOC
Graphic Processor - Mali-G51 MP4
Screen Size - 6.5 Full HD+ Notch
Camera - 20 MP + 2 MP Rear AI CAMERA & 16 MP Front
Battery - 3750 mAH Battery
Android & EMUI - 8.2 based on Android Oreo 8.1
DESIGN -
* Featuring a glossy textured glass back finish with its dazzling light reflecting properties, metal trim, notched display, and eye-catching looks all around, It's a flat one with very subtle 2.5D finish on the edge.The 91 percent screen to body ratio and minimal chin is undeniably impressive, giving the handset even more screen to work with.
* Gorilla Glass 3 will be keeping the display out of harm.
* Great Weight Balance.
* The bottom line is that Honor has still found a way to make it unique. And keep it simple, of course,the Honor 8X’s combination of metal and gradient glass looks and feels great. The trade-off, as always with glass.
AGAINST -
* The phone is somewhat slippery & more often you will find yourself using the device with two hands!
RATING - 4.8/5.0
DISPLAY -
* The Honor 8X features a 6.5" IPS LCD screen with 1,080 x 2,340 pixels - this makes for a pretty sharp picture with 396-ppi density will offer you reasonably accurate colors.
* Color looks accurate enough and well saturated on the new Honor phone, It is quite sharp and colours pop out, vivid and vibrant.
* The adaptive brightness is very consistent and you get a host of customisation for the display like colour temperature adjustment, resizing the font etc.
AGAINST -
* The phone will be fine in shady outdoor viewing, but visibility will struggling with reflections in direct bright sunlight.
RATING - 4.7/5.0
HARDWARE -
* The Honor 8X has all the necessities - an audio port, a tri-slot for two SIMs and a microSD, a second mic for noise-cancelling, and a microUSB port.
* The rear fingerprint scanner is very fast and reliable.
* Face recognition highly responsive as well.
AGAINST -
* Honor’s use of a micro USB port instead of a USB-C is the one hardware niggle that sticks out.
RATING - 4.4/5.0
BATTERY -
* The Honor 8X is powered by a large 3,750 mAh battery, The battery backup is excellent thanks to Kirin 710
* With a very heavy day of use, the Honor 8X isn’t a class leader, but it is very solid and a second day of full use will be on the cards for most of all.
* No sign of Overheating at all.
AGAINST -
* With 3750 mAh battery, it's odd that No Supercharging is on board.
* There is fast charging. The charger offers variable voltage. It’s not the fastest we’ve tried, but we’re still very glad we’re not left with a basic charger.
RATING - 4.5/5.0
SPEAKER -
* There is one speaker on the Honor 8X, and it's at the bottom. It's just good but not louder out there in the market considering the price point.
* With Histen Sound Effects & right headphones, it will be a great one for the occasional music playback session.
AGAINST -
* The sound is a bit shallow and not very rich, lacked depth.
* Even the Ringer volumes lacked the loudness in it.
RATING - 4.4/5.0
SOFTWARE -
* Android 8.1 has EMUI 8.2 on top not EMUI 9.0 Pie yet.
* The new v8.2 improves the Face Unlock and Gallery with machine learning.
* EMUI catches a lot of flak for deviating from a stock-like skin, but the software is perfectly functional and avoids any major bloat.
* Honor tools like the Game Suite, Mirror, Compass, and Themes apps.
* SoOn With EMUI 9 + Kirin 710, It will be a CakeWalk!
AGAINST -
* Still lacking in Timely updates
* THEMES -
* Ever since Google preventing the use of Custom Overlays, Themes Customization is not at its best compare to previous versions of EMUI 5/5.1, Even Though EMUI is heavily customizable but with latest Android OS, Themes not working as it was intended to, as a Theme developer am completely disappointed even the users also feeling the same, but still other devices allows customization, i hope Honor will take a look at this too.
RATING - 4.7/5.0
PERFORMANCE -
* The Kirin 710 processor is indeed a massive improvement over the Kirin 659 It's made on a 12nm process "Its efficiency already proven in the battery chapter".
* With Heavy usage, there is no heating or Overheating issues at all.
* The combo of Kirin 710 + Mali-G51 MP4 makes no lags, gives a tough competition to rivals.
RATING - 4.9/5.0
CAMERA -
* Honor’s big selling point with all of its recent phones are their AI camera capabilities, The 20-megapixel camera offers up plenty of detail in well-lit shots and never once was trouble with finding the correct exposure
* For the most natural shots, you’ll want to avoid using the ‘AI’ mode too much.
* The ultra-low light mode is the most interesting part, it does gives a better pictures but you really can use it handheld and you end up with some of the best low light photos seen in a phone at the price.
* The camera snaps good enough pictures during the day, and great at night.
* The selfies are quite nice, too
* Front camera has a 16MP sensor,Once you get the distance right, the level of detail is very good. Colors are faithfully represented, and dynamic range is good for a selfie camera., Beauty mode that smooths out your skin texture for a more flattering look.
AGAINST -
* Honor 8x has the great potential to produce great pictures but not this time, The so-called AI doesn't did well as it is doing in the likes of Honor 10, HonorView 10 etc.
* Second camera only has a crude 2MP sensor, it's for name sake to be frank. You got to be careful while using background blur effect or aperture mode. Even my previous devices Honor 7x, Honor 9 lite did well in edge detection.
* Camera Performance is inconsistent.
* Video Capturing is Limited to 1080p, No 4K support even the Kirin 710 Supports.
* No EIS.
RATING - 4.4/5.0
FIXES by OTA -
* Ringer volume loudness.
* Camera performance including AI - Optimization, Beauty mode, Wide-aperture & Depth mode needs to be improved.
* EIS update.
* 4K Video Support.
* Native Video Call support.
Hopefully with EMUI 9.0 just around the corner, these much needed updates will be fixed with it
EMUI 9.0 is one advanced upgrade - A huge advancement in the direction of simpler, more intuitive design, better productivity features, and AI-powered achievements
FINAL VERDICT -
* The Honor 8X is one very balanced smartphone on the cheap. Its bang for the buck isn't exactly on par with some Xiaomi and Realme offers, where those are available, but for the rest of the world - it deserves to be seriously considered.
* The Honor 8X isn't the most powerful smartphone in this price bracket, but its balance across the board is what really matters.
Bottom line, if you are looking for a handset that comes with elegant design, sharp and vivid display, good battery backup and decent audio quality, Honor 8X can be an ideal pick
Final RATING - 4.6/5.0
EXPECTATIONS in 2019 -
* Instead of using Kirin 710 across all devices in 2019, would be great if Honor can make use of latest Snapdragon processors as well.
* Bluetooth 5.0 or more, EIS Out of the box.
* At Least single device with Android One Program.
* No More 2MP for depth sensor alone, All we need is improved camera sensors at the back.
* USB-C Type, support for Fast charging already became usual in Mid-range smartphones but it's not case with Honor yet.
* Faster updates.
Being one of the world's top smartphone manufacturers, it will be really tough in the likes of Xiaomi & the latest entrant Realme in the year 2019! People would consider buying the smartphones only when the expectation is fulfilled, even though it costs 50-75 bucks more than the rivals.
Honor is definitely a company to keep your eye on. If you’ve never used an Honor phone before, you should consider one as your next device. They won’t let you down.
First of all let's start with the looks of the phone, It looks absolutely beautiful and stylish, when I hold it in my hand it feels like a top of the line premium device. The glass feels extremely smooth to the touch and although I like the looks of the phone I will most likely use a case on it since I tend to have sweaty hands.
Although It's nice to have such an elegant device for such an affordable price.
The beauty of this phone doesn't stop at the exterior, in fact it packs quite a punch on the inside with the highly powerful octa core kirin 710 with cores clocked up to 2.2 GHz! And it's also built using the highly energy efficient 12nm manufacturing process coupled with a beefy 3750mah battery you are guaranteed to easily achieve 2 days of battery life with regular usage so you don't have to worry about your phone dying in the middle of your day.
I also like to game sometimes, I've been playing pubg and asphalt 9 and some other graphically intensive games and the phone managed to run all of them without any frame drops or lag, also the phone rarely heats up and even when it does, it's after long sessions of graphically intensive applications.
The cameras are an absolute delight to use as well, both front and back cameras have everything a flagship device camera has and portrait mode looks stunning with really good edge detection.
I'll finish this review by saying that this phone is a really good bang for your buck and you won't ever regret buying it, it does everything you expect a flagship to do, somethings even better.
Great phone for a great price
The honor 8x is the successor to the popular honor 7x.
