Placement

Jawbone, unlike both Fitbit and Misfit, a very streamlined product range. With just two products to compete at their own markets, Jawbone has eliminated the chances of cannibalisation from it’s cheaper devices, since the price gap between the cheaper Up Move and the premium Up 3 is so large. The Up 3, therefore, is the most expensive tracker you can buy from Jawbone, one of two trackers. This means that it competes with the Fitbit Ionic, and the Misfit Vapor, both of which have large displays, and can act in a limited capability as smartwatches. However, unlike the smartwatches from Fitbit and Misfit, the Jawbone Up 3 has an extremely long 7 days of battery life. Oddly, the Jawbone Up Move, the cheaper device, actually has LEDs which can show you your progress towards your goals, as well as tell the time, much like the Misfit Shine.

The fact that the Up Move can tell the time and display limited info on your goal shows that Jawbone intended the Up 3 and Up Move to be bought by completely different people. While the Up Move lacks a heart rate sensor, it’s much cheaper, and it’s design is nowhere near as slick as the Up 3’s. This means that the Up 3 is very much a everyday wear fashion device, as well as a fitness tracker, and the Up Move is more for runners and the like. This distinction between the two trackers further reduces the risk of cannibalisation, even though they perform very similar functions.

Design

The Jawbone Up 3 is one of the best looking trackers on the market today. Like the Misfit Shine, it’s has a minimalistic look, but also shows a bit of flair. For instance, the Jawbone Up 3 has a patterned top, with a total of two different patterns adorning the six different colour options. As mentioned earlier, the Jawbone Up 3 completely lacks a screen, or any form of communication from it and you. This means that it blends in perfectly as a bangle, without any distractions, such as a constantly flashing LED’s or a screen. The downside is that if you own one of these, and want to wear a watch, you’ll end up wearing two things on your wrist. In addition, the fact that it’s a bangle means that it doesn’t have the capability to transform into a clip, and there’s nearly no customisation options.

It seems, then, that the Jawbone Up 3 is a fashion device. No screen, no always-on LED’s and inklings that it might be a smart device – it’s nearly identical to a normal bangle, aside from the fact that it has a thick part at the top. On the inside of the band, you’ll see four metal prongs that look a bit like cosmetic bling. However, they’re actually the heart rate sensors, which work by measuring the current through your skin. This differs from that of the Apple Watch and many other trackers, which use a green light and light sensitive photodiodes to find your heart rate. Overall, the Jawbone Up 3 is a great looking device, albeit one with a serious lack of customisation options and functionality. Between the design of the Jawbone Up 3 and the similarly priced Fitbit Ionic, I’d choose the Fitbit Ionic for it’s increased utility.

Features

The Jawbone Up 3 is at a serious lack of features. Usually, companies like Microsoft, try to cram in as many sensors and capabilities into their fitness trackers as possible. The Jawbone Up 3 goes the opposite way. It has a total of three functions from it’s sensors, which is your activity, your sleeping habits, and your heart rate. That’s it. Compare that with the Fitbit Ionic which does all three, as well as act as a pseudo-smartwatch which can show you your notifications, as well as tell the time. In fact, the Jawbone Up 3 has less features than it’s cheaper cousin, the Jawbone Up Move, which has the capability to show your progress throughout the day, as well as tell the time. It’s deeply disappointing that Jawbone’s premium Up 3 doesn’t have any capability to communicate to you whatsoever, except through the smartphone app.

Of course, it could be argued that the nature of the Jawbone Up 3 is that it is supposed to be as seamless as possible, and that giving it displays would decrease it’s stealthiness as a concealed tracker. However, the high price tag and lack of features simply don’t match up, even if it does boast a 7 day battery life and is beautifully designed. In fact, I’d argue that the Misfit Shine is better feature-wise, and that is only $20.

Tracking and the App

What the Jawbone Up 3 lacks in breadth it makes up for in it’s tracking, and it’s brilliant app. The Jawbone Up 3 is able to show you your steps, as well as your calories burned. It’s also able to track and recognise a wide variety of different sports, like tennis and running. This works well, and it’s nice to see how many calories you burned in a specific period. The Jawbone Up 3 also supports sleep tracking, using it’s accelerometer and heart rate sensor to determine when you’re sleeping and when you’re not as well as other metrics. Aside from that, there’s not much else that the Jawbone Up 3 does, but what it does do, it does well. Overall, I found the tracking to be excellent, and it definitely does it’s job well.

The Jawbone app is equally as good, with a starting screen which is both easy to understand and informative. It’s also quite encouraging, with healthy competition between you and your friends, as long as they also have Jawbone devices. Dig a little deeper in the app, and you get a plethora of different metrics, with calorie burn categorized into Resting and Active burn. You also get info on your sleep, with details on your Awake time, your Light Sleep, as well as your REM and Deep sleep. Everything is handily displayed on colourful graphs that really make you strive for better, much like the rings on Misfit’s app. From a design standpoint, Misfit still edges out the Up in terms of design – the Up app can feel a little too colourful and bright sometimes, with the Misfit’s UI more sophisticated.

Battery Life

Without a screen, the Jawbone Up 3 has an extremely long battery life. It manages to squeeze out 7 full days of battery life out of it’s tiny battery, which charges in just 60 minutes. In practice, this can go down to about five days, if you use the smart alarm feature, which buzzes you to wake up at the right time, according to your sleeping patterns.

While 7 days is impressive for a tracker, it’s not astonishing at all, considering it doesn’t have a screen, and many Fitbit devices have similar battery life with a small screen, like the Fitbit Charge HR with it’s bright OLED display. Charging the device, like many other small fitness trackers, is a bit fiddly. You have to clip the charger on the inside of the band, which is tiny. In addition, the cable is extremely short, with only a small LED to let you know you connected it correctly.

Extra Features

The Jawbone Up 3 doesn’t have a lot of features, and that extends to any extra features. The Jawbone Up 3 was originally touted as being fully waterproof, but problems with Jawbone’s production meant that in the end, they had to settle for water resistant, which is nowhere near the same level of protection. This means that you can’t track your swimming, and potentially even your jogs, if you like jogging or walking in torrential rain. Water resistance is standard on almost all trackers, so it’s no surprise that the jawbone Up 3 is at least somewhat water resistant. Overall, the Jawbone Up 3 doesn’t have a lot of extra features – like the sorely absent waterproofing.

Customisation Options

The Jawbone Up 3 doesn’t have any customisation options at all. While it’s unfortunate that you aren’t able to bling up the Up 3, it also means that you won’t have to spend any extra money. In addition, the Jawbone Up 3 is already a relatively sleek device, so the look fits in with almost any attire, thanks to it’s sophisticated yet simple look. Unfortunately, this also means that you can’t change the color at all, so you’ll have to make your decision between the six colors at the time of purchase. Previously, you could buy custom bands for the Jawbone Up, but since the heart rate sensors are built into the band, everything is now one piece. This is bad news if you want to change the color, and even worse news if the band breaks.

Comfort

The Jawbone Up 3 is reasonably comfortable with the band being soft and comfy, except for the heart rate prongs, which dig into your skin. This can’t be avoided, either, as the band must be worn tightly in order to achieve an accurate heart rate measurement.

Value For Money

The Up 3 doesn’t represent the best value for money, unfortunately. It’s extremely limited in it’s function, without any capability whatsoever as a smartwatch, but it is an extremely robust and accurate tracker. It looks great, but it’s about the same price as a Fitbit Charge, and does about half as much. Still, the app is excellent and so is the tracking, so it isn’t the worst value for money you could find. If you’re looking for the biggest bang for your buck, go for the Misfit Shine, a $20 pocket rocket.

Conclusion

The Jawbone Up 3 isn’t the best tracker around, nor the best smartwatch, nor the best value for money. However, what it does excel in is it’s ability to completely blend in with any clothing, and look inconspicuous as ever, whether in formal attire or sports clothes. It’s design is timeless, and it’s not intrusive, making it the ideal tracker for someone who doesn’t want to tell everyone they have a tracker.

The post Jawbone UP 3 Review appeared first on Gazette Review.

Design

First things first, it’s still a bit of a behemoth, but it has a nicely curved screen, which conforms better to your wrist than the first Microsoft Band (2014). It also has the added bonus of being a little more pleasing to the eye, with a design similar to that of the Samsung Gear Fit. It still retains it’s rectangular display, with the time going horizontally, but the design has a little bit of extra flair compared to the original Microsoft Band. For starters, the display is curved, but there’s metal on both the timepiece and the clasp, which give it a more sophisticated look. This contrasts with the original Microsoft Band, which featured an almost toy-like design. Overall, the design of the Microsoft Band 2 is great, and it’s viable to use as a watch/timepiece, as opposed to strictly being a fitness device.

Placement

Usually, when I review a fitness device, I’ll talk about the placement within the ecosystem of it’s companies lineup. However, the Microsoft Band 2 is the only fitness tracker that Microsoft currently offers. At it’s sky0-high $250 price tag, I would say that it’s a flagship device, like the Fitbit Alta HR or Charge 2. It’s not in the same class as the Fitbit Blaze or Ionic though, since it has a dissimilar form factor and doesn’t market itself as a watch, more a fitness tracker. However, it has even more sensors than the Fitbit Alta HR, so if you want maximum data from one device, the Microsoft Band 2 is even better than the top end of other devices on the market. The trade-off here is that it’s a more focused device than other trackers – it’s bulkier and heavier, and doesn’t have as many other features.

Features

As mentioned before, the feature-set of the Microsoft Band 2 is heavily fitness focused. That’s evident in the sheer number of sensor that Microsoft has packed into the device:

– Optical heart rate sensor
– 3 axis accelerometer/gyro
– Gyrometer
– GPS
– Ambient light sensor
– Skin temperature sensor
– UV sensor
– Capacitive sensor
– Galvanic skin response
– Microphone
– Barometer

That’s an impressive number of sensors, and it’s utility is shown in the depth of insight you can get from the Microsoft Health app. The standout sensors here are the GPS and the heart rate sensor – things which many smart watches lack. If you want a GPS on your Apple Watch, for instance, you’ll need to shell out for the Series 2 or even Series 3 versions, which are supremely expensive. The GPS is great for tracking your runs or walks, but Microsoft states that “Advanced functionality like GPS use will impact battery performance.

