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LeEco Le Max 2 6GB/64GB vs. Recent Flagship Phones - Some Guy's Review

PURPOSE
So 1st and foremost, the plan here is to give you my experience with the LeEco Le Max 2 6GB version compared to some other recent flagship phones I have tried. Granted, I have only used the Max 2 for about 1/2 a week now and can say I have yet to fully break it in to find everything that may or may not be right / wrong with it. However, this will be a unbiased look and comparison. I'm neither a fanboy or sheep. No brand affiliation. Not a programmer either, just a pro-sumer Senior Member of XDA willing to get trolled, flamed, etc. for sharing a look at these 3 phones. Hopefully, I can give "the everyday guy / gal look" without getting bogged down in stats, variables or benchmarks. Here goes...
MY BACKGROUND
No one special. Just a guy that likes the latest tech... phones being at the top of the list. I am a nerd. No doubt about that. I think anyone that knows about XDA probably is to some extent. No brand loyalty. Recently, I have had the privilege to try out the following phones:
1. LeEco Le Max 2 6GB
2. HTC 10
3. Huawei P9 4GB
4. LG G5
5. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
6. Huawei Mate 8
7. Huawei Nexus 6P
8. LG Nexus 5X
9. Samsung Note 5
10. Apple iPhone 6s+
And probably some more, but these are the most recent. Does that make me qualified to make a review... Maybe. It does make me an idiot that likes new phones, though. I am always looking for something that meets my needs but also is a good phone. Currently with TMobile but have been with ATT, Verizon & Sprint at some point 20 years of using cell phones.
MY NEEDS
I drive about 40 miles everyday to work (yes, my work week is currently 7 days a week with a few occasional days off). So, with this in mind and where I drive. I need the minimum requirements:
1. Can Stream Music
2. Bluetooth is fully compatible with my 2016 vehicle
3. An equalizer of some sort since I have only switch out my new cars speakers for better ones and don't plan on changing or adding a better sound system.
4. Decent pictures when needed
5. Works with my Huawei Watch
6. Relatively not laggy - will sometimes do some ROM-ing or some customization but since I tend to get rid of the phones quickly I try not to void warranties or make it too non-stock
THE COMPARISON
I am looking at my experience with the Max 2 and the other flagships under/around these requirements and some normal stuff like battery, screen, snappiness, heat, speakers, etc. Here goes:
SOUND OVERALL
Lets start out by saying that I'm not a person that needs a phone that has good external speakers... I really have no use for them and as long as they are loud enough for notifications then I'm cool. Also, I am not a cross-training adventure workout junkie that requires 3.5mm in order to do everything with my phone... I state this now so that I clear the air with the Max 2 being one of the first phones not to have a 3.5mm jack and require a CDLA to 3.5mm adapter or CDLA USB Type C Headphones... I think the Max 2 may even come with the adapter and since I so don't give a brown matter from my butt about it, I haven't even taken it out of its packaging. Personally, the only time I use headphones is skiing and I have bluetooth wireless headphones built into my helmet... and like someone in the 21st century I realize I can have wireless headphones. :good: Now, my main sound experience with the Max 2 is bluetooth to my 2016 HR-V. It connects with zero issues, phone and bluetooth audio both work great. As a bonus, the built-in Dolby ATMOS makes my otherwise tinny speakers without equalization sound great. It also doesn't detract from the volume output like other similar apps... It allows me to blast bassy metal to offend anyone I want, which is a great double bonus situation for me. Nothing like driving by a church blasting GHOST and having the lyrics Hail Satan play loud, clear and rockin' hahaha. Seriously though, in recent memory, this is the only phone from 2016 flagships I haven't had to use a workaround app that drastically decreases the volume. Now I will say that the Dolby ATMOS setting works a little wonky and easily resets itself if you enter into the sound settings or back out of sound setting after enabling... once you know about this though, it is easy to workaround just by hitting home button instead. For the external speaker people, the Max 2 is super loud and the speakers do sound crisp... I think it is stereo speakers as well, if you care about those things... bass-wise, the speakers are not the best but not bad also... definitely as good as of not better than the HTC 10 or LG G5.
WINNER: NO DOUBT SO FAR IN 2016 - LeEco Max 2
BATTERY
From my experience so far, I have had decent battery life out of the Max 2. 3100 mAh does seem a tad small for this larger phalet... but I'm yet to say that its a problem for me. Of recent phones, LG G5 has the worse battery life with the HTC 10 being next in line, then S7 rounded out at the top with the P9... The P9 has a Kirin processor so lets toss it out. Out of the Snapdragons I will say that with my usage so far the Max 2 matches the S7 with battery life from my usage. Max 2 has fast charge as well which helps keep it on par with the other 820's. Just yesterday, I used the Max 2 all-day no recharging with 2 heavy usage periods for a total of 3 hours plus of screen on time playing Clash Royale. The rest of the day was standard usage of checking emails, looking at some news items, etc. It lasted the whole day from 8:30am until 1am in the morning with 15% left. This was on wifi the whole time as well. I feel this adequately meets my needs to last a whole day without recharge (which rarely happens since I always recharge when in my car) with moderate usage all day long.