Software :
It runs huawei's emui 8.2 out of the box. Emui 8.2 definitely does have a bunch of extra features that you don't get on stock android, but if you Prefer stock android you probably won't enjoy emui too much as it is one of the more heavily skinned versions of Android. Emui 9 will probably be the phones last major Android update (not including security patches and minor feature additions). However if you like emui you are sure to enjoy the software experience of the phone.
Hardware :
In the hardware department it is in no way a reflection of the budget price tag. It has 6 gb of ram (can hold many background apps) and it uses the Hisilicon kirin 710 processor.
Screen: it has a 6.5 inch ips panel with the widely used notch design.it looks similar to many flagship.
Its resolution is 1080 X 2340.(1080 p full HD)
Battery:it has a 3750 mAh battery. It should easily last you a full day but from my personal use I still found my self charging it overnight. It should last you about a day and a half on average usage.
Camera: it has a dual lense system with on 20 mega pixel primary sensor and a 2 mp depth sensor. It has good photos but in my usage the portrait mode dosent seem to always work so well especially in low light despite the second sensor. However it has an option to record videos is slow motion upto 480fps (which is insane). The slefie camera is a 16 mega pixel sensor that shoots good photos but has the same issue with portrait mode in low light.
I have a few personal thoughts on the phone based on my usage that not everyone might experience.
1) flashing a rom to get stock android feel is much harder no as honor closed their bootloader unlock code service. However you can still get one at a huawei supplier in your area.
2)emui is feature packed and certainly has a few features I miss in stock but it just takes longer than I would. Like to get updated to the latest build of Android. Also only 1 major os update. Makes the phone feel outdated very quickly.
3)i personally am Loving the build quality of the phone. It feels really high end due to the glass design.
Finally I would say that it's a great phone that is for most people 100% worth the price. If you don't mind the software you are getting a phone that almost feels and runs like a flagship for less than half the price.
To the people who saying software is good or doesn't matter, I'd just like to say that software is half of the phone and the whole experience of the phone depends on the software. Example? Here's a simple one. Your phone has a bad camera. Just download a ported Google Camera for your device and compare the performance. I have a 6X. On stock EMUI 8 it was nothing short of terrible. The OS would kill any app as soon as I left it. The result? I'd miss notification. I wouldn't get a single notification untill I opened the app. EMUI is bloated. Don't get me wrong. There are several features in EMUI that I personally loved and miss in my Stock Android Custom ROM. Example is the ability to turn off the Hotspot after a set amount of data has been used and the navigation dock. But the other things are too irksome. Like I can't change the default launcher without it either crashing or me getting a notification every few hours to change back to default. Similarly I sideloaded a few APK's. Every time I turn on my device I was greeted with a screen prompting me to uninstall them. So in the end I flashed a Pie Custom ROM (AOSP Extended by @DarkJoker360 to be exact) and I'm loving it. I can customize and theme my phone with and without substratum. There are a ton of customization available and phone is smoother than it was on EMUI. So if you can, I'd definitely recommend you to take that route. You won't regret it. And speaking of EMUI it has very slow updates. So I have a bad experience with EMUI. Other than that I really love Huawei/Honor phones. They are cheap and good. Even my old 6X can play modern games fairly well.
Other than that is the small, small problem that Huawei no longer provides bootloader unlock codes and that's a deal breaker for me. Really bad choice.
@XDARoni can we get another limited Bootloader unlocking for XDA users? I really want to unlock the bootloader of my Honor 10
Honor has released a number of smartphones in 2018 — perhaps too many depending on who you ask — but they all aim to offer exceptional value and build quality that punches well above their price tag. The Honor 8X fits into the portfolio as a supersized phablet model priced at €249.
Somewhat confusingly, the Honor 8X doesn’t share too much in common with 2016’s Honor 8. There’s an all-new bezel-less design and a completely different set of internal components. While the sum of the changes produces some notable upgrades, the new handset sees a number of downgrades too. We’re here to find out if the 8X can successfully build on Honor’s legacy in the affordable handset market.
Honor 8X review notes: During this review, the Honor 8X was running beta software version JSN-L21 8.2.0.120, with EMUI 8.2.0 running on top of Android 8.1 Oreo.
The Honor 8X used in this review was provided to Android Authority by Honor.
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Design
The Honor 8X looks like the quintessential Honor smartphone, featuring a glossy textured glass back finish with its dazzling light reflecting properties, metal trim, notched display, and eye-catching looks all around. The 91 percent screen to body ratio and minimal chin is undeniably impressive, giving the handset even more screen to work with that Huawei’s flagship P20 Pro. It’s a great piece of tech to marvel at that rivals the look and feel of premium flagship handsets which cost significantly more.
However, the Honor 8X is a true behemoth. While there’s plenty of screen real estate, reaching across the panel is a stretch with one hand. Combined with the glass back and sharper edges than some other large handsets, the phone can be awkward to handle at times. The thin 7.8mm profile helps, but there’s no getting around that the Honor 8X feels like a very big phone. The rear fingerprint scanner placement is perfect on a handset of this size, but the volume rocket is perhaps a little high up the phone to reach comfortably.
The bottom line is that the Honor 8X’s combination of metal and gradient glass looks and feels great. The trade-off, as always with glass, is that the phone is somewhat slippery and that doesn’t help given the handset’s awkwardly bulky size.
The Honor 8X's design is simply stunning
Display
The Honor 8X sports a 6.5-inch LTPS LCD display with a 2340 x 1080 resolution, producing a density of 397 pixels per inch. Even given the large display size, the Full HD+ resolution appears plenty sharp enough. The panel’s colors also pop with the appropriate fervor, resulting in bright and vivid images.
Given the size of the display, you’ll want to switch into a smaller text or small view mode to really make the most of it. Honor’s default makes everything, from text to images and icons, appear far too large and it’s an odd choice for such a big phone. I’ve experienced similar problems with other Honor and Huawei phones, so this could just be a personal preference. Fortunately, it’s simple enough to change to the small option in the display settings menu.
If there’s one technical fault with the display it’s with blue reproduction, which outputs a much higher color error delta than green or red. This leads to a somewhat oversaturated looking panel when using the default “Vivid” setting, but it’s only really noticeable when comparing like for like on another smartphone. Peak brightness clocks in at 470 nits, which is about average for a cost-effective handset. The phone will be fine in shady outdoor viewing, but visibility will struggling with reflections in direct bright sunlight.
Hardware
While the display and design aesthetics appear premium, the hardware specifications for the Honor 8X hover somewhere between mid- and low-end. On the processing side, there’s a distinctly mid-range Kirin 710 SoC, which offers powerful Cortex-A73 CPU cores but a lower end Mali-G51 GPU. It’s certainly not as exciting as the Pocophone F1’s Snapdragon 845 package. The handset also includes a reasonable 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of internal storage, depending on the region of purchase.
The handset’s microUSB connector with USB 2.0 data speeds feels rather more dated. It’s an even more mind-boggling decision given that the much older Honor 8 supported USB Type-C two years ago. This probably won’t play well in global markets that are moving on from the old connector. Fast charging capabilities are included, but we’re capped at 5V/2A rather than the 5V/4A SuperCharge option that ships with more expensive Huawei phones.
There’s just a single bottom-facing speaker on the Honor 8X. The top mounted speaker is only used for calls. The speaker sounds fairly decent and pumps out plenty of volume, but the mono presentation is a notable drawback.
On the plus side, the phone sticks with the tried and tested 3.5mm audio jack, so your existing headphones will work just fine. There’s also a dual SIM slot, microSD card port, along with NFC and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity. The rear fingerprint scanner is highly responsive and face recognition is also very speedy, although not quite as fast as the higher-end P20 Pro.
Performance
The Honor 8X is a snappy little device when it comes to zipping in and out of applications. The inclusion of big power Cortex-A73 cores inside the Kirin 710 help elevates the phone above the feel of other low-cost handsets, offering consistently snappy performance across apps. Multitasking doesn’t pose any problems either, I never noticed the phone miss a step the whole time.
However, the phone isn’t quite up to scratch with 3D gaming performance. The Mali-G51 MP4 GPU isn’t a high-performance gaming class component and this is definitely the phone’s weakest area in the performance category. Honor does attempt to address this with its GPU Turbo technology, but it’s difficult to tell how much of an impact this has. Overall, you can still enjoy demanding games like PUBG or Fortnite — just turn down the graphics settings a notch and be prepared for a 30fps rather than 60fps performance target.
