The pachyderm punch: El Reg takes just-over-a-ton Elephone P8000 to tusk Every time The Register reviews a high-end, large-screen smartphone we get a comment or two about how for a quarter of the price you can get something similar from a no-name Chinese manufacturer. Elephone P8000 No-name, low price, big screen: Elephone's P8000 5.5-incher No doubt we’ll see the same when we review the new …
"It makes you wonder why none of the big Android names have a similar feature."
Because certain big name manufacturers like the lack permissions as it means they can take your data as well. When I had my S3 I went to the samsung store and almost all apps required all permissions, even though the apps required minimal permissions from the play store.
My next phone isn't going to be android as I fancy playing with something else. I'm hoping by the time I'm bored of non android phones, there'll be a really well configured phone with full permissions and top of the line components to play with, then I can return refreshed and full of hope.
I would suggest it is also a support thing.
Rightly or wrongly due to this a lot (most?) apps might assume they are given the access they ask for and might well throw massive crash tantrums if they try to access something they are blocked from.
For a smaller, more niche product not so much an issue (I would imagine a large proportion of the buyers of these, at least in the UK, will be somewhat technical). But when selling to world+dog who expect things to "just work" it might produce huge amounts of support baggage when people start randomly flicking things on and off...
"apps might assume they are given the access they ask for"
Yes, it's not hard to check for permissions before using them but no-one does it or bothers catching the exceptions. Or carry on working after. That's going to change with Android 6 many years from now.
The 'correct' solution is to feed lies back to the requesting app instead of denying permissions. Not aware of any manufacturers shipping that, so users have to root and install the fix themselves. Not ideal.
"It makes you wonder why none of the big Android names have a similar feature...."
Well, they usually do have it, in fact. The ability to selectively deny permissions is a "hidden" feature of Android since 4.4.something. IIRC there's even a Reg article that covers it.
Custom ROMs, like Cyanogen, often make the feature explicit. I presume Elephone's does the same.
The reason for it being "hidden" otherwise is that non-standardized "empty" value returns from various API endpoints are liable to cause app crashes. Not that it absolves Google for dabbling with this feature only after several years...
Android Marshmallow will make this ability "official", with relevant API changes and a graceful degradation for "older" apps. Still, I wouldn't bet on there being no crashes in the early days of its life.
...on how these no-namers are a year down the road.
I bought a no-name tablet which was not bad at the time (about a gen behind the big names), but after a year, the battery was shot, would only charge via USB (and not the power supply) and then the screen went wonky.
It would be nice to see a "used" review somewhere, where devices a year old are reviewed.
Similar story here.
I bought a S5 clone a year ago, no problem at all. Maybe just short on the battery side, although it was supposed to be 2750mAh, it never lasted me more than a full day.
Then, some ten months later, the battery started behaving funny, like charging from 10% to 100% in 30 minutes and discharging almost as quickly... I opened the case and saw the battery had a big bulge in it (maybe just happy to see me, but didn't want to trust it).
Fortunately, it wasn’t fixed, so I bought a new one for under 12€ and hope it’ll last for some ten months more!
Anyway, after reading the review, I noted this phone has a big battery but it is fixed. What will the owner do when the battery goes cock-eyed? These brands have zero support outside China, so it’ll take long and it’ll be costly to repair…
If my Samsung Note 8 tablet is anaything to go by, they've got the battery spot on then... I've never known anything with such a shonky battery - 100% to nothing in around an hour today, 100% to 80% in around two hours the following day. And randomly switching off whenever it feels like it. For a "premium" brand, I'm not terribly impressed.
how these no-namers are a year down the road
Got one from an outfit called Doogee (The logo font choice makes it look like 'dodgee'; so it's my dodgy Chinese phone, and that pleases me, for some reason) and on the whole, I'm very happy with it.
Atypical use - I don't have a SIM card in it and use it like more of a mobile computer/library/PDA than a phone; but the hardware is still running fine after a year. There's wobbly bits in the software...no zoom on the camera for example...but on the whole it's still running like new. No battery drop off that I can see.
T'ain't necessarily the case that Chinese brands will have no support. I was pleasantly surprised to find Cubot have now got a euro-service centre who bent over backwards to help me with a low volume jack socket problem on my new X12 Their diagnosis after we tried various work rounds was a warranty replacement done via the vendor. The new phone is happily driving my car (and truck) stereos for four to six hours a day .
I'm a fan of the company the only phone I have bought in recent years which has failed badly to perform was a Motorola Cliq ruined by google bloat/spyware. The oriental kit has performed well until inevitably it gets damaged by my hectic lifestyle new screen and my older P9 was good to go until it got jammed into a truck seat runner still worked though! I should get another screen so it is a handy spare.
Iv'e got the P8
It's okay, big capacity, decent battery life and lots of memory.
Only problem I have had is when the usb board fell out attached to the end of the charger. Unfortunately it's soldered in place in two places.
I have got hold of the board, now just to pluck up the courage to take a soldering iron to my phone. Don't mind telling you I am slightly scared! I'm also going to mod a wireless charging module into it as well.
Add wireless charging, NFC and USB OTG (what can I say, I'm a professional geek) and it would be absolutely perfect for me.
Not bad at all for the price though compared to the competition and you don't need to get locked into a contract which, to me is just as valuable.
I bought the Elephone P6000 a while ago and it's a great phone. Never had any issues, really fast, happily plays any games I throw at it (even ones my Tegra 4 tablet refuses). Also comes pre-rooted with no bloatware either which is nice. Not bad for the £115 I paid at the time. It's honestly been the best phone I've ever owned and I've had several flagships.