WINNER: It's close to call but since its the larger phone and still performs well even though no wireless charging - LeEco Max 2
HEAT
I have yet to see a real heat spike with the Max 2. I have heard reports of heat but maybe this is with the 4GB version. Since the lack of need to flush RAM or actively manage memory more critically with the greater space, this may play a factor. Not a super nerdy tech guru on this so someone that understands this more may have to chime in. I have also yet to place it in a what I like to call, a pocket burning situation like at a concert were I'm using the camera a lot, there's high tower saturation causing the radio to work more, etc. I can say the phone barely heated up trying to download a 1.5GB update on LTE... so I guess that says something right? The only other phone that runs this cool is the P9 with it Kirin processor... all the 820's run a little hot when taxed so I would not be surprised if the Max 2 was the same if push to limits. I can say that I have gotten overheat warnings on the S7 when setting up the phone and downloading copious amounts of data.... and my first G5 overheated that it caused an internal malfunction causing me to have to replace the phone under warranty. The HTC 10 seemed to be the coolest out of the other 820's I have tried.
WINNER: Still is the P9 however out of the 820's - LeEco Max 2
SNAPPINESS
I have explained in some of my other reviews, I like to talk about performance in terms of snappiness with normal day to day usage with the phone rather than throw up meaningless to most people AnTuTu stats or whatever. I am going on out on a limp here and saying that the Max 2 dominates of course due to 6GB of RAM... it's like pitting a turbocharged version of a car vs. its not turbocharge version... more under the hood most of the time leads to better performance. No loading issues, no lag from app to app. What I can say is that EUI is a fairly nice GUI take on Android, better than EMUI, but not as nice as the new HTC 10 Sense / Stock like interface. I however did my standard change of porting over the sense launcher to the Max 2 which I just love... as far as getting use to how things work, there is a lot of configuration that can be done with notifications, much like Huawei's EMUI interface that might make it off putting to some... I lucked out and the aliexpress merchant I bought the Max 2 from pre-loaded the Google App Store when I got the phone. I since did 2 updates (one I downloaded and force flashed myself, the other was through LeEco's update system directly) and the app store continues to work fine.... There are redundant apps for email, calendar, message, etc. to google versions... however most of these are built well enough that you might not want or need the google versions. Notifications seem to work OK although some do not like that it does not litter the top of your screen with icons for every single notification.... rather it just typically puts an icon with "..." and a circle at the top... takes a little to get use to, but with a notification LED as well, I think this bypasses this small issue for some. :laugh: Also, people are starting to create ROMs for it and it is easily rootable albeit in Chinese at first, so you can definitely get more out of it with some tweaking.... haven't heard if they released Kernels yet. But it is only a matter of time given it popularity in China.
WINNER: Maybe just because of the 6GB but still... LeEco Le Max 2
DISPLAY
This to me is one of the areas much like sound where if it is not screwing up the way I use the phone then I care less about stuff like resolution. If someone can truly tell a load of difference between QHD, SuperHD, 1080p, etc. etc. good for you. Here what I can say. The Max 2 screen is great! Plus, its the largest compared to the other Flagships I have tried... forgot how nice it is to use a larger phone... It does not suffer from which ultimately made me get rid of the HTC 10 from the screen polarization being applied wrong causing you not to be able to use it outdoors with sunglasses on.... I know right... major f-up IMO that HTC 10 did... I couldn't see it in my car with sunglasses on, too annoying for me. Thankfully, don't have to worry about this with the Max 2 even with a tempered glass screen protector. Since it is somewhat screen related, I can say that the fingerprint sensor is something to be desired. Its slow, sometimes taking 3 tries for it to read properly... I have tried multiple times to reprogram and it does not help. Definitely the G5 and P9 beat it hands down when talking about rear facing fingerprint sensors... Even touchwiz laggy S7 sensor beats it. Hopefully, updates help with this. Like capacitive buttons it has, in the configuration I like with back button on left... apps button also reveals the control center feature on the Max 2... similar to Apples swipe up control center... not placing these toggles in the notification panel is a fresh take on using these toggles and I like it... Color balance seems good on the phone as well if you care about those things... No Always-On feature for the Max 2 either but not a huge deal with a configurable notification LED.