Aside from the sensors, the Microsoft Band 2 also sports some other features too. Although it seems like an afterthought, the Microsoft Band 2 actually has a few smartwatch-like features. For instance, you’re able to read notifications, check your calendar, or even email on your wrist. However, because of the awkward screen orientation, you’ll need to rotate your wrist to do so. What’s great about this smartwatch-like functionality is that it can replace the smartwatch you’re currently wearing, so the high price tag can be justified by the fact that it’s a timepiece, A smartwatch of sorts, and an amazing fitness tracker all in one. It’s important to note, though, that you can’t install any third party apps on the Microsoft Band, unlike many smartwatches where you can, like the Apple Watch. If you’re looking for a fully fledged smartwatch, this isn’t the one.

Tracking And The App

The Microsoft Band 2 works with the Microsoft Health App, which is available for the three largest phone platforms – iOS, Android, and even Windows 10 Mobile. To set up Microsoft Health, all you need to do is enter a few details about yourself, and then the Microsoft Band tracks everything automatically and flawlessly. Syncing is automatic, so until you want to view your data, it’s a fire-and-forget operation. From a UI perspective, the Microsoft Band 2 is a little odd, since it relies on the whole tile interface which Windows was bashed for in the days of Windows 8, but it actually works relatively well on the Band 2. The only thing is that it does look a little outdated, but functionality-wise, it’s excellent.

Still, as I mentioned before, the Band 2’s primary focus is the tracking, and it does that excellently. The tracking on the Microsoft Band 2 is precise, accurate, and easy. Everything is automatic, so the might of the plethora of sensors is unobtrusive, and is only noticeable once you open the app to check your stats. The GPS is a killer feature on the Microsoft Band 2, and although it’s not the most precise GPS, it’s passable, since the Band 2 is much smaller than any phone with a precise GPS. Even though it’s not the most precise, it’s more than useable for tracking your runs or walks, including data for distance and speed. Overall, it’s a great tracker, and the sheer number of sensors in the Microsoft Band 2 make it one of the most thorough trackers on the market.

Battery Life

The Microsoft Band 2 is similar to a smartwatch, in that it has a large OLED display, a hefty price tag, and, unfortunately, it also has pretty poor battery life – like many smartwatches on the market. In normal usage, it lasts around 1-2 days, which is the same as my Apple Watch, which runs a pretty hefty watch operating system. This is disappointing, as there aren’t any third party apps for the Microsoft Band 2, so Microsoft has every opportunity to perfect the optimisation for their battery life. They may have, but at the end of the day, the battery life is still not what I’d expect for a mere fitness tracker. However, this may be explained by the fact that it has an exceeding amount of sensors, which may be very power-hungry.

The OLED display doesn’t help either, since it’s fairly bright and large. It’s nice to have, but I think it’s an unnecessary addition for a fitness tracker, and it severely impedes on the battery life of the tracker. If you were thinking of charging the Microsoft Band 2 when you get to work, think again. The Microsoft Band 2 relies on a proprietary charger, so you can’t just use any old micro USB cable to charge it. This seems to be the trend across most smartwatches, but it’s especially annoying on the Microsoft Band 2, since the battery life isn’t so good. Overall, though the OLED screen is nice to have, it’s rather unnecessary and results in the battery life being sub-par.

Extra Features

Usually, trackers like this one have some sort of waterproofing feature, as well as dust resistance. However, the Microsoft Band is similar to early smartwatches in that it has next to no waterproofing features. It has “water resistance”, but it isn’t even rated, let alone being waterproof. The Microsoft Band 2’s “extra feature” could be that it can, in fact, behave like a watch, and in some aspects, a smartwatch. The live tiles, integrated into the UI, serve as mini-apps, which you can open to read information. For example, there’s Facebook Messenger tile, where you can see the last few lines of the last message you received, but there’s no downloadable tiles/apps other than that. This is the closest to a smartwatch app you’ll get on the Microsoft Band 2, and while it’s rudimentary and doesn’t have any room for customisation, it’s a handy feature.

As well as the “apps”/tiles on the Microsoft Band 2, you’re able to receive notifications on it. This is similar to notifications on almost any other tracker, in that it’s not nearly as comprehensive as it is on a fully fledged smartwatch. Still, it’s better than nothing, and keeps the Microsoft Band 2 in line with it’s Fitbit counterparts. Overall, the Microsoft Band 2 isn’t awash with extra features, but the smartwatch-ish features are useful, and provide some insight as to where we might lead with trackers. It seems that trackers are morphing into becoming fitness-oriented smartwatches, as opposed to standalone trackers.

Customisation Options

This is a real weak spot for the Microsoft Band 2. Normally, a fitness device will usually have a few customisation options, in the form of different bands, with varying levels of flashiness. The Microsoft Band 2? None. You get a black plastic elastomer band, and that’s it. There is absolutely no room for customisation, as the bottom clasp contains electronics as well. This is a huge problem, as plastic elastomer isn’t known for it’s beautiful wearing or it’s durability, and sure enough, users all around the world have reported that the un-reparable un-replaceable band starts to crack under minimal use. This is a huge problem, and I hope this problem is addressed as soon as possible, as it’s incredibly expensive, and a crack would almost certainly ruin the user experience.

Value For Money

The value for money for the Microsoft Band 2 depends on how you look at it, or how you use it. If you’re looking to use this mainly as a fitness tracker, this represents some of the best value for money around, since it has a huge amount of trackers which all work together to give you insights via the Microsoft Health app. Outside of that, using it as a watch, and a smartwatch, it fails to deliver, as it just isn’t set out to be a fully-fledged smartwatch. As a heavily fitness oriented smartwatch, it does well, and Microsoft seems to have priced this competitively compared to other fitness oriented smartwatches.

Wrap Up

The Microsoft Band 2 is a fantastic device. While it isn’t the best looking device, and it isn’t the most durable either, it’s a comfortable and very useful device, if you’re into fitness tracking. The fitness tracking is it’s main forte, and anything outside of it it struggles in, especially where it is trying to be a smartwatch. However, if you’re just in it for the tracking, and think it’d be nice to have notifications on it too, then the Microsoft Band 2 is nearly the perfect device. Overall, it’s a great fitness tracker and decent smartwatch, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to graduate from a cheaper Fitbit, or wants to up their tracking game.

The post Microsoft Band 2 Review appeared first on Gazette Review.

If there’s one area with my health I’m happy with, it’s the amount I track it. I have both an iPhone and an Apple watch, and with a slew of apps and Apple Health, I’m able to find out every last detail of my life. Step count, sleep, everything. But what if I didn’t have to buy (NZ) $2000 worth of hardware in order to track my step count and sleeping habits? The Misfit Flash is the answer to low-cost trackers from the likes of Jawbone and FitBit. Like the trackers offered by it’s competition, the Misfit Flash opts for a slightly unconventional design to add a feature that I’m sure is worth it. How does the Misfit Flash stack up against it’s competitors? Is it worth the cost? Find out in this review!

Placement

The Misfit Flash is placed right at the bottom of the range of trackers offered by Misfit. As of today, it’s currently sitting at around $15 USD, which far undercuts most of the competition. While it is the cheapest tracker, it still retains a lot of features, and has an astonishing 6 month battery life.

Design

As I just mentioned, the Misfit Flash looks a bit different to all the other trackers. Instead of being mostly pill shaped, the Misfit Flash has a rounded face, like a watch, except much slimmer. While this does mean that it looks odd to have it next to a normal watch, you most likely won’t need to. That’s because the Misfit Flash actually tells the time. This is a crucial feature missing from many other low cost trackers out there, and I think it’s one of the best features of the device. “Isn’t it supposed to be a tracker?” you might ask. Well, it *is* a great tracker, but the fact that it tells the time means that it can actually replace what’s currently sitting on your wrist right now, instead of having to bring yet another device with you out the door.

This feature does come with some caveats, but we’ll get to that later.Aesthetically, the misfit flash is a relatively good looking device. Though it doesn’t have a fancy AMOLED touchscreen display or a digital crown, it’s still decent looking. It’s simplicity really makes it not stand out on your wrist, which is great, as it isn’t a glamorous time-piece. Even though it’s pretty discreet, it could do with a bit of metal or at least silver coloured accentuation, as it’s all-plastic build makes it look ever so slightly like a slap wrist band. Still, thanks to it’s changeable bands, you can alter it’s look to match your style, though only the plain ones are discreet.

Features

As with any tracker, the Misfit Flash’s bread and butter is tracking your health statistics, whether that be steps, distance, or sleep. In addition to this, the Misfit Flash is able to tell the time. This is an awesome feature, as it means that it can (almost) fully replace your watch. There is one small caveat, and that is that it can only tell you the time to the nearest 5 minutes. The “display” on the Misfit Flash is circular array of 12 small LEDs, which light up according to the time. This means that it’s a fairly imprecise watch, but it should be good enough for those who don’t run on an ultra-tight schedule.

Since the Misfit Flash tracks steps, using calculations based on your stride length, it can also track the distance which you walked/ran on that day. It’s not as accurate as it would be on a GPS device, like the Apple Watch Series 3, but then again, it’s only around $15. On my iPhone, I’ve been using a third party app for tracking calories, but you can also track calories on Misfit’s own app. I’m going to include that as a feature of the Misfit Flash, since it’s advertised as a feature on Misfit’s website. Battery life is another feature that the Misfit Flash really succeeds in. While some may prefer to plug in every few days, the Misfit Flash uses a button cell that delivers up to 6 months of usage. That’s excellent battery life, considering you’ll be using LEDs to check the time.