The Kirin 970 flies through apps, handling everything you can throw at it
Software
The Honor 8X runs Android 8.1 Oreo skinned with EMUI 8.2 on top. There isn’t much in the way of additional software installed out of the box, save for a selection of Honor tools like the Game Suite, Mirror, Compass, and Themes apps. Google’s apps make up the bulk of the pre-installed software.
The colorful icons and white UI elements can’t help but invoke Apple’s iOS, as does the lack of an app drawer by default. Fortunately, EMUI offers options for the app drawer, notch toggle, View Mode sizes, and text sizes under the display settings to tweak the appearance more to your tastes.
EMUI catches a lot of flak for deviating from a stock-like skin, but the software is perfectly functional and avoids any major bloat. A quick swipe down on the home screen takes you to recommended apps and allow you to search through your contacts and messages. Google Assistant functionality is located on the left on the home screen or via a long press of the home button. Apart from the deep maze of settings that’s about all there is to EMUI’s home screen.
EMUI 8.2 includes a few extra tweaks. If the traditional navigation keys aren’t your thing, Honor provides the option to switch over to the single-key navigation. It’s not unlike Google’s “pill” in Android 9.0 Pie, where you swipe the bar to perform back, home, and recent task actions.
HiTouch can be used to identify products on a page using Amazon Assistant. Just touch something on your display with two fingers at once to active it. The software’s motion controls are also rather handy, enabling features like raising the phone to your ear to automatically answer calls or flip the phone upside down to mute. App Lock and Filesafe also provide ways to keep bits of information secure behind your fingerprint.
Battery life
With a 3,750mAh battery, the Honor 8X has no problem surviving a full day with even the most demanding user. A second day of full use will be on the cards for most, although taking lots of pictures and gaming will knock a couple or so hours off the total on time. Lighter users could well extend usage well into a third day, as was the case when I only used the phone for some web browsing and music streaming.
If for some reason you find yourself short of juice, the Honor 8X packs in two power saving modes. The regular power saving mode limits background activity, reduces visual effects, and turns off email syncing to save on power. The more extreme ultra power saving mode limits the phone to just a selection of apps to greatly extend battery life up to several days.
The Honor 8X is the first phone I've owned to reach a third day of use since my Nokia 3310
Camera
There’s a familiar looking dual camera setup on the back of the Honor 8X. The primary sensor offers 20-megapixels of resolution with a f/1.8 aperture and Phase Detection Auto Focus. Video recording is capped at 1080p 60fps, so there’s no 4K recording option here.
The 20-megapixel camera offers up plenty of detail in well-lit shots and never once was trouble with finding the correct exposure. However, the Honor 8X’s processing can oversaturate colors some of the time, or at least that’s how it looks on the phone’s vivid display. Images mostly pop with vibrant colors which will look great on social media, but there’s a denoise speckling effect covering most of the pictures which takes the sheen off once you zoom in.
Honor’s big selling point with all of its recent phones are their AI camera capabilities. The Honor 8X recognizes 22 different scenarios in which it can apply custom exposure and color corrections. However, most of the results I saw simply involved boosting the color saturation even further, resulting in some almost cartoonish images. I ended up ignoring the mode.
Honor 8X food AI ONHonor 8X food AI OFF Honor 8X food AI ON
Honor 8X food AI OFF
Honor 8X sunset AI ONHonor 8X sunset AI OFF Honor 8X sunset AI ON
Honor 8X sunset AI OFF
As is often the case, low light performance is a weak spot for the Honor 8X. Noise creeps in quickly even in well-exposed images, resulting in smudged shadowy areas rather than crisp blacks. The whole situation is worsened by the lack of image stabilization, making even quick snaps likely to come out blurry let alone ones taken at night. The camera’s Night Mode patches over this issue, providing that you can stand still for anywhere between 4 and 20 seconds to capture the required exposures.
The secondary camera is used entirely for depth calculation, enabling re-adjustable aperture and bokeh after taking the picture. This second sensor has just a 2-megapixel resolution. The bokeh post processing looks fairly decent, but close examination often reveals missed areas of the image where the edge detection algorithm hasn’t quite separated the back and foreground correctly. This might be due to the limited resolution of the secondary depth sensor, and either way the technology is a bit hit and miss.
Honor 8X camera Night ModeHonor 8X camera low light Honor 8X camera Night Mode
Honor 8X camera low light
Honor 8X camera aperture closeHonor 8X camera aperture mode far Honor 8X camera aperture close
Honor 8X camera aperture mode far
The front-facing camera is a 16-megapixel affair with a f/2.0 aperture. Exposure can be more of a problem here, as backgrounds often appear overblown even without a direct light source. Detail is reasonable enough in good lighting, but the camera quickly deteriorates into a noisy blur if you lose sunlight. If I hadn’t read the spec sheet, I wouldn’t have believed these were 16MP shots.
While the rest of the phone punches above its price tag, the inconsistent camera experience, unfortunately, brings the Honor 8X back down to earth with a thud.
Honor 8X Specs
Honor 8X
Display
6.5 inches
2,340 x 1,080
19.5:9 notched display
91% screen-to-body ratio
Processor
HiSilicon Kirin 710
Octa-Core (4 x Cortex-A73 2.2 GHz + 4 x Cortex-A53 1.7 GHz)
GPU
Mali-G51 MP4
RAM
4GB or 6GB
Storage
64GB or 128GB
Battery
3,750mAh
Cameras
Rear dual cameras:
20MP (f/1.8 aperture) + 2 MP
Single front camera:
16MP (f/2.0 aperture)
Software
Android 8.1 Oreo
Skinned with EMUI 8.2
Connectivity
WiFi 802.11 ac (2.4 and 5GHz)
Bluetooth 5
GPS
GLONASS
Network
900MHz, 1800MHz, 800MHz, 2GHz
Bands 38, 39, 40, 41 (2555-2575 MHZ, 2575-2635 MHZ, 2635-2655 MHZ)
Band 1, Band 3, 1.9 GHz, I, VIII
Ports
microUSB
3.5mm headphone jack
SIM
Dual nano SIM
Dimensions
160.4 x 76.6 x 7.8mm
Weight
175g
Colors
Black, Blue, Red, Purple
Image Gallery
Honor 8X review:
The Honor 8X is a tale of some quite remarkable accomplishments. At first, I thought the handset’s giant size would be the dividing factor, but the phone’s thin profile helps to minimize this issue enough that I eventually became accustomed to it.
The design is undeniably premium and unique enough that the phone is sure to stand out in a crowd. Performance, battery life, and storage options also feel a cut above your typical mid-tier smartphone. Honor has most of the major boxes checked off with the 8X.
However, the camera performance and dated hardware choices, like the microUSB port and single bottom-firing speaker, detract from an otherwise superb experience. It’s never possible to have it all at this price point, and whether the Honor 8X is for you will boil down to whether or not these issues impact how you use your handsets. Photography enthusiasts might want to give this AI camera a miss.
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With its rock solid performance, superb camera and glass build, the Honor 8X is great way to get a phone that looks and feels expensive but does not cost much. The Honor 8X is the kind of phone you might buy if you want one that looks different with all the latest design cues, but don’t wanna spend a grand. The looks are similar to some of the most expensive phones in the world, but is a quarter the price.
Honor 8x achieves a very high screen-to-body ratio along with classy looks. No phone model to date has offered such an all-screen look at this price.
With my average to heavy usage, including several hours of audio streaming, a couple of hours of intermittent browsing and about 30 minutes of YouTube streams, the Honor 8X still made it to the night. One word, Simply Amazing !
Camera's aren't bad either. if not the best compared to Pixel's but much more than value for money.
Excellent value, a great day-to-day experience along with out of the world battery life is my recommendation for someone who might be looking forward to own this beast.
Honor 8X is powered by Kirin 710 which is a capable chip. It can fit for user of any group. Honor have been giving devices with value for money unlike some other companies and this device is no exception. The device runs on EMUI 8.2 with android 8.1 and it will likely receive pie update also if we look past record of honor devices. The device comes with expandable storage so you will not have to face low storage issues. The phone has a 3750 mAh battery which should not let you down in in battery section. The rear camera setup is 20+2 MP which is capable of shooting excellent shots and front camera setup consists a single 12 MP camera. It has every features that a modern smartphones are expected to have like fringerprint reader. NFC, USB OTG and many more. The screen of the device is protected by Gorilla Glass 3. But the phone lacks USB 3.0 which is the only downside that I can see.
In my opinion the device deserves a 9/10 .