WINNER: The S7 still has the best "looking screen"; G5 has the best always-on screen - Max 2 is ok but not the best in this class of phones.... Does get bonus points for the control center feature and correctly orientated IMO capacitive buttons
PHONE DESIGN
The Max 2 is a good looking phone especially with a premium metal chassis... I do have to say that I had to get the "Gold" version of the phone since it was the only one available at this point in the 6GB Version... I use "gold" here loosely as like other can report... gold is actually rose gold... not that rose gold is bad, but a pinkish phone for a guy is not cool... No matter, I got a Matte black hard case today the covers the back and pretty much takes care of the covering most of the pinkish gold exterior.... I believe there will be other colors out there soon but I could not wait any longer... Camera and button placement is nice. Phone feels great in hand. Although bigger than the other 2016 Flagships, its not gargantuan either... doesn't feel like putting a tablet up to your ear like other phalets can feel like. Pretty thin too and not overly heavy. The biggest design issue is of course no SD Card add-on memory since the SIM tray only accommodates dual SIMs. At 64GB, this isn't an issue for me as I don't save a lot to my phone and jam pack it with needless stuff. The fingerprint sensor is in a good natural position albeit if it only worked on the first try... Its not like Megan Fox / Candice Swanepoel good looking phone rather more like Melissa Benoist / Kate Upton good looking. You ain't going to wake up after a long night of drinking and go "my god... what did I do..." but you are also not getting the top of the heap in design characteristics either. It's nice looking but not someone you'd use your "hall pass" on over your wife, if you get my point..." Notification LED work great and should be noted as not being blinding at night like others can be.... looking at you HTC 10... I like no 3.5mm jack since I don't use it anyway... less holes to get dirt into... in this case, having less holes to stick stuff into wins out!!! :silly:
WINNER: Still S7 for overall design, wireless charging, etc. - Your not bad Max 2, but pinkish gold is makes my balls instantly shrink!!!
CAMERA
Another big deal for some but not really a huge concern for me is the camera on smartphones... Personally and I have gone over the reasons time and time again, I went to school for photography and have used some really great cameras, film and digital. So when you start looking at smartphone cameras, even in 2016, it is still hard to compare to the output of an actual camera. With that said, there is no real gimmick with the Max 2... looks to be an alright camera that I will post examples later of. Doesn't have "superpixels", low light lens, dual lens, etc, etc. etc. It will take pictures decently and in most cases that's all you need it to do. I can say that it does have one of my major pet peeves when it comes to the camera app in video mode... no focus lock.... honestly who uses always on auto focus in video mode.... looks like a bad wedding video... when you are recording something that you are a fixed distance away, like a concert lets say, you don't need for it to re-focus... it annoying. So, I am going to cut this section short and just say, the Max 2 has a camera, its nothing special and if you are ok with a no gimmick no frills nexus like camera than its absolutely fine for what its supposed to do.... :highfive:
WINNER: S7 for low-light, G5 for wide angled, P9 for dynamic range; HTC 10 for camera app & Max 2 for no frills OK no gimmicks camera
CONCLUSION
For my daily usage case, the Max 2 is great! When you consider that it outperforms in most cases phones that are $200 - $400 more than what it costs... It tends to soften the negatives. I think for me the greatest of which is the current functionality of the fingerprint sensor... I hate struggling to get it to read than having to still punch in a pin when it fails. Besides this, all the othe negatives are minor. Camera - its really ok just nothing special. Color - if you can wait, you can get a more manly color unless you want to go with the 4GB version (you can get different colors now). EUI - definitely not as big of a learning curve as EMUI but it does take a little bit of commitment to get use to all the customization you can do. Looks like LeEco plans to release updates frequently since there has been at least one since it released in May... Yeah, it doesn't have a headphone jack... grow up and get with the 21st century... hahaha. To get a 6GB phone, under $500, 64GB internal is not too shabby. Would it be stellar with a SD Card add-on, yep it sure would but I can make do without having the SD Card in most cases unless I really started ROM-ing and backing up TWRPs with it.... I think if you are looking for a good, well performing phone at a good price with some decent specs and killer sound, this does the trick, most definitely. Could it be better, you betcha... but I can say that for any of the 2016 Flagship phones. Lastly and as always, this is just Some Guy's Opinion... :good:

Good review, makes it sound really awesome. My experience is very different.
I have the 6GB version and its regularly becoming warm.
Sound is ok, but Huawei Mate 8 is a different class altogether (better).
As a mid level budget phone the Eco Max 2 is very clearly on the cost performance side.
But I think the battery softens its advantage.
The hardware specs on the Max 2 are all top class, but there is definitely muuuch room for improvement. On the paper the network is Cat 12, but tell you the truth in daily usage it doesnt differ speed to Huawei Mate 8. Same for the user experience speed.
Also its not funny if the phone reboots occasionally
LeTV has fixed some of the issues with the upcoming EUI 5.8 release, but they need to do more !!
If you are thinking about getting it and tweaking it for your local marcet you have to do little homework with Google playstore etc. Its a gadget for geeky power users, but not mainstream user, to many changes required.

EverPing said:
Good review, makes it sound really awesome. My experience is very different.
I have the 6GB version and its regularly becoming warm.
Sound is ok, but Huawei Mate 8 is a different class altogether (better).
As a mid level budget phone the Eco Max 2 is very clearly on the cost performance side.
But I think the battery softens its advantage.
The hardware specs on the Max 2 are all top class, but there is definitely muuuch room for improvement. On the paper the network is Cat 12, but tell you the truth in daily usage it doesnt differ speed to Huawei Mate 8. Same for the user experience speed.
Also its not funny if the phone reboots occasionally
LeTV has fixed some of the issues with the upcoming EUI 5.8 release, but they need to do more !!
If you are thinking about getting it and tweaking it for your local marcet you have to do little homework with Google playstore etc. Its a gadget for geeky power users, but not mainstream user, to many changes required.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny mine never rebooted once. No heat even under load. No big modifications to get google play. Mine was stock and able to OTA... Google Play just took a simple APK download and agreeing to "unknown sources." Yes, its not a consumer mainstream phone outside of China... however doing a review on XDA, pretty much means its a review for a more "geeky" crowd easily capable of simple APK downloads from shared sources mentioned at least 10 different times in 10 different posts in this forum. The Huawei Mate 8 succeeds because of Kirin... however of 820's and at this price point, its hard to beat... maybe only by OP3 once they figure out the RAM Management. The camera is better on the Mate 8 but it's not as good as the P9... Plus all in all, its just as difficult to install the Play Store on the Mate8 & P9... both phones I owned and sold, as I was able to get just as good as and somewhat better phone for $200 to $300 cheaper. In the states, all these phones max out our 4G LTE networks so seeing any major difference between the P9, Mate8 and the Max 2 in modem performance is minor. Once again, OGO

Thanks for the feedback, maybe I am just unlucky this time. The apk's I downloaded from apkmirror etc don't seem to work on my Chinese version max 2. I also tried Xiaomi installer version 2, Opengapps, LeTV Playstore zips for same.
I think in terms of price LeTV has found a sweet spot in the marcet, but overall the software quality is just not there yet. However the upcoming update will fix some of it.