Misfit apps and tracking

The Misfit Flash is an accurate tracker, which is to be expected for any tracker by a reputable company by now, so it is a given, but where it stands out is it’s utility with the apps that Misfit make. Most importantly, the Misfit Flash syncs with the iOS and Android Misfit apps, so you can access your important health data there. syncing is relatively easy, and stock-standard, but the presentation on Misfit is rather special. While it’s not as practical as the offerings by Fitbit, it’s one of the slickest looking fitness apps I’ve ever used, and it looks absolutely amazing.

However, the real standout feature of the Misfit Flash is it’s ability to be used as a clicker. For example, you can click the Misfit Flash to take a picture with the Misfit Link app, as well as use it as a clicker on a presentation. In addition, you can control your music, so there’s no need to take out your phone if you want to change the song. This ability to communicate back to the phone like that is amazing, and something I haven’t seen on any other trackers so far.

Waterproofing

The Misfit Flash is a button tracker, so you might expect it to have very good waterproofing. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case, as it’s only water resistant. This means that while you may be able to track your runs in the rain, you definitely won’t be able to track your swims. It’s a shame, but this sort of waterproofing is reserved for the more expensive trackers on the market, like the Apple Watch Series 3.

Value For Money

If you haven’t already guessed it, at $15, this is an absolute steal for what you get in return. A timepiece, a fitness tracker with sleep tracking, AND a programmable button all in one? Where can you find that elsewhere for just $15? Sure, it’s not the best looking device, and it isn’t exceedingly comfortable nor extremely feature rich, but at $15, it puts the rest of the market to shame. My favourite feature of the device would have to be the programmable button – something that I’d always wished my Fastfox tracker had. For $15, I’m fairly certain it can’t be beaten.

Conclusion

If you’re in the market for a fitness tracker/watch, and you don’t care about the precise time, the Fitbit Flash is a strong choice. It has good fitness tracking capabilities, and functions somewhat as a watch. It’s also a smartphone-connected button which you can use to change the slides at a presentation, control music, and take photos with. For $15, it represents some of the best value for money I’ve ever witnessed, and even though I already own an Apple Watch, I’m considering buying one for myself.

The post Misfit Flash Review appeared first on Gazette Review.

Design

This thing is tiny. It’s one of the smallest laptop’s I’ve ever seen, and while it doesn’t compare with tablets on thinness, it’s width and length are very compact. The exterior is made up entirely of magnesium, and although it doesn’t look like it in the pictures, it’s solid and feels like you’d expect magnesium to feel. The entire design is very reminiscent of the old MacBook Pro series, down to the hinge design. Perhaps it’s closest relative in terms of design would be the Xiaomi Notebook, as it really does look like a 7″ version of the Xiaomi Notebook. Flip open the display and you’ll find an interesting arrangement. Notably, there is no trackpad at all. None. Instead, you’ll have to settle with the annoying little knob that was once commonplace on the Ultra Mobile PC’s of yesteryear.

That little knob brings back not-so-fond memories, and I’m not looking forward to using it. It’s implementation isn’t bad, but it simply isn’t viable to use that little knob for precision input on a PC. In fact, the 7″ touchscreen does a better job for user input than the pathetic blue knob. From a purely aesthetic point of view, the blue colored keyboard and knob are a bit of an eyesore, and a giveaway that the device is “Chinese”. I’d much prefer it to be white or transparent like the Apple MacBook line, since it nearly mirrors every other aspect of the MacBook. Overall, the design is good, conventional in most places, but unconventional in the fact that it lacks a trackpad, and that it’s absolutely minuscule.

Build Quality

The GPD Pocket laptop is made entirely of aluminium, and as such, the build quality is excellent. It’s also well put together, so there aren’t any noticeable build quality issues. The keyboard and knob leave a lot to be desired, but they’re probably the best they could put in the device, considering the price and space constraints.

Display

The design is unconventional once you open the lid, and the screen is no exception. Instead of a uniform border, the GPD Pocket Laptop seems to squeeze a 16:10 7″ display in the space of a 16:9 tablet, leaving the left and right bezels larger than the top and bottom bezels. It looks weird and unconventional, but it’s actually a great move. The extra height makes the entire experience feel less cramped, which is essential, especially with menu bars and the like. The display itself is a high quality 7″ IPS display, with a resolution of 1920×1200. Again, the resolution of the display is unconventional, since it’s 16:10 instead of 16:9, but the extra pixels mean that it has more screen real estate, and it’s very detailed, at 323PPI. That puts it in the realm of Apple’s retina displays, which GPD calls “Retina Level”.

Resolution and size aside, the display is an IPS panel, so viewing angles are wide. It’s also a relatively bright display especially if you compare it to laptops as opposed to tablets. Though it’s the size of a tablet, it’s a true PC, so considering this, it’s an awesome display for the price and size. Many full sized Samsung laptops with 13″ displays are stuck with abysmal 1366×768 displays, which severely hinder their performance and appeal. Colors are vibrant and accurate, and blacks, although not truly black, are relatively dark. Overall, the display on the GPD is a stunner, and it’s one of the best displays I’ve seen on a laptop this cheap, especially considering the size.

Features

The GPD pocket laptop is exactly that, a laptop, so it doesn’t have many special features like you could expect a mobile phone to have. However, it’s special feature is the size of the laptop itself – it’s absolutely tiny. The fact that GPD is able to put laptop components into a device this small is staggering, and it really does provide the full PC experience in the size of a (very thick) 7 inch tablet. If you consider it a special feature, the GPD pocket laptop has a slew of different connectivity options, which is incredible for it’s size. There’s USB A, USB C, and even Micro HDMI, which is more than enough, and more ports than the much larger MacBook. Another useful feature is the touchscreen, which makes user input just slightly less cumbersome than using the terrible knob.

Connectivity

The GPD Pocket Laptop comes with a standard set of connectivity options, except for GPS, which I wouldn’t expect on any laptop. That includes Wifi and Bluetooth, and it’s large selection of ports make it a normal laptop in every area except for size. The full specifications for connectivity are as below:

– WiFi
– Bluetooth
– USB A x1
– USB C x1
– Micro HDMI x1
– 3.5mm headphone jack x1

Hardware

The GPD pocket laptop is tiny, and as such, it doesn’t have the most powerful specs. Even so, it doesn’t settle for netbook-style specs, and instead opts for some decent hardware. For example, there’s 8GB of LPDDR3 1600 RAM straight out of the box in it’s default configuration, so there’s no messing around with 4GB. It also comes with an ample amount of storage – 128GB, which should be enough for the average user. Where the GPD Pocket has to comprise is the processor. Since it’s fairly cheap, at $399, and now $499 and very small, GPD couldn’t possibly fit the extremely powerful and hot i5 and i7 processors in there. Instead, GPD has opted for the cheaper and slower Atom processors. While it’s disappointing, there really is no other good choice of chip for GPD other than the Atom. Perhaps the M3 chip would be ideal, but it’s more expensive.

The GPD Pocket Laptop, of course, has a battery, and a rather large one at that, at 7000mAh. With laptop-class hardware, I wouldn’t be surprised if the 7000mAh battery was depleted quickly, even with an Intel Atom chip inside, although the small 7″ display could save a fair amount of power. This rather large 7000mAh battery is charged through USB type C, which is quickly becoming the new standard for portable devices all across the board. The GPD Pocket Laptop supports fast charging at 5V/2.5A, but it’s not that fast compared to the speed at which phones are charged today. Overall, the GPD Pocket laptop doesn’t shine the brightness on raw power, but it’s not meant for power users, and it probably never will be. If you’re looking for a gaming computer or a workhorse, look elsewhere.

Operating System

Unlike many 7″ devices, the GPD Pocket Laptop runs full laptop software, and with that, a full desktop operating system. Instead of android or iOS, the GPD Pocket laptop runs Windows 10, with the usual keyboard and mouse interfaces. It’s a weird concept to have a 7″ device run Windows 10, but it seems to work well in the case of the GPD Pocket Laptop. At the dawn of ultra mobile PC’s, devices running windows were stuck with Windows 7 or the infamous Windows Vista, which weren’t optimised for small displays, and definitely not optimised for touch screens. With Windows 10, the interface runs smoothly, and I’m able to use a combination of the knob and the touchscreen to use the laptop. I’m pleased that they’ve chosen to include a full operating system (windows), instead of a mobile one, like Android.

With the advent of phone turned into desktops, like Samsung DEX, the GPD Pocket Laptop wouldn’t stand a chance, but the fact that it runs windows rather than android puts it a step in front of the convertible phones, like the Lumia and Samsung phones. Overall, the Operating system is the one we all know and love, and it’s left mostly untouched. It’s exactly what you’d want on a laptop and it’s exactly what they’ve given to you in their laptop.

Performance

The GPD Pocket laptop doesn’t have the most powerful specs in the world, but it’s Atom processor is no slouch. Combined with the ample 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and you get a computer which can run perfectly fine for every day use. In the mobile world, the Atom processor is up there with the Snapdragon chips, but we’re talking about a laptop here, and the Atom processors are almost the slowest processors by Intel, save for the Celeron processors. The Atom processor actually runs admirably well, considering it’s powering a full desktop operating system. I’ve used devices with atom processors before, but the GPD pocket laptop runs it even better. Gaming is a no-no on the GPD Pocket laptop, and you’ll likely experience terrible frame rates, since the GPD Pocket Laptop relies on integrates graphics.

Considering all of this, the GPD Pocket Laptop actually has the power to become a full desktop replacement, if you’re very careful with it an don’t expect much from it. It has USB C, which can act as both the charging port and an external display port at the same time. It supports 1080p at 60hz, and 4k at 30hz. It’s not the best, but it’s better than I’d expect from such a weak chipset. Connecting it up to a monitor is easy, and the USB A port makes it easy to connect a wireless adapter for a wireless keyboard and mouse. With an external display, keyboard, and mouse, you have a full desktop replacement. Obviously, if you want any quality sound you’ll want to invest in a pair of desktop speakers, but the sound coming from the single downward firing speaker is actually quite good.