So, eh, legitimate question here. I see these are on Ebay for $180 (for us USians), and judging by this review, they look like decent devices. So is it possible to buy one of these and never connect it to a phone network? Will the device have fits (or not work at all) if I don't provide it with a SIM card? $180 for a little pocket computer with no data bill sounds like a deal - something I could take around at work to check access point strength, telnet into switches/etc (no serial is a bummer, though). But would it actually work?
It will work fine, I gave my daughter (age 18months at the time) my old Lenovo P800 having pre-loaded it with suitable games last year. It is amazing how long the battery lasts when it isnt try to connect to a phone network.
I let it connect via wifi every now and then to update the apps.
Having no phone network connection means no inappropriate adverts in the baby games as well!!!
Good luck in ever seeing any updates to Marshmallow (Assuming they even ship out as Lollipop that is!). It'll be a cold day before you find someone doing an AOSP port for one of these... Thats 'cause these Chinese outfits fail to respect GPL. So you could spend +500$ for a device that might last for say can. Five Years... Or spend ca. ~100$ a Year for a newer device. (i.e. Landfill Android!).
"Thats 'cause these Chinese outfits fail to respect GPL. So you could spend +500$ for a device that might last for say can. Five Years... Or spend ca. ~100$ a Year for a newer device. (i.e. Landfill Android!)."
5 years is a very long time in this business, and I can't come up with any handset that has had 5 years of support. iPhone 4S is the oldest phone which got the IOS9 and that's a 4-year old model. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple dropped support for it come next summer and IOSX. 5 years ago the Android models were fitted with Gingerbread - how many phones can be upgraded to Lollipop - and how painful the end result would be to use?
So, in the end, would you buy one of these landfills each year and surely have the latest OS and possibly some newer technology too, or hang on to the trusty relic that isn't getting any new apps and probably has had one battery replacement during its lifetime - if it was even replaceable? The battery and other hardware has a good chance to work for at least a year, and in EU (at least) you'll be covered by the warranty.
Actually, SOME of these Chinese phone makers DO issue updates and offer support for their phones ...support IS the big issue, if the phone goes wrong you are effectively buggered; my Umi had duff GPS and it took over 6 months to exchange it for a replacement.
Xiaomi Hong Mi owner - waiting for Lollipop, the last update gave my phone a massive 50% boost in speed, but still wasnt full Lollipop. Xiaomi have been updating their more expensive phones first (as you do), and the Hong Mi is well down the list.
(Yeah, I gave up on ever getting the Umi replaced and bought the Xiaomi - then the Umi turned up a week later!!)
Paris - just because.
I got one of these last week and was plesantly suprised, once having done the OTA updates to the 9th September version, it was very stable as fast. I switched to Nova launcher and used it for navigation from Northwich to Leeds and back 4 days in a row, one day which I didn't even use the USB cable to charge it while in the car. It has lossless bluetooth support so my synced Plex albums played back great over the car system while Waze directed me around the traffic. GPS lock is nice and fast. It supports Miravision built in, which is like the nVidia Colour Enhancement panel for the Mediatek SOC, which makes the screen "pop" almost like AMOLED. Call quality is very good and it connected to 4G on the Three network without fuss. The weight was a concern of mine at first as I also bought a UMI Iron to try out. I sold the UMI Iron on as it had more "niggles" than the Elephone. It's been solid so far over two weeks usage.
Mine came with SuperSU installed but the device was not rooted. A simple press in the app completed the process and I've noticed no downsides. This let me create a symlink to the SD card for the Plex sync library as Plex are dragging their heals with supporting an SD card on Lollipop.
The fingerprint lock option is also good for corporate device policies which enforce a PIN; its much more convenient!
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got the phone for two weeks from www.elephone.cc , it works well, although it has some bugs , it still a wonderful phone, we can fix the bugs after update the rom.
the battery can work whole day, and the camera is so good,unfortunately it can't support 3g network in Americas, i need change the APN appropriate for my carrier, then 4g network will be working
it still a good phone to use,lol
got the phone for two weeks from www.elephone.cc , it works well, although it has some bugs , it still a wonderful phone, we can fix the bugs after update the rom.
the battery can work whole day, and the camera is so good,unfortunately it can't support 3g network in Americas, i need change the APN appropriate for my carrier, then 4g network will be working
it still a good phone to use,lol
Just maybe, batteries are now good enough that you really won't need to swap it. Saving 30p(?) on a battery connector in a £100 phone is significant, less so in a £500 phone that ought to be built to much higher standards. There's also the question of whether a replacement battery would be available when you needed it several years down the road (and the cost of making spares available ... that's another saving from fixing both the battery and the customer's expectations at the start).
Well I'm sold.
Every mainstream smartphone I've had has been riddled with utter shite from google and facebook and twatter and the manufacturer itself that I neither need nor want and disable immediately if I can. Shite like Sony's What's New, or Xperia Lounge.
109 quid?
Bargain.
I really don't see how Samsung is going to be able to carry on charging the premium prices it does, with phones like this and many other now about. It's got all the features that I actually use on my S5 for a fraction of the price, in 9 months when my contract is up I doubt I'll go for the S7. No wonder their profits are tanking.
I've been a big fan of Chinese phones for a while now and just got my daughter a Doogee 720p device for her first phone. For circa £65 (inc. shipping and import duties) she has a device that beats the spots off similarly priced supermarket entry level smartphones and you'd be paying well over £250 for something from a name brand with similar specs.
Yes, support can be slow, but I've never had a negative experience...yet!
If only I could overcome my aversion to Chinese kit,I might indulge myself ....but I have read of way too many security kerfluffles coming out of that malware blackhole. Would bbe nice if someone could do a deepdive on the operating system background operations.
That said, the best feature is permission control, root access,and no bloatware.
Cons, are the lack of sensors, and other radio bands.
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