Hi,
Thanks for the review. Could you tell me if it has MHL ?
Regards

I tried with my MHL-Adapter, which is working fine with LETV LE 1 (X600). Didn´t work ...

Ok, thanks for the info. MHL is so usefull when you want to see a film at the hotel...

I think it should have MHL (I might have found this hint in some descriptions) but actually it is not working (for me?)...

Having been in IT, the first thing you learn is most problems are usually user problems. Most of the issues that I have come up against are problems of my own doing. For example, some thing may not work because I deleted a necessary file in my quest to remove Chinese Le-bloat. So it has been trial and error. I installed the CM 13 yesterday, but didn't like the tinny sound the speakers were making. Went back to the dev 5.8 stock, installed Google play and a few apps and it's running like a charm. I have not experienced any overheating issues. This phone does everything that one does with a phone very well. I sure you can find an individual that does intense things on their device, but for the average user that surfs the web, watches you tube, plays a few games, sends/reads email and IM's others, this phone is hard to beat. This morning I had an antutu of 140491, which is pretty good considering I only have the 4/32 GB version. Can you say fast phone?!

Hi,
I may add a comparison to a phone that can be considered as the direct competitor to the Le 2 Max : the One+ 3.
There is one area where the Le 2 Max clearly wins : it's the display. I don't care about 2k or FHD. It's hard to tell the difference in real life anyways. But I'm talking about brightness and legibility in sunny daylight conditions. And there, there is no question : the Le 2 Max is superior to the OP3, even after OP3 released the new display drivers that improves things on the brightness side...
And the 0.2" more is a nice addition too... Really noticeable when you used the LeEco for several days and you then go back to OP3
But apart from that (which is really important I admit it), the Le 2 Max is lagging behind in almost every other aspect...
BATTERY LIFE : OP3 wins without a question...In really heavy usage (GPS + BT active +display on all the time) I get about 3h45minutes of battery life with the LeEco... and about 5h30 in the same conditions with the OP3. That's almost 50% better battery. Think the 2K display has a cost unfortunately
SNAPPINESS : the LeEco is OK. But once you compare it to the OP3, the overall feeling is clearly pointing into the OP3 direction !!! And just install a custom ROM like Tipsy, and your device seems to fly, when the Le Eco seems to walk
HEAT : under the heavy usage conditions I described before, the LeEco gets mildly hot. It's much cooler than the Nexus 5 used to be in the same conditions( where it lasted about 1h40 on battery !). But the OP3 is simply almost cool. On that side, OP3 wins...
SOUND : I admit that I don't give a **** about sound coming from the speakers. But on phone calls OP3 clearly wins. On Le 2 Max I have a "ghost sound". I seem to hear everything I am saying to the other person like he has a loudspeaker on. Doesn't happen on OP3.
CAMERA : I am not a great camera user. But both deliver pictures that are good enough for me. But I must say it's difficult to tear them apart
FINGERPRINT SCANNER : it's adictive to use on OP3 because fingerprint is recognized in a fraction of a second and is ALWAYS recognized. I cannot count the times I left my finger on the finger print scanner for seconds before it decided to consider it has to recognize a finger... and then I would say about 30% of the time it doesn't recognize my finger print on first attempt, and about 15% of the time it doesn't recognize it at all so I have to fire it up with the power key and pattern.
DEVELOPMENT : It seems LeEco has no intention at all to consider those phones as an important part of their business. Look at their website : they're ahrdly advertised. Go to their forums : there no activity. An official from LeEco shows up about once every 3 weeks. All in all, discussion and support are simply dead. All tehy keep saying is "Stay tuned, we have a lot to unveil"... but no date nor nothing ! And after 4 months of phone existence what do we have : a tweaked Stock ROM and a CM13 build that is obviously not really actively developped. After 3 weeks of existence, OP3 has tweaked stock ROM, CM13 and 3 derivatives, 3 or 4 AOSP derivatives and just recevied multi ROM... So all problems may have a fix some day... There's really little hope to have that with LeEco
Even CM13 builders doesn't publish their github source which would allow to work on other ROM's...
PERFORMANCE : not that I really care about benchmarks... as I am convinced that 3k or 4k points in Antutu will go unnoticed in real life. But on the OP3 if I run several Antutu tests in a row, I have only a really slight variation in results It goes from 142k to 136-138k on 3rd/4th pass. On x820 results vary from 140k (generally on first pass) and then sink to 110k (sometimes even less) on third/fourth pass... And that sounds really weird to me : maybe there's a throttle on the phone ?
ALL IN ALL : I'd love to keep the LeEco because of it's display. But considering all the "cons" it has, I am afraid it will soon join an ad site for used devices And that's a shame because with a little support from it's manufacturer, it would be THE device to keep
So LeEco : if you hang around here sometime, show us some love and release official device trees.