Huawei Honor 8X is a decent device that comes all the essential hardware as well appropriate software for a balanced device for use as a daily driver and gaming. It packs different 4 and 6 gigs of ram as well as a powerful 710 kirin processor. To be honest it could be the best device in the segment of 10k to 15k android devices.
Specs:
1. It has an Octa core 2.2ghz kirin 710 processor.
2. 4-6 gigs of ram with 64 and 128 gb storage respectively.
3. 6.5 inch screen with FHD display.
4. 20 MP + 2MP rear camera and 16 MP front camera shot.
5. It comes with android Oreo 8.1.0.
Talking about the specs the phone is fully packed with performance hardware and solid outer build but the thing that comes to decieve the performance of the device according to me is the EMUI software. The software tends to be bloatware free and fast, but the long time run leads the device software to lag and not using the hardware to its full potential. Also the camera performance seems to be good on the hardware side but the software does a very poor job on enhancing the picture. The AI feature as the company suggests to be enhancing the photos, from my opinion it makes it loo a little bit on the Artificial side. The final verdict tends to be on the positive side as I have an HONOR device in my family and it tends to do a good job to be used as a daily driver and clicking some great pictures. For the good side i suggest people to buy this phone for its powerful hardware and design. Also keep in mind the it's a phone that could be made great by some XDA stuff , U know that better than me <><>.
Honor 8X was my upgrade from my older Honor 6X (still young with EMUI 8) The phone totally amazed me..I was amazed by its speed..the app openings and the overall speed and perfomance made me wonderstruck.. In no time I realized the capacity of a Kirin 710 chipset. It was first time I was experiencing such a fast phone in that price segment.
The design of the phone is beatiful..beautifully crafted with overall perfection..the glossy dual tone finish made me feel the phone premium in my hands...the premium phone in that segment..with minimal borders all around and smaller bottom chin, the phone with large 6.5 inch screen hold good in my one hand.
The most Interesting thing I found in the phone was its processor..such a power efficient processor combined with feature packed emui 8.2 with a lot of power saving options, gave me a screen on time of around 8hrs on such a large screen..Display is awesome with good colors..The 3,750 mAh battery could easily last for around 2 days in a single charge.
The camera was awesome.. I loved the natural bokeh effect the
f 1.8 lens creates when I took macro shots..the 20 mp camera is the best one..also the 16 mp front camera could catch almost all the details and gave smooth selfies.
The dual sim slot combined with a dedicated sd card slot helped me a lot as I could expand the storage as large as I like..No limitations like earlier honor phones having hybrid slot..
The face recogition was next thing that made me wonder..it is so fast and unlocked the screen within a short time.even when there was no light, it could recognize my face by adjusting the screen brightness level..
Although am not a gamer, I decided to test the gaming capacity..and tested the asphalt 9, it was pretty smooth and I didnot notice any lag while gaming and no serious battery drains...and its all about the magical combination of Kirin 710 and EMUI 8.2..
Overall, I loved the phone and I could say "its the most beautiful, powerful and efficient phone I have used in this segment". Great value for money.
I fallen in love with this phone.Awesome creation by Honor
Quick overview of Honor 8X :
6.5 inch Borderless Fullview display
Colorful Texture Back
GPU TURBO
20MP + 2MP AI Camera
16MP Selfie camera
3750 mAh Battery
Android Oreo 8.1 with EMUI 8.2
Kirin 710
FullView Display with Nearly Borderless Design
With incredible screen-to-body ratio of 91% , The display occupies nearly the entire front of the phone. I simply love the beautiful 6.5inch screen with awesome viewing angle and watching videos is breeze.
Glass Body with Visual Grating Effect
With Two visual effects and 15 layers of rich reflective craftsmanship on the same glass back as left border: complex intertwined and grained texture On the right border: classic, unique pattern effect of Honor flagship phones
Infact, in my usage of few days, atleast 10 people asked me about this Phone's unique design.
Kirin 710 Powerful Chipset with GPU Turbo
With a 12nm Cortex-A73 generation-based SoC and a Mali G51 GPU & GPU Turbo boosts efficiency in graphics processing with full FPS and FPS stability for gaming, while still reducing power consumption. I have played Asphalt 9 and PUBG and both works soo smooth on this device.
3750mAh Enhanced Battery Life
Intelligent battery save system, ensures you durable user experience and EMUI 8.2 provides a seamless experience for users with a fully optimizing system. Also, this supports full Intuitive Swipe Gesture Navigation which also increases full viewing
20MP AI Camera, Performing More Than You Can Imagine & 16MP Front Camera, Enabling High Quality Selfies
Rear : AI multi-scene recognition can identify 22 different categories of objects in images and 500 scenarios in real-time. (Samples below)
Front : With an enhanced ISO and supports 4-in-1 light fusion and multi-frame image processing to create quality and beautified selfies with bokeh effects.
Using Honor 8X since 3 weeks now so probably right time to give a review based on personal usage. Seeing many reviews but not sure if they are even using 8X or just posting the review here because a review is incomplete without pictures . I am a user of Honor 5C, Honor 8 and Honor 8X so I have used EMUI 4, EMUI 5 and EMUI 8 and I am loving it as usual. This review is based on the 4+64 GB Indian Version of phone.
Lets start the review from the priority perspective. I will avoid using the specification, that’s available everywhere.
I would say Honor 8X truly justifies the tag line associated- Beyond Limits.
Camera- as usual, Honor never fails to impress me with their camera and dual rear AI cameras are doing the full justice to its reputation. My earlier Honor 8 had dual 12 MP cameras but may be latest technology, AI algorithm, EMUI 8.2, Kirin 710 or whatever is behind the scene is making a difference here. The back 20+2MP AI camera is really working as per expectation and the price range and the front 16 MP selfie camera does well.
Build quality and design- As I upgraded my phone from Honor 8 to Honor 8X now, I am used to the glass back design and I just love this one from Honor. I did not used the back cover on my Honor 8 for more than a year as it feels very premium, same goes with Honor 8X but certain advantages like nearly borderless design, a premium solid back glass, AI logo. It doesn’t feel that you are holding a mid-range phone in your palm and you can flaunt it anytime anywhere.
Display- I would start with a con here. Only thing I must say is the bigger display for someone with smaller palm to hold this properly or operate in one hand. I do not see any issue for me as I can manage handling the phone with both the hands. Display looks crisp and vibrant and color reproduction is very good. In fact, and but obvious, better than my Honor 8. This being the IPS display you may see inferior to AMOLED but you will not complaint considering the quality of display, in fact I love it. With a smaller notch and almost full screen, it feel fun. I enjoy watching YouTube videos, I watch almost 3-4 hours per day and I really enjoy the same on my Honor 8X very much.
Processor and Memory- Kirin 710 is new processor from Honor or Huawei but is doing very good job. Couple with 4 GB or 6 GB RAM (mine is 4 GB), phone is performing very well and I do not find any lag or any delay in accessing apps, playing games like Asphalt 8/9, Subway surfer, Temple run/run 2 and many more. Switching between apps doesn’t feel any delay. Kirin 710 is performing well and 4GB is sufficient in my guess for smart phone or may be I could have invested 2K more and bought 6GB RAM model but I do not regret as phone is performing well and doing the task I demand for. On storage, mine is 64 GB which is sufficient, but the best part is I can use my Samsung class 10 64 GB memory card which makes the storage upto 128 and use my both Jio SIM at the same time so data and VOLTE calls on both the SIMs and SD card at the same time. Only 54 GB from 64 GB of internal storage is available rest all is used by System. If needed, you can further expand the storage with 128 GB or more of memory card. I store all my media file in hard disk so not an issue and 128 GB is good for me. I was missing this SD card+dual sim support on my Honor 8 badly and had to compromise on SD card and need to insert only when needed.
Battery- Battery is really amazing this phone. Only let down from my previous Honor 8 was the battery which was running out of juice after full day of use but this 3750 mAh battery with optimized OS is performing well and I am getting easily more than 1 day of battery usage. I charge my phone every morning before moving out and when back home in late evening, I still have 30-40% left which is good considering the other phone which dies out in full day. This extra battery allows me to watch YouTube/hotstar videos, play a little bit of gaming in night without bothering too much to connect to power source so battery is another good feature after camera and I am really in love with my phone now.
Call quality is good on this phone or may be I am using VOLTE so that makes a difference as well. Haven’t had the issue with loudness or quality as HD calling is good enough and doing good.
Sound- better than my earlier Honor 5C or Honor 8 but may be I think this could have been improved or may be a software update can fix. there are few enhancement like histen and equalizers which really works fine. I dont hear music much but yes they are very much handy in watching videos. I love the equalizer settings, I was missing this in my Honor 8.