Battery Life

The GPD Pocket laptop has a large 7000mAh battery, but it’s laptop-class internals means that it’s a little more power hungry than the average 7″ tablet. Even so, GPD boasts an impressive 12-hour battery life on the GPD Pocket laptop, rivalling that of the Surface Pro and the MacBook Air. This is impressive, as the laptop is absolutely tiny. In real world usage, you’ll get closer to around 10 hours, but that’s much more than you’d expect from such a small and cheap device. The battery life on the GPD Pocket laptop is even better than the MacBook and MacBook Pro, and MacBooks have always been known for their superb battery life. The battery life on the GPD Pocket laptop is exceptional, and much longer than you’d expect a 7″ tablet/laptop to last.

Options

To cut costs, GPD has only released the GPD Pocket laptop in one configuration and in one color. However, they’ve been fairly generous with their configuration, giving you an ample 8GB of RAM to play with, which should be more than enough for the Intel Atom processor in it. The color of the GPD Pocket laptop is inoffensive, with a plain silver color, similar to the ever-popular MacBook Air. The configuration of 8GB of RAM, 128GB of ROM in silver is the perfect sweet spot for any low-cost laptop, with just enough storage and RAM to be comfortable.

Wrap-Up

While the GPD Pocket laptop isn’t the fastest or most powerful laptop, it’s definitely one of the smallest and cutest devices I’ve seen for a long time since the heyday of Ultra Mobile PC’s. It’s incredibly portable, fitting in a purse or even a large pocket, and runs full windows, so you can be productive wherever you are. The GPD Pocket Laptop isn’t not a workstation or a gaming rig, but for day-to-day use as a mobile PC or tablet, it’s perfect. It’s also very affordable, at just $495.99 at GearBest. If you’re looking for a tablet replacement or a mini-laptop, this could be the one.

The post GPD Pocket Laptop Review appeared first on Gazette Review.

Current Discounts & Coupons:

You can currently take advantage of the sales promo price of $89.99 at GearBest.com by clicking here.

Code: None needed. The “Flash Sale” promotion price is $89.99
Promo Time Period: August 7th-14th

Design

The Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 has definitely been designed with a “form follows function” mentality, and it’s simple design is the result of that. It’s made entirely of a hard plastic, and although it’s marketed as “thin” and “light”, it’s far from it. It’s design is reminiscent of the wildly popular Nexus 7 line, except it’s thicker and doesn’t feel as nice in hand. Though it’s only $89.99, it’s age shows in the design. The bezels are massive, and entire device is unwieldily for a 7 inch tablet. You can use it with one hand, but only just, and it’s nowhere near as practical as many of the phablets on offer today.

Like the Nexus 7 it takes after, the front Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 is left completely empty, save for the 1024×600 IPS display on the front. While it gives it a cleaner look, it also means that there aren’t any hardware buttons, so a good chunk of the bottom of the display is taken up by the software back, home, and recent apps buttons. Usually, when there isn’t any hardware buttons on the front of a device, a fingerprint scanner is placed on the black. However, in the case of the Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30, there isn’t a fingerprint sensor at all. It feels antiquated to have to type in a pin or pattern unlock, but those are the only options for unlocking on the Lenovo Tab 2. It’s a device released in 2015, but it’s age really shows in the lack of a fingerprint scanner.

Features

The Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 is a budget tablet. Since costs are kept as low as possible, it completely lacks any special features. I’m okay with that, since it’s being sold at such a low price, but the fingerprint scanner is sorely missed. Unlike almost every device that I’ve reviewed, the Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 doesn’t have fast charging at all. That means that it’s 3450mAh battery charges extremely slowly, and you’ll have to wait a good while until the device is charged completely from 0-100%. If you called it a feature, the saving grace of the Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 is that the screen features IPS technology. That means that it’s a high-quality panel, and viewing angles are excellent. It’s still not the brightest or best display, but it’s good for the price.

Display

The Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 houses a modest 7.0-inch display within it’s large footprint, and while it’s an IPS display, it’s not a very impressive one. For starters, the bezels surrounding the screen are big, and really make the Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 look old amongst it’s peers. While the screen isn’t huge, the resolution of the Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30’s display is absolutely abominable, at just 600×1024. I’ve complained about 5″ phones not having 4K displays and settling for full HD displays, but this tablet has me thinking a 720p display would be a godsend. Detail is absolutely terrible, and doesn’t hold up at all well against today’s tablets, even at $89. To their credit, the display in the Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 isn’t bad – colours are good, viewing angles are excellent, and it’s decently bright for an $89.99 tablet.

Really, the only problem with the display on the Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 is the display resolution and the sheer amount of bezel, which makes the tablet rather unwieldily for a 7.0″ tablet. In terms of responsiveness, the Lenovo Tab 2’s display is fairly good, but there are displays that beat it within the same price bracket.

Hardware

The Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 doesn’t pack the most powerful hardware into it’s body, and at $89, I wouldn’t expect it to. Still for a tablet being sold in 2017, it’s poorly equipped to be a gaming machine. It has a paltry 1GB of RAM, paired with a MediaTek MT8382M SoC. Both of these specs aren’t impressive, but for normal use it should be okay. This tablet is very cheap, so I wouldn’t expect it to be that powerful. Still, it’d be nice to have an extra gig of RAM, for at least 2GB of RAM. In 2017, I’d say 2GB of RAM is the bare minimum, but considering the Lenovo Tab 2 is running Android 4.4.2, it’s passable.

The Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30, believe it or not, has both rear and front facing cameras. They both take photo and video, and I will just leave it at that. Camera quality isn’t great, but for video calling it’s okay.

Connectivity

The Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 comes with all the usual connectivity options for a tablet. That includes WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. It even includes an FM radio, so long as you plug in headphones. The full specifications for connectivity options for the Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 are below:

WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, hotspot
Bluetooth 4.0, A2DP
GPS Yes, with A-GPS
Radio FM radio
USB microUSB 2.0

If you want to, you can even use the Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 as a phone. There is a 3G version of the tablet which you can use as a mobile phone, and accepts mini-SIM cards.

Performance

The Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 performs as expected in real world scenarios. It’s not an especially powerful tablet, and while it doesn’t score well in benchmarks, it’s okay to use as an entertainment tablet, say, for web browsing and youtube. Still, it can get a little laggy at times when using multiple tabs, but otherwise, it’s okay.

Battery Life

The Lenovo Tab 2 has decent battery life, thanks to it’s 3450mAh battery and mediocre specs. Usually it’s an important factor in mobile phones, but for a tablet, it’s far less important. The Lenovo Tab 2 still manages to last a good deal of usage, and it’s perfectly acceptable for a $89 tablet

Wrap Up

The Lenovo Tab 2 is a very affordable tablet with “affordable” design and hardware. It’s not the most powerful tablet out there, but it will do the job just fine, as long as you don’t expect too much from it. As an entertainment tablet, it’s perfect, and for the young ones at the back of the car on a long road trip. At just $89.99 from GearBest, it’s a good buy at a good price, and as a kids tablet, it’s perfect, thanks to its affordability and ruggedness.

The post Lenovo Tab 2 A7-30 Coupon Code & Review – Decent Value For Money appeared first on Gazette Review.

Design

The Huawei Honor 8 is a real knight in shining armour. Every facet, surface, bezel, and corner of the phone glistens like a gem in the sunlight. While a sight to behold, it can get rather annoying and can look cheap sometimes, since there isn’t any contrast, especially if you buy a lighter color of the Huawei Honor 8. This is expected from Huawei, and in line with many phones today (Looking at you, HTC U11), though I’m really not a fan of the look. I’d much prefer the matte black look that many of the true flagship devices are going for, like the iPhone 7 Plus and OnePlus 5. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an incredibly good looking phone, but it’s a little flashy, and I fear that the form is at the cost of durability, since a large portion of the phone is made up of glass.

The Huawei Honor 8 sports the usual Android layout of buttons. On the right are the volume and lock buttons, with the left kept completely empty, save for the SIM card tray. On the front of the phone is the 5.2″ IPS display, with Full HD resolution. While it’s not extraordinarily large, it’s still a decent size, and it makes it much easier to hold with one hand, unlike larger sized phones, like the Xiaomi Mi Max 2. Overall, it’s a good looking phone, but it’s a little too flashy and dainty looking for me.

Build Quality

Huawei hasn’t been known for bad quality, and all of their phones above $200 have exceptional build quality. The Huawei Honor 8 absolutely is the continuation of their past reputation, but the durability might still suffer here. This is especially apparent in the Huawei Honor series, since almost the entire phone is made out of glass. I haven’t tested it personally, but I’d suspect that the phone wouldn’t survive many drops. Also, since both the front and back are made out of glass, you’ll have to get both panes of glass replaced, should you crack the glass on both sides.

Fingerprint Sensor

Unlike many Android phones today, the phone doesn’t have off-screen buttons – the back, home, and recent apps buttons are all on a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. This means that the fingerprint sensor is placed on the back of the phone. Though it makes it difficult to unlock the phone when it’s lying flat on a tablet, having it on the back does bring a few advantages. Firstly, it reduces the amount of fingers you need to register to the phone, since your index finger will naturally fall on the sensor. Also, it’s a little bit less awkward to unlock your phone normally with it on the back than on the front. Since the home button on most phones is on the bottom, it’s odd to have to place your thumb right at the bottom for it to unlock.

Display

The Huawei Honor 8 features a 5.2″ IPS display. It’s not the largest or best display I’ve seen, but it’s still a solid contender for the price of the phone. Compared to AMOLED displays, IPS technology usually lacks in color reproduction and brightness. However, IPS displays are usually cheaper, and last longer than AMOLED displays – AMOLED displays are prone to “burn in” and pixel degradation, where the display gradually becomes dimmer. However, the IPS panel on the Huawei Honor 8 is very good, and reproduces color beautifully. It’s not quite the same as an AMOLED display, but it’s still very good. The Huawei Honor 8’s display isn’t all that large, and for that reason, it’s actually very decent for it to have a Full HD resolution, at 1920×1080.

Usually, I’d be disappointed at the lack of a 4k display, but at this size, it’s perfectly acceptable to have a 1080p display. The only time you might find that 1080p isn’t enough is if you’re using the Huawei Honor 8 as a VR headset, but if you were serious about wanting VR, you probably wouldn’t be considering buying a phone at this price range anyway. Overall, the Huawei Honor 8’s display is excellent, and one of the best I’ve seen around this price range.

