Ulefone Power 4G Phablet Review

Every phone has to have some sort of major selling point.  Some OEMs market on price alone, while others push the boundaries of what mobile technology can do.  The Ulefone Power’s claim to fame is the size of its battery, one that’s more than double the size of the average phablet’s, and one that’s coupled with specs that are known to sip power rather than gulp it.  All this combined with a price tag of well under $200 means that Ulefone has a potential real winner on its hands, and a device that looks to be starting 2016 off with a bang for the Chinese manufacturer.

Specs:

A phablet in every way, the Ulefone Power’s 5.5-inch 1080p LTPS display fits on a body that measures 155mm high by 77mm wide by 9.5mm thin.  With a 6,050mAh battery underneath that removable back it’s not surprising to see this one weighing a pretty hefty 190 grams, which is at least 20% heavier than the average phablet on the market.  Under the hood sits a 64-bit MediaTek MT6753 Octa-core processor, a Mali-T720 GPU and 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM.  16GB of internal storage can be expanded thanks to the microSD card slot found within the dual-SIM card tray, and this one runs Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box with an Android 6.0 Marshmallow upgrade already in the works.  A fingerprint scanner can be found out back alongside the 13-megapixel Sony IMX214 camera sensor, which is a sensor found in flagship phones just a year or so ago.  On the front is a 5-megapixel OmniVision OV5648 camera sensor, and the whole face is covered in Gorilla Glass 3 for excellent scratch resistance.  The phone retails for $180 and comes in dark blue, silver white and wood color options.

In the Box:

As if $180 for a phone with these sorts of specs wasn’t enough value for you, the box comes chock full of goodies for added value.  A quick charging wall charger is included for fast charging of the large battery as well as a microUSB cable and of course a manual.  Extras not normally found in other phones include an OTG cable for utilizing the storage capabilities of a USB storage stick, earphones for quick music listening, and even an extra screen protector in case the pre-installed one gets damaged.  On top of this a flexible TPU clear case is included and should keep the phone from getting damaged after most drops.

Display:

Cheap LCD displays are pretty common for a phone in this price range, and this one doesn’t do much to get out of the average quality range.  The best thing it has going for it is color accuracy, in which it’s both not too over or under saturated, as well as utilizing a mostly moderate white balance that might tend to the cool side just a touch.  Black levels are pretty bad, and blacks will show up as dark gray no matter how low the backlight.  The brighter the backlight the worse these will get, and they suffer when viewing the screen from an angle too.  The screen is nice and bright though and can be seen in daylight without issue, and even in a dark room it won’t strain your eyes thanks to a low luminance level when needed.  Refresh rate is excellent though and there’s little to no ghosting even in high contrast situations.
What’s profoundly better than many phones at this price range is the digitizer, which feels more like it belongs on a $300+ phone rather than one under $200.  There was never a single time where I encountered a ghost swipe, mistouch or any other weird anomaly that’s often found on phones in this price range with poor digitizers.  Multi-touch capabilities were phenomenal and fast, and many times I forgot I wasn’t using my Nexus 6p because of how quick and responsive the screen was.  This is incredibly refreshing to see and something that does more than you might think at creating an experience that doesn’t feel cheap.

Hardware and Build:

Many OEMs in the industry have started pushing metal builds on phones, even at this price point, but sometimes such things have to be sacrificed in order to get other more important specs.  The largely plastic build of the phone definitely feels plastic, but not necessarily a bad plastic.  It’s a solid build all around and won’t feel cheap in the hand in a hollow sort of way, however that slippery plastic back will get nasty quickly with finger oils.  Three capacitive keys are located below the screen, although only the home button is marked by a circle, while the other two buttons on either side of it have no markings or lights at all.  This one does feature a metal frame which extends to the sides of the phone, but doesn’t really do much to help make the phone feel premium or anything like that.  At the very least the metal buttons feel great and have a nice click.

On the right side you’ll find the volume rocker situated near the top, with the power button located just below that.  Curiously enough there’s a dedicated camera shutter button just below the power button, situated dead center on the right side of the phone.  The left side holds the dual-SIM/microSD card tray, while the top features both a 3.5mm headset jack and an IR blaster, something not commonly found in phones in general much less ones in this price range.  The bottom of the phone houses a lone microUSB port, while a sound bar resides on the back near the bottom.  Centered on the back at the top-most section is the round camera lens, with the dual-LED flash to its left and the circular fingerprint sensor recessed a bit into the body below it.

Performance and Memory:

MediaTek’s processors have reached legendary status in the world of affordable devices, and the MT6753 Octa-core processor inside here doesn’t fail to impress in any way.  This experience feels more like a flagship Android phone than a budget one, and I almost never noticed slowdown or stuttering no matter what I did.  Everything from gaming to watching HD videos was a flawless experience, and there were only a handful of times that the phone chugged at all while it was processing multiple intensive background tasks at once.  Even the latest 3D games ran perfectly on this 1080p screen, two things that aren’t necessarily all that common in the under $200 price range.
Multi-tasking was a phenomenal experience outside of the method to call up the interface.  Plenty of RAM means no apps were ever in need of reloading when switching back and forth between them, and by utilizing the proper carousel multi-tasking Overview menu from stock Android the experience of switching between apps was fast and flawless, with no question as to which apps you’re looking to switch to.  The drawback with the phone in this regard is having to hold down the home button to get to this interface instead of being able to quickly launch it via a dedicated Overview button.  This is annoying and makes getting to the interface slower than it should be.

Battery Life:

A 6,050mAh battery is about double the size of your average phablet’s battery, and that reflects in the usage without a doubt.  I got 2 full days of usage out of the phone without having to charge at all, including over 6 hours of screen on time over that 40 hour time period.  Standby was alright but nothing excellent, and I didn’t notice any less power drain overnight than while using it during the day.  This will hopefully be improved with the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update coming soon when Doze mode is added, but for now don’t expect to leave this on overnight and only loose a few percentage points.  Regardless of this fact though I never found a point where I needed to slow down or stop using the device to get through the rest of the day.  This size of a battery will give you peace of mind about never having to worry about a charger in any single given day no matter how much you use it, and even into that second day you won’t have to slow down until the end of the afternoon.  Thankfully when you do need to charge though you can do so quickly with the latest quick charge standards from MediaTek, which charges the full 6,050mAh battery in less than 2 hours.  30 minutes of charging is rated to last a full day’s use, and I found that’s pretty accurate in my use.

Camera:

Given the pedigree that Sony’s IMX214 sensor has you would automatically assume the pictures and video taken with the Ulefone Power were of excellent quality.  If you assumed this you would unfortunately be wrong, but at least you’re not too far off the mark.  The experience here is largely spoiled by the software, which is as generic as it gets and doesn’t take any advantage of the hardware found within the phone.  The software is identical to almost every single other phone in this price range that features a MediaTek processor, regardless of camera sensor, and is not only slow but ugly looking.  There are a handful of modes here in addition to auto, but all of them degrade overall quality and don’t work incredibly well.  On the bright side there’s a dedicated camera shutter and record button here for quick picture and video taking no matter where you’re at.  Quick actions along the top or rightmost row (depending on which orientation the phone is in) will give you access to HDR mode, toggling flash, switching between front and rear camera, and toggling the gesture feature for taking hands-free pictures.

You can Buy it from : Gearbest