Light mode- Another good option is direct option to get night shot as it was missing in my Honor 8 and I had to go to more and then light option.
EMUI 8/Android 8 (software) - I did not upgraded my Honor 8 to EMUI 8 as EMUI 7 was doing good for me but after using EMUI 8 on Honor 8X, I think I can surely upgrade to EMUI 8 on Honor 8. Got one update also. I have sued earlier EMUI so not challenge for me. I love the EMUI and inbuilt features like call blocking, spam detection, phone manager, info message VS actual message, battery modes etc.
Super Slow motion- this is another good option given and you can change the resolution as well for the video. anything compromised on camera department was fulfilled by this and this really fun. I haev used the super slow motion and videos are really fun to watch
Face unlock- Not a fan of it as anytime you pick your phone will try to unlock your phone with face but really a good feature to use and flaunt if you want. I enrolled few times but deleted all the time as fingerprint is working good.
Verdit/Conclusion-With so many upgrades over my earlier phones, if I compare with my earlier Honor phones 5C and 8 and not to any earlier versions of X series, I am really in love with this phone and I will definitely recommend this to my friends and family members and I wish I win one so that I can gift one to my family member. A must go phone in this price and I am very happy with it. Way to go Honor and thanks for considering every budget segment while releasing your phones.
All the very best for 2019
My favourite phone of 2018 is the one and only Honor 8X
Design and Display
Huawei’s Honor has come up with a massive design overhaul with the new 8X when compared to its predecessor. Gone are the big bezels on the front, the new 8X boasts a massive 6.5-inch Full HD+ IPS notched display with a new 19.5:9 ratio that shares a screen-to-body-ratio of 91% – thanks to the 2.5D curved glass screen. Since the notched display is such a norm in 2018, the Honor had done a great job by implementing the enormous screen which makes the notch almost negligible. Though the notch appears to be puny, it still packs a front facing camera, the speaker grill, and the essential sensors. Coming to the display, it certainly feels edge-to-edge, and the viewing angles of this massive display are great, images look sharp and bright with vivid colors popping out. We haven’t had any issues in handling the massive display in broad sunlight as well. The Honor 8X is an excellent device for binge-watching with its vibrant big screen, and the wider viewing angles are a bliss.
On the rear, the Honor 8X boasts a glass build with two visual effects in the same Blue finish, that appears to be two-tone in certain reflections but still looks visually appealing. The back also boasts dual camera setup and an LED flash along with the typical Honor branding. The device also retains the fingerprint sensor at the rear as its predecessor. This two-tone color body phone also equips the headphone jack at the bottom alongside the speaker grill.All-in-all the Honor 8X’s metal and glass design allures you with its extremely slim form factor and its large screen-to-body ratio which essentially feels more than premium for its mid-range price segment.
Hardware and Performance
Coming to the most anticipated part of this device, how does the Honor 8X perform? Unlike, the Honor Play that released earlier this year which, runs on a Kirin 970 SoC, the new Honor 8X comes with a 12nm Kirin 710 Soc. The new Kirin 710 is in direct competition to the Qualcomm SD 660, which is one of the powerful SoC for the mid-range segment. This Kirin 710 SoC with 64-bit architecture, comprises of 4x ARM Cortex-A73 @ 2.2GHz and 4x ARM Cortex-A53 @ 1.7GHz CPU and an ARM Mali G51 MP 4 GPU. Furthermore, the device comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. This Kirin SoC paired with the provided RAM helps the Honor 8X run consistently, and we haven’t witnessed any lags while multitasking to gaming.
For a smoother gaming experience, the Honor 8X bundles GPU Turbo optimization, this does not mean that it boosts up the frame-rates, but it certainly helps in optimizing battery in the background while gaming and helps you smoother the gaming experience. In our testing, the predominant games such as PUBG and Asphalt 9 ran sleekly on the Honor 8X without any jitter or screen lag.
On the software front, the Honor 8X ships with Android 8.1 Oreo out-of-the-box with Huawei’s EMUI 8.2 OS, which had been refined since the new 8.2 update. However, the lack of app drawer by default is amiss, and the appearance of app icons certainly look clunky. There are some pre-installed stock apps, and then there are few outdated games, which the UI asks us to install while setting up the phone. If you are a Google’s native app lover, you can easily hide these EMUI’s native apps. On the whole, the Android Oreo paired with refined EMUI gives you a smoother experience and the Honor 8X can easily be considered as a daily driver for handling social media apps and messaging apps without any second thoughts or whatsoever.
Lastly, the Honor 8X comes with a mono speaker instead of a stereo; however, it has a fair and decent quality which is sufficient for video watching and gaming. For authentication, as stated earlier, the device features a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and also has a Face Unlock feature that works quite fast utilizing the front camera. The 8X also features NFC and supports third-party apps for payments as well
Camera
While the Huawei has come up with the dual cameras on its P20 Pro, the company’s sub-brand Honor is in a spree of hosting dual cameras set up on its all smartphone line-up regardless of the price segment. And, the company’s latest offering the Honor 8X is no exception, it rocks a 20MP primary camera sensor along with the 2MP depth camera sensor with an aperture of f/1.8. Adding to this, the 8X also has an added AI feature along with portrait modes. While the primary 20MP camera does all the action, the secondary 2MP camera doesn’t add any new mode like a telephoto lens or an ultra-wide lens, but it does indeed help in capturing depth control while capturing a portrait image. The dual cameras also feature a phase detection autofocus system and an LED flash
By all means, shots taken on the primary camera does appear good, the images captured are pretty sharp and vibrant covering right amount of details – thanks to the additional effect of the AI mode, which when enabled recognizes the photo scene while capturing and helps in getting more color punchy images/photos. However, if you are that person who prefers to capture more natural lighted images without oversaturated colors, we would recommend disabling the AI mode.
The AI mode additionally features AI beauty effect that can adjust or retouch images along with multi-scene recognition, which claims to identify 22 different categories of objects in images in various scenarios.There’s also an ultra-low light mode for the primary camera when enabled, the camera stitches together a series of shots and this stitching of multiple shots results in images looking much sharper rather than the pictures took with this mode disabled.
As the budget of the Honor 8X is constrained, the primary camera can only record upto 1080p up to 60fps. While the primary camera lacks OIS, it does have super-slow-motion video recording, where a user can film short videos at 16x slow-motion mode at 480fps.
On the front, the Honor 8X features a 16MP selfie camera sensor with a f/2.0 aperture alongside HDR capabilities and video recording upto 1080p at 30 frames per second. The level of detail on the images are quite good despite that, the colors on the image occasionally feel washed out.
There’s also a portrait mode paired up with the beauty mode as well. The former mode is a software feature which creates a fake bokeh effect that can be disabled at any time. There’s also an additional feature for the front-facing camera that uses AI algorithms for portrait selfies that eventually offers four different studio level portraits.
Battery
To power up the massive 6.5-inch display, Honor has armed the Honor 8X with a 3,750mAh battery. On a moderate day-to-day use, the Honor 8X can easily get through a day with constant messaging apps and social media apps as well as a tad bit of gaming and video watching as well.:laugh:
To power-up the battery quickly, there’s a suitable 5V/2A adapter which does help in fast charging. However, the micro USB charging is quite dated in 2018.
Verdict
If you are looking for a device that looks and feels expensive and also should perform the regular day-to-day tasks with the least compromises, then the Honor 8X is the way to go. Specifically, in this mid-range price segment – this large display certainly matters when compared to the contemporaries, along with the combination of Kirin 710 SoC and added GPU turbo optimization surely helps the Honor 8X to excel with its offering. Aside from the micro USB charging, the cameras, AI benefits, overall slim and the trendy notch design add up to the Honor 8X to make it a perfect value for money. As for the value of money, the new Honor 8X starts at Rs 14,990. This undoubtedly is the new choice I would recommend you to get amongst the lot.