Features

The Huawei Honor 8 was the first Honor phone to feature a dual camera. It’s intended to help with detail and quality, and it seems to do it pretty well. It’s also used like the “portrait mode” on the iPhone 7 Plus, where the subject is kept in focus and the background is blurred out. Aside from that, the Huawei Honor 8 doesn’t have many special features so to speak of, except for the fingerprint sensor and fast charging. Obviously, being a phone released in 2016, the Huawei Honor 8 has a fingerprint scanner. It’s a decent fingerprint scanner – fast and accurate. The battery in the Huawei Honor 8 isn’t that big, at just 3000mAh, but Huawei has decided to add in fast charging. It claims to be able to charge the phone from 0-50% in just 30 minutes, and it seems to hold up to that.

Fast charging is fast becoming standard in Android phones, but it’s a nice touch that Huawei has decided to add it into the phone, even though the battery is only 3000mAh. The Huawei Honor 8 is charged through USB Type-C, and it’s great that USB Type-C has been chosen over Micro USB. While most Android phones now are being equipped with USB Type-C, it’s only recently that it’s trickled down to more affordable phones.

Hardware

Like the lastest generation of Huawei Phones, the Huawei Honor 8 utilises the Kirin series of System-On-Chip. This is in stark contrast of most other Android phones, which use Snapdragon Chips. Unlike the latest series of Android phones from Huawei, the Huawei Honor 8 uses the Kirin 950 chip, instead of the latest 960 chip from Huawei. The 950 chip is just a little slower on both the CPU and GPU sides, but it shouldn’t be too noticeable today. The Kirin 950 is paired with 4GB of RAM on the Huawei Honor 8, which is ample amount for a good few years. It’s the same amount as the standard version of the Samsung Galaxy S8, but it’s still only half that of the OnePlus 5’s whopping 8GB of RAM.

The Huawei Honor 8 doesn’t have the largest battery, at just 3000mAh. Combine this with a slightly less power-efficient chip and a bright, and I’d expect the Huawei Honor 8 to have sub-par battery life. However, battery life turns out to be fairly decent, and it’s not an issue at all.

Variants

The base model of the Huawei Honor 8 comes with 32GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. If you need more storage, you can buy the 64GB version, but I wouldn’t recommend you do – and here’s why. The Huawei Honor 8 is a dual SIM phone, which is great, since you can use two SIMS at once, but you can also use the idle SIM slot as a micro-SD slot. That means that if you don’t need to use both SIM slots at the same time, you can expand the storage of the Huawei Honor 8 by up to 256GB, for a total of 320GB of storage if you buy the 64GB version, or 288GB for the 32GB version. This is more than enough for anybody, and unless you need lots of fast storage, I’d just buy the 32GB version. You can’t buy a 6GB RAM or 128GB ROM version.

Connectivity

The Huawei Honor 8 comes with all the usual connectivity options, and a few you don’t usually see. This includes WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. However, the Huawei Honor 8 also comes with an IR blaster, as well as an app accompanying it to control your home appliances, like a TV. It’s rather useful, and I found myself using the phone instead of the remote control, first for the “cool” factor, but then later as a habit. It’s awesome, and it makes your phone a hub for all of your appliances.

Performance

The Kirin series of SoC on Huawei’s phones have historically not been able to compete with chips on the Snapdragon and Exynos sides, and the Kirin 950 in the Huawei Honor 8 is no exception. Speed and raw performance are not eh main features of the Huawei Honor 8, so if you want the most performance for your money, stay away. That’s not to say the Kirin 950 is a slow chip – it’s just not as fast as the bleeding edge of flagship chips. Although it’s older, it still performs admirably, and the UI is lag free. Even with 3D games, it’s absolutely fine, and frame drops are few and far between.

Right now, the performance on the Huawei Honor 8 is flawless. It’s still in its flagship stage, where the chip is more powerful than most of what the software can demand (noticeably), so you won’t feel much difference in day to day use compared to a true flagship in 2017, unless you put them side-by-side. Still, since the chip is older, in a year or so, you’ll notice slowdowns, which will increase in lagginess as times goes by.

Camera

The dual cameras work synchronously on the Huawei Honor 8 to provide the clearest and most detailed picture possible, supposedly even in low light. They’re also used to create an artificial “bokeh” effect, where the subject stays in focus but the background is blurred. The bokeh effect works relatively well, but of course it isn’t as good as a true bokeh effect from a wide aperture, rather than from image processing. The Huawei Honor 8’s camera is excellent in good lighting, and pictures come out very clear, with accurate colors, but in bad lighting, the camera starts to falter. It’s unfortunate, but as soon as lighting isn’t good, the image quality drops significantly. I think this is a mixture of intense image processing and the fact that the aperture on both cameras is rather high. Overall, the picture quality is good, but as light decreases, so does quality.

The Huawei Honor 8 also shoots video, but interesting, and somewhat disappointingly, it can’t shoot 4K video at all, even though it can shoot 1080p video at 60fps. It’s a real shame, since it’s a gaping hole in its spec sheet. Most premium and flagship phones in 2017 can record in 4K, but the Huawei Honor 8 can’t. The disappointments don’t end there either, the Huawei Honor 8 doesn’t have any optical image stabilisation, and the electronic image stabilisation doesn’t work at all when filming 1080p video at 60fps. You’ll have to choose between shaky 60fps video or semi-smooth 30fps video, both at 1080p. It’s very disappointing, and at this price range, there’s almost no excuse to have a phone like this unable to shoot 4k or even have EIS in 1080p60fps.

Operating System

The Huawei Honor 8, like all Huawei phones, runs Android, with “Emotion OS” on top of it. Though it’s favoured in Asian markets for its simplicity and ease-of-use, I’m definitely not a fan of this “dumbed-down” approach to Android. A lot of design elements throughout the UI look childish, and lack any sort of cohesive design language. It’s not nearly as polished as TouchWiz, and I’d have much preferred Stock Android. If, like me, you’re not a fan of the launcher on Emotion OS, you can download Google Now Launcher, but it can only change the launcher of your phone (the home screen).

Battery Life

On paper, the battery life on the Huawei Honor 8 looks to be disappointing. With a mere 3000mAh to play with, and a high-powered Kirin 950 chip, things weren’t looking good. However, the Huawei Honor 8 stunned with an above average battery life. It’s able to last just over a day, which is excellent for such a small phone, with an even smaller battery. I’d say it’s most likely due to the fact that the phone has a fairly small display, which more than makes up for the low capacity battery.

Wrap-Up

The Huawei Honor 8 is a very good phone from Huawei. It’s not on the bleeding edge, and it doesn’t have the best price-to-performance ratio. However, it’s a good all round phone with good battery life and a sleek body, so if you want a casual phone that looks great, get the Huawei Honor 8.

The post Huawei Honor 8 Review appeared first on Gazette Review.

Design

For the Xiaomi Mi Max 2, Xiaomi has decided to keep design costs to a minimum by piggybacking off of other phone manufacturers, namely the iPhone 7 Plus and the OnePlus 5. It still manages to keep its Xiaomi look, but it does bear a striking resemblance to both the OnePlus 5 and the iPhone 7 Plus, especially with its matte-black color and large size. The antenna bands are also placed in the exact same place as they are on the iPhone u7 Plus and the OnePlus 5, and although it’s a sensible placement, it gives it a “fake iPhone” feel. Even so, it’s a good looking phone, and it’s impressively large display will turn heads. It’s a vast improvement over the original Mi Max, which didn’t look premium at all. The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 now looks like a $400+ phone, even though it isn’t one.

Across the front of the phone is the huge 6.44″ display, which is one of the largest displays Xiaomi has ever put on a phone. The Xiaomi Mi Mix comes close, with a 6.4″ display, but it’s both smaller and more expensive than the Xiaomi Mi Max 2, though it’s also far more powerful. The display on the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is big and beautiful, but it’s not as detailed as we’re used to, at just full HD 1920×1080. Although it’s still 342 PPI, it’s not as detailed as a lot of displays on other phones, like the 4K display on the Samsung Galaxy S8. Also on the front of the phone is the front facing camera at the top, and the three capacitive buttons at the bottom. Overall, the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is a great looking phone, and it holds up well against its competitors.

Fingerprint Scanner

Interestingly, instead of placing the fingerprint scanner behind the home button on the front as usual, Xiaomi has opted to put the fingerprint scanner at the back, possibly to save costs. Although it’s convenient to have it on the back when holding the phone, it’s a pain to have to type in the password when the phone is lying on a table. However, the fingerprint scanner itself is very good, and unlocks quickly. It’s also extremely accurate, and I haven’t encountered any problems with it not registering my fingerprint.

Features

The Xiaomi Mi Max 2’s main features are its massive screen and large battery. At 6.4″ and 5300mAh respectively, there aren’t any phones which come even close, especially with this form factor. The Xiaomi Mi Mix and Samsung Galaxy S8+ have similar screen sizes and somewhat large batteries, but they’re in a completely different price bracket, and even the Xiaomi Mi Mix’s 4400mAh battery can’t hold a flame to the monstrous 5300mAh on the Xiaomi Mi Max 2. Even at this price range with such outrageously large screens and batteries, the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 retains a few key features present on most phones today. The phone has a fingerprint sensor, and although it’s at the back, it’s very fast and accurate.

Since the battery is so large, Xiaomi has also implemented fast charging on the Xiaomi Mi Max 2, in the form of Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0. It’s able to charge from 0-60% in just one hour, which is incredibly quick, considering just how large the battery is, at 5300mAh. It’s nice to see that Xiaomi has included Qualcomm Quick Charge, instead of the normal 5V/2A charging, which is considerably slower, and implemented in some of Xiaomi’s cheaper devices.