Well said and your comments are spot on @NexusPenguin
Le needs to release kernel sources to their phones to survive in this industry. They absolutely do not want to go down Xiaomi's footsteps.
If they don't release device trees, most people will simply not buy their Le Max 3 or whatever they release next. Simple to earn bad-will and buey themselves to ground.

it is definitively fast but....
Dear jim262,
it is really fast. With Google Keyboard app, not debloated and after autoupdate to EUI 5.8.016S mine had a Antutu v6.2.1 of 139.159
But:
- I Need a international ROM
- why can´t the user decide wether he want´s the LeTV Software on it or not? So debloate that phone. I don´t want a fixed button on the Screen wich leeds to Chinese Websites. Unfortunately I can´t speak/read Chinese.
- The cam should have more Software ability to take pics with lower size. Actual it doesn´t allow less than 8 MP`s
jim262 said:
Having been in IT, the first thing you learn is most problems are usually user problems. Most of the issues that I have come up against are problems of my own doing. For example, some thing may not work because I deleted a necessary file in my quest to remove Chinese Le-bloat. So it has been trial and error. I installed the CM 13 yesterday, but didn't like the tinny sound the speakers were making. Went back to the dev 5.8 stock, installed Google play and a few apps and it's running like a charm. I have not experienced any overheating issues. This phone does everything that one does with a phone very well. I sure you can find an individual that does intense things on their device, but for the average user that surfs the web, watches you tube, plays a few games, sends/reads email and IM's others, this phone is hard to beat. This morning I had an antutu of 140491, which is pretty good considering I only have the 4/32 GB version. Can you say fast phone?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

LeTvNewby said:
Dear jim262,
it is really fast. With Google Keyboard app, not debloated and after autoupdate to EUI 5.8.016S mine had a Antutu v6.2.1 of 139.159
But:
- I Need a international ROM
- why can´t the user decide wether he want´s the LeTV Software on it or not? So debloate that phone. I don´t want a fixed button on the Screen wich leeds to Chinese Websites. Unfortunately I can´t speak/read Chinese.
- The cam should have more Software ability to take pics with lower size. Actual it doesn´t allow less than 8 MP`s
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of the roms are international roms with the ability to select language when you start.

Yeah, the phone is not a Galaxy S7 killer but I don't think we ever had such a device ~$250 on the market. Oneplus One might have been the only thing that came close but now their devices cost ~400€.
It doesn't have any real weaknesses, only a few things like the camera and software are mid-to-high end.
Clearly we'll see a drop in smartphone prices in the coming years, users won't pay 700€ anymore if you can get the latest for less. And these cheap manufacturers will catch up to Samsung and co. eventually.