AGM G2 Guardian5G Unlocked Rugged Smartphone | Thermal Monocular Long Detection Range: 500m/yd
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Main Features
* Qualcomm QCM6490
* Long Range Thermal Monocular
* 6.58' FHD+ 120Hz Display
* 108MP Rear Camera
* 7000 mAh Battery
* Waterproof, shock and dust proof. Certified IP68/IP69K/MIL-STD-810H
* 109dB Loud Speaker
* 8/12GB + 256GB Storage
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Source: AGM Mobile Website
Stay tuned for further Information
5G
Band: n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n28, n41, n66,n71, n77, n78,n79
NSA: Support, Option 3x/3a
SA: Support, Option 2
MIMO: n1/n2/n3/n7/n66/n77/n78/n79 Four Downstream, Single Upstream, n41 Four Downstream, Dual Upstream
SRS
SA SRS: n41:2T4R，n77/n78/n79：1T4R NSA SRS：n41/n77/n78/n79 1T4R
HPUE: n41/n78/N79： Total Power 26dBm
EN_DC
CA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ChipsetChipset: Qualcomm QCM6490
CPU: Kryo 670
GPU: Adreno 643
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
StorageCapacity: UFS2.2, 8G+256G & 12G+256G
Expandable Storage (TF Card):Support , 512G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ScreenSize: 6.58'
Resolution: FHD+
Refreshing Rate: 120HZ
Cameras
Pixels
108MP Rear Camera
20MP Infrared night vision Camera
2MP Macro Camera
256*192 Thermal Camera (10mm lens)
sensor: TBD
Flashlight: Support
Front Camera
Pixels: 32M
sensor
Sound
MIC: Dual-mic
PA: 3.5W Speaker
Stereo: Not Support
Motor: Support
Speaker Effect: Default algorithm
Headphone Effect: No
Speaker: AGM Iconic Speaker
Direction: Back
WLAN agreement: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax
Battery
capacity: 7000mAh
installation method: built-in
Fast Charging: Support, 18W
Dock Charging: Support
Durability requirements
Operating temperature: -20°C~60°C
Degree of protection: IP68/IP69K/810H
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I pre-ordered the G2 Guardian and received it 4 days ago. I charged it to 100% when I received it and have not since charged it again...4 entire days of pretty heavy usage, still I have 30% battery. Just about to fill the MicroSD up with music. Hopefully by the time it's fully charged again my battery usage metrics will be calibrated and I can work on some proper usage figures for everyone.
Why did I make this purchase/ My use case:
I work in forestry in Northern Australia. It's sweaty as hell, storms develop quickly and whatever I use will get wet multiple times per week through one or the other. Overall I look after my gear with great care, but some things are unavoidable: water, dust, plant matter slowly filling all of my pockets and getting into my gear through whatever orifice is available. Much like Eels, it finds an entrance where it can. I spend much of my week smashing around in the undergrowth. Being able to wash my devices periodically is important, good quality port covers are equally important.
Another must-have for me is a battery that won't let me down. If I manage to hike to the furthest point from my vehicle within a given parcel of land then it's a major problem for me if my battery runs out and I lose the GPS track that I am running, or cannot collect the remainder of my data taking a different path back to my vehicle. My time is wasted, my sweat and exertion are wasted and I've got to climb a bunch of 35+ degree slopes back to the car for no gain. For this reason, the company iphone and ipad are in the bin where they belong. Both devices constantly let me down one way or another, neither of them are designed to do what I do, even in a lifeproof case.
To solve these issues, I ran the Ulefone Power Armor 13 for over a year. It was a great device, I customised the hell out of it but eventually I got tired of carrying a 498gram brick in my pocket. At home without a belt, it would pull my pants down. It was JUST fast enough not to annoy me, and I really enjoyed how deeply I had customised it but I became annoyed with how poor the camera could be sometimes, and with just how heavy it was, but moreso how cumbersome the form factor was and how cheap it looked and felt.
In a flash of brilliance, I replaced the Power Armor 13 with a Galaxy Xcover 6 pro. Paid outright for the device, bought a couple of spare batteries and rubber port covers for the 3.5mm and USB-C ports, and patted myself on the back for being the smartest man alive. The extra speed of the Snapdragon 778G was just what I had been looking for, the retention of an IP68 rating even with a replaceable battery and the moderately rugged construction seemed to be more than enough for my workday, and I could much more easily slip this thing into the pocket of my jeans before heading to the bar on the weekend. No more laughter when producing my phone from my pocket, no more having to explain how I could possibly need a half kilogram phone...I just looked like a normal person, with a normal life.
It lasted 2 months. I got caught in a storm, the Xcover 6 pro was in my backpack. That IP rating is not worth the paper it is written on. Not only did it fail spectacularly, I'm pretty sure it almost caught fire doing so. It got indescribably hot to the point that I knew it was absolutely dead. No amount of time spent in bags of rice would resurrect it, and after a last ditch effort trying to dry it out in direct sunlight I could see that constant exposure to heavy sweat during my work had also managed to penetrate whatever miserable water ingress protection it had. There were literal salt crystals falling out from near the battery terminals: this thing had been getting moisture past the rubber gasket whilst in my pocket for the entire 2 months I'd owned it.
At this point, Samsung can go and boil their bums. I had been a militant supporter of their Galaxy Active lineup, simply unable to understand why anyone would choose their regular lineup when the Active line existed. Once they dropped the Active I had to look elsewhere, but I was over the moon to see that they had done an xcover device that wasn't completely and utterly under powered so I caved. Fool me once... they're dead to me, and so is the possibility of me owning a 'normal' phone. It's just not going to work for me.
After drying my tears I set about scouting out a new rugged phone that would meet all of my needs without pulling my pants down. I have also recently had to start doing koala spotting again, and even though we have a $2400 thermal scope available at my office, there is only 1. I can't carry it with me all the time in case somebody else needs it, and to be perfectly honest I've found it pretty inadequate once the sun rises. Once there's sunlight on the trees it's pretty much useless, and having to peer through a monocular makes it dangerous walking through the bush. The hardware specs of the scope are so low that it is ridiculously clunky to use, and it is endlessly refreshing the sensor. I wasn't happy with it, and I always had to drive back and get it, so the presence of a thermal camera on my everyday phone became appealing. Imagine my joy when I got home to find that pre-orders for the AGM G2 guardian were just about to start. BOLD claims in the promo literature, but I decided to roll the dice.
Initial impressions of the AGM G2 Guardian after 4 days:
I had some serious trepidation about this purchase. I know that AGM have been around for 14 years or so, and I have come really close to buying several of their devices over the years. The AGM X3 was right up my alley, but for $1000USD in 2019, it was a much easier choice to grab a second hand S8 Active for a few hundred bucks.
The purchase experience through AGM's official eBay store felt sketchy. They shipped me an AU power adapter on the day I pre-ordered, marking the device as shipped. Once the adapter was delivered my buyer protection started counting down. Honestly, in spite of their constant assurances I felt like I was about to get scammed especially since I got it for such a comparatively low price as a pre-order.
I was also nervous about the price I had paid for a rugged phone made in Shenzen. Even though AGM have always positioned themselves as the premium offering in this space, often choosing absolute top of the line Snapdragon SOC's rather than poxy mediatek chips, and having a European design team for their entire range it still seemed like an awful lot of money given the competition.
As soon as I held the G2 Guardian in my hands the reason for the additional price tag compared with the competition became obvious. Even before I turned it on this thing felt TIGHT. Not a rattle in sight, and whilst the 400 grams is still very heavy for a phone, it carries the weight well and manages to feel extremely high quality, reliable and a little bit sexy all at the same time. I'm not sure how to describe this, because it's only 98 grams lighter than my Power Armor was, but I barely notice this thing in my pocket. It feels great to hold and even though I acknowledge that I am part of a very small and very weird group of customers...I think it looks cool as hell and the ergonomics are great. Everything is where you want it to be including the fingerprint sensor. Every time I pull it out of my pocket, I get that nugget feeling. It feels built to last and extremely high quality.
Once I powered it up and started going through the setup process I really started smiling. The first thing that really brought home that nugget feeling was the quality of the haptic feedback. I assume a decent quality motor combined with just how solid the body of the device is has given a fairly nice result here.
Overall an absolute 10/10 for satisfaction on the physical characteristics of this device.
Chipset
Qualcomm QCM 6490 industrial processor.
2.7Ghz, 8 cores, 6nm process. 5G, Wifi6/6E. 8 or 12GB ram.
There's not much to say here. This thing absolutely flies, and sips battery whilst it's doing it. It's faster than the competing 778G by a decent margin and has far better multithreaded performance. It also destroys even the best Mediatek Dimensity chipsets in competing rugged phones clocking in at just under 600,000 Antutu score in V9. No, it's not as fast as a snapdragon 8 Gen1, but it also won't get overly hot or need a purpose built animation to see your battery empty whilst playing games or doing demanding processing.