Build Quality

Xiaomi has a brilliant track record for the build quality of their phones, and the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 upholds that track record. It has absolutely no build quality problems, and it feels solid in the hand. The design is reminiscent of the iPhone 7 Plus, and so is the build. It’s made primarily of metal, and it’s also well put together. However, since it is made of a smooth metal, it’s incredibly slippery when wet, the effect of which is amplified due to it’s sheer size and unwieldiness. Overall, though it isn’t an expensive phone, it still looks and feels the part.

Display

The display on the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is absolutely huge. It’s 6.4″ when measured diagonally, and it’s a rather good looking display too. However, it’s only a Full HD display, at 1920×1080, which means it can’t compare to the 4k displays of many flagship phones today. It 342PPI, it’s above “Retina”, but with the increased use of phones for VR, it may not be clear enough when using it as a VR headset. Although it’s not the most detailed display, it’s still high quality. It’s an IPS display, so it’s decently bright at 450 nits, and it has great viewing angles. Colors and tones are also vibrant and accurate. It’s not night and day, but the display is a definite improvement over previous phones from Xiaomi.

Hardware

The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is one of the biggest phones Xiaomi makes, but it isn’t the most expensive nor the most impressive, especially in terms of hardware. The heart of the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is the Snapdragon 625 SoC, which is the same SoC found on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. However, the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 pairs the Snapdragon 625 with a much more generous 4GB of RAM, instead of the 2GB of RAM present on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. That should give it a significant performance advantage over the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, which is much needed at it’s vastly higher price range. The Snapdragon 625 isn’t slow, but it’s not as fast as the 821, and 835 chips found on today’s flagship devices, as well as the Exynos chips found on the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+.

What the Snapdragon 625 is, however, is efficient. It’s one of the most power-efficient chips around, and combined with the huge 5300mAh battery, I’m excited to see just how long the Mi Max 2 can last. On the hardware side of things, the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is similar to the Venme Thor E in many ways, which also has a huge battery, large display, and mid-range hardware. The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 unfortunately uses EMMC storage, with a choice of either 64 or 128GB of storage. It’s not as fast as UFS technology, but it’s more cost-effective, and also saves physical space. Overall, the Xiaomi Mi Max shines in endurance, but not in performance, though it’ll do fine as a mid-range phone.

Hardware – Camera

The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 comes with an outstanding rear-facing camera. It’s the same shooter that’s present on the Xiaomi Mi 6, Xiaomi’s flagship phone. It’s the Sony IMX386 sensor, and it really does take some brilliant shots. In broad daylight, or under any good lighting conditions, the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is a superb shooter, but things can turn out just a little over-sharpened, due to the image signal processing. It’s large pixels are supposed to gibe the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 excellent low-light performance, but in practice, it’s not as astounding as I’d hoped. The ISP utilised in the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is far too aggressive, and turns otherwise normal photos into blurry, smoothed over messes. It seems to be a trend with chinese phones that the low light performance is lacking, and it’s definitely apparent here.

The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 also takes photos, and it does a great job of that too. Thanks to the high-quality sensor, the Xiaomi MI Max 2 is capable of taking 4K video at 30fps, or 720p video at 120fps, presumably for slow motion video. The video quality is very much similar to photos, in that videos taken in good lighting turn out excellently, with natural, accurate colors, but completely fall over under bad lighting. Overall, the Xiaomi Max 2 takes decent photos and videos, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a phone with a better camera at this price range.

Connectivity

The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 comes with the usual array of connectivity options, including, but not limited to WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. However, the lack of NFC is a glaring omission, and also rather odd, since the Snapdragon 625 SoC supports NFC. The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is a Dual SIM phone, so you can use it for both work and home. If you don’t need the Dual SIM, you can also use the idle SIM slot as a micro SD slot, which can fit up to a 256GB SD card slot. Combined with the maximum 128GB of internal storage, you can upgrade the phone to a total of 384GB of storage, more than enough for any mobile phone user.

Performance

From the hardware section, it’s clear that performance isn’t the main selling point of the Xiaomi Mi Max 2, since it’s aimed at those who need the biggest screen and the longest lasting battery at the minimum price. Still, it’s no slouch, and the Snapdragon 625 keep the phone quick and snappy throughout day to day use. If you play very intensive 3D games, it can choke a little, but otherwise, it’s fairly unnoticeable that the phone isn’t a flagship. The tradeoff for this less-than-flagship performance is the immense battery life.

Even though it’s not the fastest phone on the market, the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 still performs admirably, and it should stay snappy for a good year or two. After that, you may notice slowdowns coming from each consecutive software update, but it shouldn’t be too noticeable. The Xiaomi Mi Max is a great phone, you’ll just need to lower your expectations a little lower – it can’t keep up with the likes of the OnePlus 5 and iPhone 7 Plus.

Operating System

The Xiaomi Mi Max 2, like all Android phones from Xiaomi, runs MIUI on top of Android OS. It’s very popular in the east, thanks to it’s iPhone-like look and feel, as well as it’s ease of use, but it isn’t as good as stock Android in my opinion. While there are a few awesome features Xiaomi has included with MIUI; the entire UI looks rather hideous – it looks like it’s been designed by Fischer Price when compared to the likes of iOS 10 and stock Android. Still, if you’re coming directly from an iPhone or dumb phone, you might find the simple layouts and bright colors easier to use. If you’re a seasoned Android veteran, you should consider downloading a third party launcher, such as Google Now Launcher, or Nova Launcher. Unfortunately, changing the launcher only does just that, and doesn’t help with the Xiaomi tainted apps.

Headphone Jack

Being such a large phone, I couldn’t imagine there was any hesitation to put a headphone jack in it. Most smartphone manufacturers have opted to take the headphone jack, blaming a lack of space, but that simply can’t be true with the Xiaomi Mi Max 2. If you’re buying a cheaper phone such as this one, it’s unlikely you’d want to shell out the extra cash for a wireless or USB Type-C headset, so it’s awesome that the 3.5mm jack is still present on the Xiaomi Mi Max 2.

Battery Life

As I’ve been mentioning all throughout this review, the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 has absolutely out-of-this world battery life. The amount of time which it stays alive is astounding, and it absolutely makes my two days. Yep, it lasts a full two days under medium-heavy usage, which is something almost no other phone is capable of doing. The Venme Thor E is a solid contender, but it’s battery life isn’t quite as good as the legendary battery life of the Xiaomi Mi Max 2. Unfortunately, the Xiaomi Mi Max 2’s battery life could be short-lived – the battery is non-removable, so you’ll notice a slow decrease in battery life, which will become especially noticeable after a few years. You might need to get the battery replaced, which could be hard for a phone which isn’t that popular.

Options

The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 comes in a variety of different configurations and colors. You can buy the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 in either a (RAM|ROM) 4GB|64GB version, or a 4GB|128GB version. Personally, I’d go for the 64GB version, since it’s cheaper, and I’m not sure many users would require the full 128GB version. The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 also comes in a few different colors: Black, White, Gray, Gold, and Silver. I prefer the Black version, but it does give it a very similar look to the OnePlus 5 and iPhone 7 Plus. Unfortunately, there aren’t any different options for RAM, but the 4GB is generous enough – it’s the same amount as you’d find on the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Wrap Up

The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is a great phone, with absolutely phenomenal battery life, and a huge, beautiful screen. It’s not the most powerful phone, and it certainly has a few compromises, but as a multimedia device, or semi-tablet, the Xiaomi Max 2 is perfect. The battery life is far and away the best battery life I’ve ever seen, and I can only wish other phone manufacturers will follow suit. It’s large screen, ample RAM, and great camera make it excellent value for money, and I’d recommend it to anyone who needs a huge phone at a small price.

The post Xiaomi Mi Max 2 Review – Battery life to the Max appeared first on Gazette Review.

Design

The OnePlus 3T has exactly the same design present on the OnePlus 3. While it’s not a radical new design, it’s still aesthetically pleasing, with an edge-to-edge glass panel covering the front, and metal all around the back. It looks a lot like the HTC One, but manages to keep just enough of the OnePlus 2 look to make it unique. While there’s a new Midnight Black color, the OnePlus 3T currently being sold by GearBest is the Gunmetal color. Across the front of the phone is the large 5.5″ display. It’s not groundbreaking by any means, and the screen-to-body ratio isn’t impressive either, but it’s a solid panel. Below the screen is the home button, which also functions as a fingerprint scanner. It’s one of the fastest fingerprint scanners I’ve ever used, and it’s seriously wowing.

As with all android phones with a hardware home button, the home button is flanked by back and recent apps switcher capacitive buttons, which are interchangeable via the settings app. The 3400mAh battery built into the OnePlus 3T is actually 100mAh larger than the 3300mAh battery inside of the OnePlus 5, but battery life is considerably better on the 5, due to software optimisations and the differing SoCs. As with the OnePlus 2,3, and 5, the OnePlus 3T has the vibrate switcher. This switcher is similar to the switcher on the iPhones, which changes whether notifications make a noise or stay as vibrations. Overall, the OnePlus 3T is a well-designed phone, and while it’s not too out-there, it’s still very good looking.

Build Quality

OnePlus has never had a problem with build quality, and the OnePlus 3T is no exception. It’s well made, and the materials used to make it are premium. It feels good in the hand, and there are no build quality problems. The only problem I have with the OnePlus 3T’s design would be the fact that the metal back is extremely slippery, and it wasn’t uncommon to suddenly lose grip while using it in the rain, or with wet hands. I’d recommend buying a case, such as an Otterbox case, to protect the phone from slips and drops, and to make the phone easier to grip.

Features

The OnePlus 3T largely stayed with the same design philosophy as the OnePlus 1 and 2. It took top-of-the-line hardware, and stuck it in a phone for as low price as possible. However, that does mean that there’s a lack of special features, like Samsung’s eye tracking software, and hovering screen, or Apple’s 3D touch. In my opinion, the most outstanding feature of the OnePlus 3T Dash Charge. Since the phone has such a large battery, at 3400mAh, normal charging would take almost half a day to charge it from 0-100%. Thanks to Dash Charge, the OnePlus 3T is capable of charging from 0-50% in just half an hour. That’s an impressive feat, and faster than even the iPhone 6s and 7, which both have tiny batteries compared to the 3400mAh monster in the OnePlus 3T.