mahst68 said:
PURPOSE
So 1st and foremost, the plan here is to give you my experience with the LeEco Le Max 2 6GB version compared to some other recent flagship phones I have tried. Granted, I have only used the Max 2 for about 1/2 a week now and can say I have yet to fully break it in to find everything that may or may not be right / wrong with it. However, this will be a unbiased look and comparison. I'm neither a fanboy or sheep. No brand affiliation. Not a programmer either, just a pro-sumer Senior Member of XDA willing to get trolled, flamed, etc. for sharing a look at these 3 phones. Hopefully, I can give "the everyday guy / gal look" without getting bogged down in stats, variables or benchmarks. Here goes...
MY BACKGROUND
No one special. Just a guy that likes the latest tech... phones being at the top of the list. I am a nerd. No doubt about that. I think anyone that knows about XDA probably is to some extent. No brand loyalty. Recently, I have had the privilege to try out the following phones:
1. LeEco Le Max 2 6GB
2. HTC 10
3. Huawei P9 4GB
4. LG G5
5. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
6. Huawei Mate 8
7. Huawei Nexus 6P
8. LG Nexus 5X
9. Samsung Note 5
10. Apple iPhone 6s+
And probably some more, but these are the most recent. Does that make me qualified to make a review... Maybe. It does make me an idiot that likes new phones, though. I am always looking for something that meets my needs but also is a good phone. Currently with TMobile but have been with ATT, Verizon & Sprint at some point 20 years of using cell phones.
MY NEEDS
I drive about 40 miles everyday to work (yes, my work week is currently 7 days a week with a few occasional days off). So, with this in mind and where I drive. I need the minimum requirements:
1. Can Stream Music
2. Bluetooth is fully compatible with my 2016 vehicle
3. An equalizer of some sort since I have only switch out my new cars speakers for better ones and don't plan on changing or adding a better sound system.
4. Decent pictures when needed
5. Works with my Huawei Watch
6. Relatively not laggy - will sometimes do some ROM-ing or some customization but since I tend to get rid of the phones quickly I try not to void warranties or make it too non-stock
THE COMPARISON
I am looking at my experience with the Max 2 and the other flagships under/around these requirements and some normal stuff like battery, screen, snappiness, heat, speakers, etc. Here goes:
SOUND OVERALL
Lets start out by saying that I'm not a person that needs a phone that has good external speakers... I really have no use for them and as long as they are loud enough for notifications then I'm cool. Also, I am not a cross-training adventure workout junkie that requires 3.5mm in order to do everything with my phone... I state this now so that I clear the air with the Max 2 being one of the first phones not to have a 3.5mm jack and require a CDLA to 3.5mm adapter or CDLA USB Type C Headphones... I think the Max 2 may even come with the adapter and since I so don't give a brown matter from my butt about it, I haven't even taken it out of its packaging. Personally, the only time I use headphones is skiing and I have bluetooth wireless headphones built into my helmet... and like someone in the 21st century I realize I can have wireless headphones. :good: Now, my main sound experience with the Max 2 is bluetooth to my 2016 HR-V. It connects with zero issues, phone and bluetooth audio both work great. As a bonus, the built-in Dolby ATMOS makes my otherwise tinny speakers without equalization sound great. It also doesn't detract from the volume output like other similar apps... It allows me to blast bassy metal to offend anyone I want, which is a great double bonus situation for me. Nothing like driving by a church blasting GHOST and having the lyrics Hail Satan play loud, clear and rockin' hahaha. Seriously though, in recent memory, this is the only phone from 2016 flagships I haven't had to use a workaround app that drastically decreases the volume. Now I will say that the Dolby ATMOS setting works a little wonky and easily resets itself if you enter into the sound settings or back out of sound setting after enabling... once you know about this though, it is easy to workaround just by hitting home button instead. For the external speaker people, the Max 2 is super loud and the speakers do sound crisp... I think it is stereo speakers as well, if you care about those things... bass-wise, the speakers are not the best but not bad also... definitely as good as of not better than the HTC 10 or LG G5.
WINNER: NO DOUBT SO FAR IN 2016 - LeEco Max 2
BATTERY