Display
120hz refresh rate (though I have to assume it is adaptive given the battery life and lack of manual setup options) and a very tasty 2408x1080 400ppi results in a fast, flowy and vibrant display. Let me be clear, this absolutely bashes the pants off my previous 2 phones, but I have to assume it wouldn't be in the ballpark of the latest S23 or anything like that in terms of image quality. The 120hz display is a massive bonus here, and a great implementation. I've never seen this thing lag or skip. It's a really rewarding user experience that looks and feels great and is always buttery smooth. AGM have not provided customisation options here. There's no ability to lock it to 60hz or change the resolution. Ordinarily I wouldn't be happy with this, but given the battery life and quality of experience it seems like they've dialed it in exactly where it needs to be.
Cameras
The main camera is a 108mp Samsung lens. Obviously this lens is extremely capable of taking good photos. Plenty of depth and colour, and it is extremely fast. Unfortunately the combination of a lack of image stabilization and a very basic camera app implementation lead to a lot of dud photos unless you get lucky with the natural lighting conditions being absolutely perfect. I find myself having to take 5 or 6 photos of the same scene or subject to guarantee 1 good shot. It is really reliable up-close on stationary objects, and in this use-case it seems to thrive, producing consistently good images.
There is work to do here for AGM. At present, this high-quality and perfectly capable lens is going to waste a lot of the time because the camera app is so basic. You can tell that the hardware is infinitely capable, but it is absolutely screaming for a port of GCAM or a LOT of development on their in-house app. I don't think it even has HDR at present and configuration options are extremely limited.
Front camera is a 32mp unit that provides a really smooth video calling experience, quality is good. Not sure how good it is at selfies because selfies are for children.
There's also a 20MP Sony night-vision camera. This works well, and I believe it is activated by choosing 'infrared detect' in the camera app and probably plays some role in the thermal function I guess (?).
Finally, the last 'normal' camera is a 2MP Macro Camera. This works really well for Macro shots but I have to wonder what kind of insanity led to the inclusion of a macro lens rather than a decent wide-angle sensor in an outdoor focused device. 90% of my photos on my last few phones have been taken with the wide-angle sensor and it is going to take some serious getting used to not having one. Obviously I knew this before purchase, but I miss my wide-angle lenses already.
Thermal Module
Here is the big daddy, and obviously the focal point of this device. A 10mm lens paired with 256x192 thermal image resolution and 25hz video resolution.
AGM have knocked this out of the park. With zero exaggeration, this is the best thermal scope I have ever used. I have used devices with higher thermal detector resolution (384 x 288), but even in devices that cost over $2200AUD, these sensors are paired with absolute garbage processing power. This leaves you with a really clunky user experience. These specialist devices are also often plagued with really terrible battery life, and having to hold it up to your eye is downright dangerous given the understory you are more than likely walking through if you have a use for such a device.
Combining a decent sensor and a 10mm lens with the very respectable hardware at the heart of the G2 Guardian eliminates all of the problems inherent to a standalone thermal monocular. They say the best camera is the one you have with you, and this applies double to thermal scopes. To ALWAYS have this thing available in my pocket is a massive advantage.
Thermal Range (Detection Range VS Recognition Range) and performance
I was pretty dubious of the claims made by AGM here. Well, I was wrong. At night, there is a very comfortable recognition range of around 100 to 200 metres depending on the size of the animal, and a detection range (how far out you can actually identify a heat signature is present) well over 500 metres, again, depending on the size of the object.
The thermal app interface is fast and responsive, and there is an entire galaxy of configuration options including the ability to set up your own custom thermal ribbon colour modes to suit your use. The timelapse function will be awesome for monitoring wildlife, and the analysis tools are crazy good. Both auto-focus and manual focus modes are brilliant, and I find myself wishing they had put a similar amount of effort into the main camera app.
Temperature measurement range is disappointing in the Guardian variant which I believe is only capable of 0C to 150C with accuracy. I believe this was a necessary compromise to allow such an amazing long range thermal camera experience. The G2 Pro variant does not have such impressive long-range thermal capability, but has accurate temperature measurement between -20C to 550C. This was an easy choice for me, it's far more useful for me to be able to detect an animal or heat signature at long range, than to tell the exact temperature of that object up close.
I have had a FLIR sensor previously on the very first CAT phone, and it was not even in the same universe of what the G2 Guardian is capable of. Hands down, this is the best bit of thermal gear I've ever used and I have access to several very expensive standalone units - the implementation on the G2 Guardian is genuinely impressive. They have made the jump from what is a cool gimmick on most phones, to a genuine work or hunting tool. I am blown away here.
The most impressive feature of the thermal experience is how well it works in daylight conditions. Many extremely expensive scopes are completely useless in daylight. As soon as sunlight starts to hit tree trunks, it's time to give up and go home. I'm not exactly sure how AGM have overcome this challenge, and obviously it will always work better at night or in the early morning, but even at 10am in full sun I have been able to ID animals very easily.
Firmware and customization potential
The Android implementation here is completely and utterly bloat free. The only non-google apps AGM have installed is their camera app, their thermal camera app and the AGM service app, where you can input the particulars of your device and purchase date, and submit a help or service request. There is also a third party launcher, but I never touched it - I installed Lynx launcher from my google backup before I even made it to the homescreen...i know what I like at this point.
The remainder of the UI experience is practically untouched, sharing most similarities to the latest Pixel devices including some of the fancier features including the ability to screenshot beyond the current display area of a web site, the juicy larger sized quick settings menu, extra dim mode, bedtime routines etc etc. There are extra settings menus present for the user defined key (though very basic, can't even set a vibration
I have to commend AGM here for providing such a beautiful stock android experience and not going ham with some janky over zealous skin.
Whilst I have not unlocked the bootloader or rooted this device, I have verified that flicking the OEM Unlocking switch in developer options does have the desired result, and that you are able to gain access to the bootloader via ADB reboot bootloader. This is good news for the future, with many devices from mainstream manufacturers now shipping without even the ability to access the bootloader.
It seems like there is potential here, but at present I do not have a reason to proceed any further down this path. Time will tell how well AGM support these devices long term with incremental updates but so far all they have promised is that they will provide regular Android security updates, and that their camera and thermal apps will be developed on an ongoing basis. I would not be surprised if we never see Android 13 or 14 here, but I could be wrong.
It would be a massive roll of the dice to flash a GSI or custom rom here given the amount of device specific, niche hardware. In all likelyhood, unless AGM decide to expend the resources to support this type of development in-house (and why would they?), any attempt to install a non-factory rom will result in the loss of your thermal camera, infrared camera and probably the sick flashlight as well.
At some point in the future I may attempt to root this phone but for now most of the reasons I have for doing so have already been solved in-house.
The battery optimisation and power management is absolutely killer and unobtrusive, giving an outstanding result for daily use. All of the bluetooth codecs you could possibly want are there including APT-X, APT-X HD, LDAC, AAC - so i've no need to force these in via magisk modules.
Activating the amazingly handy 100 lumen flashlight on the top of the phone via hardware key on the side is a default feature...this is one of the big reasons I usually root my phones. If they would add haptic feedback when it's activated, I'm happy and probably won't root at all.
Connectivity
3G and 4G signal reception on this device is better than anything I've owned previously. I was sweating bullets about VoLTE and VoWifi working on this out of the box because I have been completely reliant on wifi calling at home on all my other phones, which generally only manage 1 bar of cellular signal at best.
The great news is that VoLTE and VoWifi did work immediately out of the box, but given that I now have consistently better coverage with the G2 I'm less reliant on it. When it does kick in, it seems to do so seamlessly. All I could really ask for here is clear visible delineation between Wifi calls and HD voice/ VoLTE calls.
Wifi reception is also very good with very little degradation even at considerable distance from my router. Unfortunately I do not have access to 5G or Wifi6 to truly test it. On the previous 5ghz wifi standard it is easily able to hand me the full capacity of my starlink connection. Overall I feel like they really prioritized antenna location and design in this device. All of the other features are cool, but first and foremost this is a GREAT phone.
Tiny touches
AGM G2 Guardian is one of those cases where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I assumed the 3.5watt speaker on the rear would be a gimmick...wow. This little speaker is worth its bulge. It's loud, clear and gives even the simple act of unlocking the device some serious presence. For podcast listening when I'm out in the shed or out in the bush and don't want to risk headphones masking the early warning signs of any slithery surprises it is absolutely fantastic. For music, I own several small bluetooth speakers that do not have this quality or volume. They have tuned the output in such a way that even at max volume there is no distortion, it's just loud and clear. I thought being on the rear of the device would be a disadvantage but they've overcome this with pure power.
The torch is one of my favourite features. I'm a total torch nerd but this is one less thing that I have to worry about having on my person, and the output is more than enough for most simple tasks at night. To have this with me at all times is a huge boon, and it is a million times better than even the brightest LED flash style flashlight on most phones, and emits from the top so is much more usable.