Another standout feature of the OnePlus 3T is the fingerprint scanner. It’s extremely fast, and it’s also very accurate. While you might think that fingerprint scanners are fast enough, the fingerprint scanner on the OnePlus 3T is in a league of its own. It’s much quicker than the scanner on the iPhone 7, and also much more accurate, so there are less false negatives. It’s also on the front of the phone, so you can still unlock the phone easily even if it’s facing up on a table. From this lack of features, it’s clear that OnePlus has focused on the internal hardware of the phone, as opposed to the flashy new features, like the ones present on the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Display

As with all of OnePlus’s other phones, the OnePlus 3T has a large 5.5″ AMOLED panel on the front. It’s a fairly large and detailed display, but at 1920×1080, it doesn’t hold up against the 4K displays of today’s flagship phones. Still, at such an affordable price, it’s excusable. Although it’s not the most detailed display, it definitely makes up for it in brightness and viewing angles. As with most AMOLED displays, the display is visible at almost all viewing angles, but it’s also very vibrant and rich, something you don’t always find on non-AMOLED displays. Brightness is also excellent, and it’s easy to read, even outside. Sadly, the phone doesn’t employ the latest bezel-less display technology, like the Samsung Galaxy S8, or the Xiaomi Mi Mix, which has a huge 6.4″ display. Overall, the display on the OnePlus 3T is superb, only lacking the bleeding edge 4K resolution.

Hardware

Hardware is, and always has been the focus of OnePlus’s phones. From the OnePlus One all the way to the OnePlus 5, they’ve all excelled in the hardware department, and brought about numbers you wouldn’t have dreamed would be on a phone, such as having 3GB of RAM in 2014. The OnePlus 3T is no exception, and it’s even more focused on hardware than all the previous phones, since it’s a similar to an “S” variation of the previous phone, which usually is only hardware differences. The OnePlus 3T is an exceptionally powerful phone, with a powerful SoC and a huge amount of RAM. The Snapdragon 821 chip inside of the OnePlus 3T is paired with a whopping 6GB of RAM. While it’s overshadowed by the OnePlus 5’s 8GB, it’s still an impressive amount.

Keep in mind that 6GB is the same amount as the special variant of the Samsung Galaxy S8, and 2GB more than the 4GB present on the normal Samsung Galaxy S8. The Snapdragon 821 chip itself has a very powerful powerful CPU and GPU, namely the Adreno 530. The CPU is a quad core arrangement with 2×2.35 GHz Kryo and 2×1.6 GHz Kryo cores. Together, they provide good performance while also maintaining good battery life. In benchmarks, the OnePlus 3T performs a little worse than the OnePlus 5, but it’s not noticeable in real life usage. The OnePlus 5 scores 1963|6687 (Single Core | Multi Core), and the OnePlus 3T scored 1890|4364. Most of the difference here is made up by the multi-core score. Overall, even though the OnePlus 3T is an older device, it still performs admirably.

Hardware – Camera

Unlike the OnePlus 5, the OnePlus 3T doesn’t have a dual camera setup. Instead, it has a single 16MP rear-facing camera which does all the shooting. This means that you lose the false bokeh effect of the OnePlus 5, but it’s still almost as good as the camera on raw photo quality. Low light performance is also good, but not quite as good as the low light performance of the OnePlus 5, due to the lower aperture of f/2.0 vs f/1.7. Aside from that, the camera is excellent, and the vivid yet natural colors show brilliantly on the AMOLED display. It’s wonderfully detailed at 16MP, and the autofocus is very fast. While the camera is great at taking photos, if you want the best in mobile phone photography, splash out and buy the OnePlus 5.

The OnePlus 3T also shoots video, and it does it very well. It’s capable of shooting 4K video at 30fps, or 1080p video at 60fps. While it’s standard issue for all flagship phones in 2017, a 4k30fps/1080p30fps camera on a mid-priced phone like this is a refreshing change. Video quality is good overall, with similar properties as the photos taken by the camera. Overall, the camera is excellent, especially in good lighting.

Connectivity

The OnePlus 3T version being sold by Gearbest is the Global version, which has more LTE bands than the local Chinese version. This is very useful, since with older OnePlus devices, it was common to have to fall back on a 3g connection, even if there was 4g available. As well as cellular connection, the OnePlus 3T comes with an array of all the usual connectivity options, including WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

It’s nice to see that the OnePlus 3T has USB Type-C, since it’s the latest standard, and it’s reversible. USB Type-C has only recently seen widespread adoption, whereas iPhone users have had reversible connectors since the iPhone 5.

Performance

The OnePlus 3T is still in what I call the “flagship speed status”, where the processor and GPU are in front of the performance curve, so they’re more powerful than the OS can demand in terms of visible slowdowns. This means that there’s absolutely no slowdowns whatsoever, and the phone runs perfectly fine. The OnePlus 3 is nearing the end of it’s flagship speed time, so expect the OnePlus 3T to follow suit soon. Even so, the OnePlus 3T is an extremely fast device, with heaps of RAM and power to spare. All manner of 3D games run perfectly fine, and everything from browsing Facebook to playing MC5 is buttery smooth. Multitasking is also a dream, thanks to the huge 6GB of RAM.

Operating System

All OnePlus devices, since the beta for the OnePlus One, have run Oxygen OS. The OnePlus 3T also runs Oxygen OS, and it’s one of the best custom ROMs out there today. While many Chinese manufacturers design over-the-top UIs around stock android, OnePlus keeps it simple. Unlike the likes of MIUI and Emotion OS, stock android is left mostly untouched, and untainted. That isn’t to say that OnePlus is being lazy – there are a few key features which make Oxygen OS better than stock Android, like the draw. Everything which OnePlus has added follows the same design language that stock Android does, so nothing sticks out. If you’re really not a fan of the draw, you can completely replace the home screen with Google Now Launcher, which will almost return the entire phone to stock, since not much else is touched.

Headphone Jack

The OnePlus 3T, unlike the iPhone 7, has a headphone jack. Even though the internals are much stronger and faster than many Android phones out there today, the OnePlus 3T still miraculously has space for a headphone jack. It’s not a bad one either, it sounds about on par with most other flagship phone 3.5mm jacks. It’s a real godsend on Android phones, since if you’re against wireless headphones, you’d need to buy a USB-C equipped headphone, or use a finicky dongle. Even so, I’d recommend you buy Bluetooth earphones, since they provide so much freedom over the wired sort, even if it means you have to charge them every night.

Battery Life

While it has a larger battery than the OnePlus 5 at 3400mAh vs 3300mAh, the OnePlus 5 has noticeably better battery life, thanks to an updated chip as well as optimisations. Even so, the OnePlus 3T has very good battery life, and is enough to last someone like me a whole day. I use my phone a lot, with a mixture of Facebook, Snapchat, and Messenger, as well as a bit of gaming and Reddit. If you’re a light user, you could be able to stretch the battery life to between 1.5-2 days, but I wouldn’t depend on it. The battery life on the OnePlus 3T is a considerable upgrade from the OnePlus 3, which had a paltry 3000mAh battery. Sadly, the battery on the OnePlus 3T isn’t user-replaceable, so after a few years, the battery life will worsen, and you may want to get the battery replaced.

Options

The OnePlus 3T comes in a variety of different colors – Gunmetal, Soft Gold, and now Midnight Black. I’d stay away from the Midnight Black color, as it looks like a wannabe OnePlus 5. My favorite is the Gunmetal version – it looks clean and inoffensive. The OnePlus 3T only comes in two RAM|ROM configurations, and that’s 6GB|64GB and 6GB|128GB. I prefer the 6GB|64GB version which should be more than enough storage for any normal user, but if you have a ton of stuff on your phone, you may want to purchase the 128GB version. It’s also a dual SIM phone, so you can use it for both home and work. However, unlike many other dual SIM phones, you can’t use an unused SIM slot as a micro-SD card slot, so there are no expandable storage options.

Wrap Up

The OnePlus 3T, though older than the OnePlus 5 is very nearly just as good, and much cheaper too. Even though it’s not quite as fast, it’s still one the fastest devices around. It’s a fast, good looking, cheap phone, and an all around stunner. You won’t get the flashy features of the OnePlus 5, and battery life isn’t the best, but for your money, you couldn’t hope for a better phone than the OnePlus 3T. If you’re looking for a phone around this price range, the OnePlus 3T is a no-brainer – the iPhone SE comes a close second, but it’s a completely different phone, with a screen about half the size.

If you’d like to purchase the OnePlus 3T at just $399.99, purchase it at GearBest.com:

The post OnePlus 3T Review – Great Value For Money appeared first on Gazette Review.

Design

The Xiaomi Redmi 4, for its price, looks very premium. Although it’s not the fanciest, it has some things you wouldn’t expect from a phone at this price range. Among them are the materials used to make the phone. It’s made from a smooth aluminium frame, and reminds me a little of the iPhone SE. It also has a smaller display than most Android phones today. It’s screen is a mere 5 inches diagonally, which is minuscule, especially when compared to the giant 6.4″ display of the Xiaomi Mi Mix. The smooth metal back is interrupted by the two antenna bands which ensure that wireless signals can still get to the phone. As I mentioned with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, it’s surprising to see a full-metal phone at such a low price point.

As with most phones in 2017, the Xiaomi Redmi 4 is equipped with a fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone. However, it also has an off-screen home button, which is located below the 5″ display, next to the back and recent apps switcher buttons. Unlike most capacitive buttons, the buttons underneath the screen on the Xiaomi Redmi 4 aren’t backlit. This isn’t a problem if you know where the buttons are, but it is a little annoying sometimes to have to tap twice. Having buttons on the front and a fingerprint sensor on the back is a little weird, and I’m left wondering why they couldn’t combine the two to have both a home button and a fingerprint sensor on the front. The fingerprint sensor is fast, but being on the back makes it impossible to use while the phone is facing up on a desk.

Overall, the Xiaomi Redmi 4x is a good looking device, with premium materials, although a little ergonomically lacking.

