Chinese smartphones - user experiences?

[scjgreen]

Huawei P9 for me.... Fantastic Camera and awesome Specs for the Money.

Somebody mentioned the Customisation and Skinning that Huawei add over the top of Android but if you don't like it just install a different Launcher!

[Efbe]

good timing for this thread.
I was looking at buying one of these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01G5H4LZQ/ref=noref?_...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluboo-Picasso%C2%A0-%C2%...

anyone tried them?

[anonymous-user]

i paid 200 quid new for my g7, an apple was about £550 at the time, the phone is not half as bad to justify price difference.
Lovely aluminium back and dropped loads of times, some face down onto gravel.

yes the bloatware is crap and no support past 4.1 but i have sideloaded 5.1 and added new life. When it dies will get another Huawei or Chinese phone.

[anonymous-user]

The Vodafone branded phones get good reviews. Buy from high St store & you also have a guarantee worth having..

[J4CKO]

Just ordered a Oneplus 3 for the missus, will report back.

[MrTom]

I have had a Elephone p8000 for ~12 months. I usually keep phones for 2-3 years but do not see this being kept on for another year and will most likely go back to a Nexus on vanilla android or something with CyangenMod support.

+
Awesome battery
Great hardware spec
Cheap £100
Very fast and no lag

-
Light bleed through on LCD
Headphone jack broke into 6th week of ownership
Notification LED is only a single colour
Camera is of average quality
Custom ROM essential as the standard ROM is cack
If the battery drains completely the phone will not boot back up even if recharged. You have to completely re-flash android OS (happened twice now)
GPS accuracy is not great, if A-GPS is off, it's hopeless.
Phone reception seems to be worse compared with my works windows phone on same network.

[Silver940]

That UNI Super looks a nice phone. What are OS updates like for these phones? I'm guessing once you've bought it that's it?

[l354uge]

Had my Xaiomi Redmi note 3 pro for a week now and I can't fault it.

Flashed cyangoenmod on it as the MIUI Rom it comes with is just far too heavy, it looks and runs real nice but it rips through battery like nobody's business.

On cyangoenmod it runs super smooth and I can get two days from a full battery.
Screen is lovely and the build of the phone is really good, honestly even against £600+ phones it stands up well.

Only issue so far is the loudspeaker is on the back and is tinny, but that's what Bluetooth speakers are for.

Amazing what you can get for £110

[Chris Type R]

Bought a Motorola Moto G4 16GB a few weeks ago for the missus & she seems very pleased with it. £160 at the time, but I'm sure they can be had for less now. The only thing I thought that might put one off is the fact that the screen is reasonably large.

[ZesPak]

Chris Type R said:

Bought a Motorola Moto G4 16GB a few weeks ago for the missus & she seems very pleased with it. £160 at the time, but I'm sure they can be had for less now. The only thing I thought that might put one off is the fact that the screen is reasonably large.

5X is a similar price if you're looking for a good handset with a bit smaller screen (mind you, I didn't say "small").

[FurryExocet]

I'm sure there was a big thread on here about them.

I've got an Elephone p9000, excellent phone, really crap software, which development over on XDA is making better.
Still have it in the drawer, waiting for a decent rom.

Currently using a second hand OnePlus2 which is awesome. Running CM13 at the moment and just downloaded CM14 to give a try.

Read loads of reviews on the phone you are interested in, don't buy purely on specifications, as sometimes the software ruins the phone.

A OnePlus3 will probably be my next phone

Have a read through this thread on AVforums


https://www.avforums.com/threads/for-those-of-you-...

Edited by FurryExocet on Saturday 1st October 21:10

[J4CKO]

Initial impressions of the one plus three are good, well made, fast, nice screen

[ChemicalChaos]

Depends how good a Chinese phone you go for I guess...

https://youtu.be/piubvIL_IGE

[BuzzBravado]

airsafari87 said:

My GF is a massive geek and as a rule always buys the best technology that she can afford.

Her last phone though has been a Xiaomi Mi Phone (i can't recall which model) She payed a little over £100 for it and 6 months down the line it has been absolutely faultless. As good as any Sony / Samsung / Iphone.

A few of the IT staff at my work have Mi's. They look and feel a lot better than the price. They seem as happy with them as they would a premium phone.

[dudleybloke]

My bro has had a UMI Max for a week now and its great, even managed to impress an iPhone 7 user.

[durbster]

Has the OnePlus 3 price changed?

It was originally £329 then I'm sure when I looked a few weeks back it had gone up to £379 (presumably because of Brexit).

It looks like it's back down to £329 now.

[dudleybloke]

If you're thinking about spending @£300 or more then I would get the Lenovo ZUK Z2 Pro.

Its got an impressive 6gb RAM.

https://www.chinavasion.com/china/wholesale/Androi...

[leglessAlex]

durbster said:

Has the OnePlus 3 price changed?

It was originally £329 then I'm sure when I looked a few weeks back it had gone up to £379 (presumably because of Brexit).

It looks like it's back down to £329 now.

I don't think so, I ordered mine for £309 the day the Brexit results were announced and then it went up to £329 about a week after that. I don't think it was ever as high as £379!

[durbster]

dudleybloke said:

If you're thinking about spending @£300 or more then I would get the Lenovo ZUK Z2 Pro.

Its got an impressive 6gb RAM.

https://www.chinavasion.com/china/wholesale/Androi...

Interesting but I can't find many reviews with a quick look. I'll have a proper search later.

leglessAlex said:

I don't think so, I ordered mine for £309 the day the Brexit results were announced and then it went up to £329 about a week after that. I don't think it was ever as high as £379!

Ah, that must be what I'm thinking of, thanks.

[untakenname]

This seems the best bang for buck for under $150 atm, Mi4 3GB of ram though for some reason it says android 4.4 which is odd as you can get a 6.0 OTA update
http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_368084.html