Bluetooth implementation here is INCREDIBLE. Stability of all bluetooth codecs has been fantastic, with no skipping and fantastic range. Even on my tiny earbuds, I am able to walk to the other end of my house with no skips or disconnects. This is about 25 metres. For comparison, my xcover 6 pro would constantly skip just from facing the wrong way in my pocket, and would give me about 10 metres unobstructed in the house. That's some serious power from the AGM, and decent thought put in to location of the antennas.
Best of all, when connecting any bluetooth audio device, a quick popup appears to inform you which codec is active! This is such a great little touch that saves me jumping through 3 layers of developer options to ensure that I am actually using the codec I want when my headphones connect.
A labour of love
In one of their recent long-form videos on youtube, an AGM representative claims the Bill of Materials cost for parts and labour to bring the G2 Guardian to completion is $740USD owing mainly to the expense of the thermal module.
If this is true, this leaves AGM with a very slim profit margin on this device. It seems their motivation here is purely to grow their brand, get more AGM devices into the hands of users in this small segment of the market and really make a great device to be proud of. You can feel it.
If you have ever considered a rugged device, or are sick of destroying your expensive mainstream ones this may well be the halo product you have been waiting for. The attention to detail here is hard to put into words until you've used one for a few days.
Concerns
-Even the large RAM X-Grip can only just hold this device in a vehicle owing to the bulge on the rear. It is secure in there, but only just. If AGM were to release a purpose built vehicle mount for these, I'd absolutely buy one.
-AGM Specs on their website still claim 10W wireless charging even now. It appears that either A) this is a lie B) it uses some non-standard wireless charging standard or C) They are claiming their dock accessory as wireless charging which I suppose would technically be true...but I have not yet received my dock and seems a bit disingenuous
It turns out there is wireless charging present, it's just very difficult getting it to pick up given the shape of the rear and the thickness of the case. Presently charging at 10W after some very careful balancing. I eagerly await the charging dock!
-Thermal module is fairly exposed and picks up every smudge imagineable. This does not impact use, and I do not have any scratches yet. AGM claim hardness of this glass is very high, but I can't think of a way to protect this lens when it is not in use.
-Main camera software needs some help. As detailed previously, you can get great photos out of this hardware combo, but it doesn't happen often enough. Maybe the in-house team can pull something together, but I can't help but think it would be a better outcome to get a port of GCAM running well, and enjoy all of the software processing and HDR trickery that comes with it. I may start having a mess around here myself.
That's about it. 99% of people won't read my wall of text, but for those seriously considering this purchase I hope this goes some way to helping you make your decision.
I have used rugged devices from every major player in this space. This is by far the best experience I've had with any of them. This phone absolutely slaps.
Camera samples attached with some compression from google photos.
Daylight closeup outdoors under cover
Daylight outdoors closeup subject
Daylight indoors close-up
Daylight sneaking distance, medium size eastern grey kangaroo
Outdoors 9am daylight photography sample
Night. Termite mound in foreground. Cow approx 60m away
Night. Small kangaroo @ 70-75m
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Alright I'm off to the races.
Shamim's Gcam port opens and appears to take photos, doesn't lag. It's night here right now, but this is where I will be starting my customisation journey.
Shamim: SGCAM_8.7.250.XX.44_STABLE_V4FIX
Download SGCAM_8.7.250.XX.44_STABLE_V4FIX by Shamim.
www.celsoazevedo.com
Have you got the gcam port working? And if so how is image quality?
davecotefilm said:
Have you got the gcam port working? And if so how is image quality?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it's working and very stable with both main camera and front camera stills + video all good.
Image quality is great but I need to figure out how to make a config file for this device, never done one before. HDR is a little too extreme on both HDR modes.
I'll put a couple of comparison images together over the weekend. That link I posted is a great base to start building from, and stability seems to be zero issues so this is already a win.
I did some up-close shots and GCAM really made them pop. Landscape stuff looking a little alien with HDR effect at present.
Anyone got a good resource for getting started with GCAM config? Seems like the hardware is fully compatible with this build so shouldn't be too many barriers.
Okay yes I'm thinking this will be my next phone :-D Just need price to drop a bit!
bandario said:
Yes it's working and very stable with both main camera and front camera stills + video all good.
Image quality is great but I need to figure out how to make a config file for this device, never done one before. HDR is a little too extreme on both HDR modes.
I'll put a couple of comparison images together over the weekend. That link I posted is a great base to start building from, and stability seems to be zero issues so this is already a win.
I did some up-close shots and GCAM really made them pop. Landscape stuff looking a little alien with HDR effect at present.
Anyone got a good resource for getting started with GCAM config? Seems like the hardware is fully compatible with this build so shouldn't be too many barriers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try to get into the configs, but does gcam give it any image stabilization?
bandario said:
Yes it's working and very stable with both main camera and front camera stills + video all good.
Image quality is great but I need to figure out how to make a config file for this device, never done one before. HDR is a little too extreme on both HDR modes.
I'll put a couple of comparison images together over the weekend. That link I posted is a great base to start building from, and stability seems to be zero issues so this is already a win.
I did some up-close shots and GCAM really made them pop. Landscape stuff looking a little alien with HDR effect at present.
Anyone got a good resource for getting started with GCAM config? Seems like the hardware is fully compatible with this build so shouldn't be too many barriers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay awesome, I'll get it as my next device and follow this thread I suggest contacting the dev from the gcam link, he can help with configs if he can ask you for files etc. Then once built just attach the apk here!
I installed "SGCAM_8.7.250.XX.44_STABLE_V5_ENG_PACKAGE" on G2 Guardian and it is working fine on the main camera and the front camera and has software based image stabilization option. However, I don't see any option for Night vision and macro cameras. May be proper config is required.
bandario said:
Yes it's working and very stable with both main camera and front camera stills + video all good.
Image quality is great but I need to figure out how to make a config file for this device, never done one before. HDR is a little too extreme on both HDR modes.
I'll put a couple of comparison images together over the weekend. That link I posted is a great base to start building from, and stability seems to be zero issues so this is already a win.
I did some up-close shots and GCAM really made them pop. Landscape stuff looking a little alien with HDR effect at present.
Anyone got a good resource for getting started with GCAM config? Seems like the hardware is fully compatible with this build so shouldn't be too many barriers.
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Thank you for the review and mentioning of GCAM software. I installed it and It has many more options then the stock AGM G2 Guardian app. Thanks
vicki20july said:
I installed "SGCAM_8.7.250.XX.44_STABLE_V5_ENG_PACKAGE" on G2 Guardian and it is working fine on the main camera and the front camera and has software based image stabilization option. However, I don't see any option for Night vision and macro cameras. May be proper config is required.
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You never will. It's a small miracle that it works out of the box with main and front cam for stills and video. To get any other lens involved would require huge input from AGM on a non-sanctioned project messing with google code. It won't happen. I'm just grateful they used standard enough hardware calls that we can build from a stable base on main cam.
davecotefilm said:
I'll try to get into the configs, but does gcam give it any image stabilization?
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Yes, AI image stabilisation standard to GCAM. To be honest I actively avoid phones with hardware OIS because vibrations when mounted to my motorbike kill the mechanism leaving me with a dead camera. I'm super happy to have GCAM fake OIS.
Thinks you for all this informations about agm guardian, I want to buy from ebay agm store, I want to ask you about zoom quality of the main camera? Can you post image and videos with zoom at least x8 or x10
samienemy said:
Thinks you for all this informations about agm guardian, I want to buy from ebay agm store, I want to ask you about zoom quality of the main camera? Can you post image and videos with zoom at least x8 or x10
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It does not have a telephoto lens. Max zoom is 8X and it looks as bad as you imagine. If this feature is important to you, buy something with a telephoto lens.
GCAM
AGM Stock CAM
It cost over 1200$ I will wait for less price
samienemy said:
It cost over 1200$ I will wait for less price
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$859USD on Ebay. AGM web shop is wild, changes price if you view it multiple times getting more expensive every time.
bandario said:
It does not have a telephoto lens. Max zoom is 8X and it looks as bad as you imagine. If this feature is important to you, buy something with a telephoto len
bandario said:
It does not have a telephoto lens. Max zoom is 8X and it looks as bad as you imagine. If this feature is important to you, buy something with a telephoto lens.
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There is an option in SGCAM to increase zoom capability. I am able to get it working up to around 35x
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To what end? At 8X it already looks like a psychedelic cartoon.