Build Quality

Xiaomi’s devices, even those at the bottom of the price ladder, are usually made well with no build quality issues. The Xiaomi Redmi 4x is no different. It’s well put together, and thanks to its metal enclosure, feels solid in the hand. It’s also not obscenely light, so it doesn’t feel like you’re holding a toy. The metal goes a long way to make the phone better looking and better feeling, but it also means that scratches and dings will show more easily. I’d advise using a case as well, since the metal can be slippery at times, especially when it’s wet.

Display

The display is quite literally the face of the device. When I reviewed the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 with a 5.5″ display, I was impressed by the quality, detail, and size of the display, and even though it’s not monstrously big, the bezels were small enough that it wasn’t noticeable. The Xiaomi Redmi 4x is a little bit different, since it’s even cheaper than the Note 4. It’s a little smaller, at 5.0″, and as such, it’s not the same resolution. Instead of being Full HD (1920×1080), it’s just HD (1280×720). Since it’s a smaller display, it retains a fairly decent PPI, at 294. It’s still not as nice as the Full HD display of the Note 4, but its smaller display means that it’s nearly as detailed. Coming from an iPhone 6s (4.7″), the Xiaomi Redmi 4x is more comfortable to use (5.0″) than the Redmi Note 4 (5.5″).

Aside from size and detail, the panel itself is very good. It’s an IPS display, so viewing angles are excellent, and it’s relatively bright too, at 450 nits. It covers the whole sRGB gamut, or 72% of NTSC, which is the same as most phones today, so colors are accurate and vibrant. The panel also features a lower 1000:1 contrast ratio than we’re used to, but it’s not extremely noticeable. Similar to the iPhone’s “night shift” feature, the Xiaomi Redmi 4x has a “night display” mode, which yellows the display, making it less harsh on your eyes at night. Overall, the display on the Xiaomi Redmi 4x is excellent, and it’s one of the best displays I’ve seen at this price range.

Features

The Xiaomi Redmi 4x is a budget phone, so it isn’t packed with special features. Still, even at this price point, it has a fingerprint scanner, a fairly fast one at that. It’s standard issue in today’s smartphone market, but it’s no mean feat to put it into a $130 phone. It’s on the back of the phone, so it’s impossible to unlock (without typing in your backup PIN or pattern) while it’s sitting flat on a table. However, the tradeoff is that you only need to assign two fingers to it, since naturally your index finger will cover it anyway. Another feature you could consider as noteworthy is fast charging. When I was reviewing the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, I was blown away by the battery life coming out of the 4000mAh battery.

The Redmi 4x bests that by 100mAh, with a huge 4100mAh battery. Combine this with low-end specs and a smaller screen, and I’d expect absolutely insane battery life from it. The large capacity of the battery also means that there’s more to charge every time you plug in. To alleviate the problem of having to keep the charger on for hours on end, Xiaomi has included fast charging on the Xiaomi Redmi 4x, even though the phone is just $130. It doesn’t support Qualcomm Quick Charging, but it’s 5V/2A charging. It’s not especially fast, but it still charges the Redmi 4x at a decent rate, claiming speeds of 25% in 30 minutes. This at least puts it on par with phones with a smaller capacity without fast charging. Overall, the Xiaomi Redmi 4x doesn’t have many special features, but it helps to bring the cost down to just $130.

Hardware

The Xiaomi Redmi 4x settles for fairly mid-range hardware, but that’s to be expected, if not applauded, at this price range. The Snapdragon 435 chip inside the Redmi 4x is no speed demon, but the fact that Xiaomi has chosen a Snapdragon processor at all is commendable at this price. The Snapdragon 435 chip is paired with either 2GB or 3GB of RAM, depending on which option you pick, the (RAM|ROM) 2GB|16GB, 3GB|32GB, or 4GB|64GB. The flash storage itself isn’t particularly impressive, as it uses eMMC technology, instead of the newly favored UFS technology, which is much faster. Even so, the Redmi 4x shouldn’t be laggy or slow. What it will be though, is extremely long lasting.Its Snapdragon 435 chip, 720p 5 inch display, and 4100mAh battery should keep it lasting for days on end, perhaps two or three.

Hardware – Camera

The Xiaomi Redmi 4x, unlike a lot of Chinese phones, has a fairly decent camera – at least on paper. It’s a 13MP shooter, with a wide aperture too, at f/2.0. It also has phase detection autofocus, and a flash. In good lighting, the Redmi 4x shoots way above it’s price range, with good detail and colors. It’s not as vibrant as I’d hoped it would be, but at ~$130, I can’t really complain. However, it completely falls over under bad lighting conditions – much like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. Images turn out grainy and spotty, and detail is completely lost. The front facing camera suffers from the same cons as the rear facing camera, but doesn’t really retain many of the pros.

Both the front and rear facing cameras can shoot video, at 720p and 1080p respectively. Video quality is similar to image quality, with the same flaws under bad lighting, only less detailed. Still, at this price range, it’s nice to have a phone which can shoot at 1080p, even if it’s only at 30fps. Overall, the Xiaomi Redmi 4x shoots above its price range, as long as you don’t expose it to the dark.

Performance

At $130, you can’t expect the Xiaomi Redmi 4x to compete against the OnePlus 5, but the Snapdragon 435 SoC still does a fairly good job of keeping the phone quick and snappy. While it doesn’t have flagships specs, it’s still relatively fast, and I didn’t notice any choppiness or slowdowns within the UI. Using the Xiaomi Redmi 4x as a basic phone with Facebook, snapchat, and messenger is a breeze, and it doesn’t struggle anywhere apart from Facebook. The only area in which the Redmi 4x is absolutely demolished is 2d and 3d gaming. It’s Adreno 505 GPU isn’t powerful at all, and as such, it struggles badly with 3D games, and some heavier 2d games. Right now, the Xiaomi Redmi 4x performs well in day-to-day usage and 2d games, with hardly any slowdowns or lag, but that may change with software updates down the road.

Operating System

The Xiaomi Redmi 4x, like all Xiaomi phones, runs Android OS. It’s currently running Android 6.0 Marshmallow, with MIUI 8.0 on top of it. MIUI is Xiaomi’s own custom skin on top of Android (a custom ROM), and while it’s wildly popular for it’s simplicity, I’m not a fan of it. For starters, it does away with the app drawer completely, leaving you with an iOS style look, with all of your apps sprawled across the home screen. Many people, especially in Asian markets like this, but I prefer a more “stock” look. Installing Google Now Launcher somewhat lessens the suffering, but it still leaves all the built in apps with the Xiaomi look to it. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to change the look of the inbuilt apps, so your only option is to hide them and download alternatives, or sideload google’s own.

There are a few useful features Xiaomi has included with MIUI, but the annoyance of having everything different isn’t worth the trade-off of a few extra features, however useful they may be. Overall, the operating system is good, but it’s altered a little too much from stock Android, which I much prefer. Luckily, since it’s Android, you can install other launchers, but it only does so much to change back the look.

Battery Life

The Xiaomi Redmi 4x has absolutely brilliant battery life. It’s low-powered specs, small 720p display, and huge 4100mAh battery make it one of the longest lasting phones I’ve ever reviewed, even more so than the Vernee Thor E I reviewed a while ago. Under my medium-heavy usage, a flurry of Facebook, Snapchat, Messenger, and Slack, the phone lasts around 1.5 days, which is no mean feat. Under lighter usage, and probably more normal usage, the phone lasts anywhere from 2-3 days, and if you’re really careful, you could probably stretch it out to 4. I can’t stress enough how absolutely insane the battery life is, especially for such a cheap device. It’s a real shame that even the most expensive flagships today can’t compete with this $130 phone regarding battery life, one of, if not the most complained about feature.

Connectivity

The Xiaomi Redmi 4x comes with all the standard options for connectivity, including WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. The full specifications are below:

801.11 b/g/n, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi Display / Wi-Fi Direct
Bluetooth 4.1 / Bluetooth HID
GPS AGPS GLONASS BeiDou positioning
Infrared

Notably, there isn’t any NFC, so you won’t be able to use any contactless payment solutions on the Redmi 4x. Like many other phones from Xiaomi, the Redmi 4x is a dual hybrid SIM device, meaning you can have two SIMs at once in the phone. This is useful for work/home purposes, but if you don’t have the need for two SIMs at once, you can actually use the SIM2 slot as a micro-SD card slot. The micro-SD card slot supports cards up to 128GB, so if you buy the most expensive Redmi 4x, you can have up to 192GB of storage on your phone.

Headphone Jack

The Xiaomi Redmi 4x, in case you were worrying, has a headphone jack. It’s located on the top left of the phone. This phone isn’t especially large, and yet, it has room for a headphone jack. It really makes you wonder why a lot of flagship devices do away with a headphone jack, even though they’re much larger.

Options

There are a number of options when it comes to picking a Redmi 4x, including RAM|ROM options, and colors. The Xiaomi Redmi 4x comes in black and gold, and there are three options for RAM|ROM: 2GB|16GB, 3GB|32GB, and 4GB|64GB. If I were to pick a device, I’d go for the 3GB|32GB version, since 16GB is really not enough storage on a mobile phone in 2017. I would hesitate to recommend the 4GB|64GB version, unless you need the extra storage, as the Snapdragon 425 SoC isn’t really aided too much by the inclusion of an extra GB of RAM from 3GB to 4GB, especially when you factor in the extra cost. If you’re planning on keeping the phone for a long time, you might want to consider it, but I’d stick with the 3GB|32GB version as the perfect middle-ground.

Wrap Up

The Xiaomi Redmi 4x is an excellent phone at a bargain price. It’s just $130, and can be found at just $99 on some sites. At both of those prices, it’s a great deal, and its battery life will absolutely blow you away. Its camera isn’t great, but its rock-bottom price more than makes up for it. If you want the best phone you can buy for $99-$130, buy the Xiaomi Redmi 4x; you won’t be disappointed unless you want a huge phone.

The post Xiaomi Redmi 4x Review appeared first on Gazette Review.