From my experience so far, I have had decent battery life out of the Max 2. 3100 mAh does seem a tad small for this larger phalet... but I'm yet to say that its a problem for me. Of recent phones, LG G5 has the worse battery life with the HTC 10 being next in line, then S7 rounded out at the top with the P9... The P9 has a Kirin processor so lets toss it out. Out of the Snapdragons I will say that with my usage so far the Max 2 matches the S7 with battery life from my usage. Max 2 has fast charge as well which helps keep it on par with the other 820's. Just yesterday, I used the Max 2 all-day no recharging with 2 heavy usage periods for a total of 3 hours plus of screen on time playing Clash Royale. The rest of the day was standard usage of checking emails, looking at some news items, etc. It lasted the whole day from 8:30am until 1am in the morning with 15% left. This was on wifi the whole time as well. I feel this adequately meets my needs to last a whole day without recharge (which rarely happens since I always recharge when in my car) with moderate usage all day long.
WINNER: It's close to call but since its the larger phone and still performs well even though no wireless charging - LeEco Max 2
HEAT
I have yet to see a real heat spike with the Max 2. I have heard reports of heat but maybe this is with the 4GB version. Since the lack of need to flush RAM or actively manage memory more critically with the greater space, this may play a factor. Not a super nerdy tech guru on this so someone that understands this more may have to chime in. I have also yet to place it in a what I like to call, a pocket burning situation like at a concert were I'm using the camera a lot, there's high tower saturation causing the radio to work more, etc. I can say the phone barely heated up trying to download a 1.5GB update on LTE... so I guess that says something right? The only other phone that runs this cool is the P9 with it Kirin processor... all the 820's run a little hot when taxed so I would not be surprised if the Max 2 was the same if push to limits. I can say that I have gotten overheat warnings on the S7 when setting up the phone and downloading copious amounts of data.... and my first G5 overheated that it caused an internal malfunction causing me to have to replace the phone under warranty. The HTC 10 seemed to be the coolest out of the other 820's I have tried.
WINNER: Still is the P9 however out of the 820's - LeEco Max 2
SNAPPINESS
I have explained in some of my other reviews, I like to talk about performance in terms of snappiness with normal day to day usage with the phone rather than throw up meaningless to most people AnTuTu stats or whatever. I am going on out on a limp here and saying that the Max 2 dominates of course due to 6GB of RAM... it's like pitting a turbocharged version of a car vs. its not turbocharge version... more under the hood most of the time leads to better performance. No loading issues, no lag from app to app. What I can say is that EUI is a fairly nice GUI take on Android, better than EMUI, but not as nice as the new HTC 10 Sense / Stock like interface. I however did my standard change of porting over the sense launcher to the Max 2 which I just love... as far as getting use to how things work, there is a lot of configuration that can be done with notifications, much like Huawei's EMUI interface that might make it off putting to some... I lucked out and the aliexpress merchant I bought the Max 2 from pre-loaded the Google App Store when I got the phone. I since did 2 updates (one I downloaded and force flashed myself, the other was through LeEco's update system directly) and the app store continues to work fine.... There are redundant apps for email, calendar, message, etc. to google versions... however most of these are built well enough that you might not want or need the google versions. Notifications seem to work OK although some do not like that it does not litter the top of your screen with icons for every single notification.... rather it just typically puts an icon with "..." and a circle at the top... takes a little to get use to, but with a notification LED as well, I think this bypasses this small issue for some. :laugh: Also, people are starting to create ROMs for it and it is easily rootable albeit in Chinese at first, so you can definitely get more out of it with some tweaking.... haven't heard if they released Kernels yet. But it is only a matter of time given it popularity in China.
WINNER: Maybe just because of the 6GB but still... LeEco Le Max 2
DISPLAY
This to me is one of the areas much like sound where if it is not screwing up the way I use the phone then I care less about stuff like resolution. If someone can truly tell a load of difference between QHD, SuperHD, 1080p, etc. etc. good for you. Here what I can say. The Max 2 screen is great! Plus, its the largest compared to the other Flagships I have tried... forgot how nice it is to use a larger phone... It does not suffer from which ultimately made me get rid of the HTC 10 from the screen polarization being applied wrong causing you not to be able to use it outdoors with sunglasses on.... I know right... major f-up IMO that HTC 10 did... I couldn't see it in my car with sunglasses on, too annoying for me. Thankfully, don't have to worry about this with the Max 2 even with a tempered glass screen protector. Since it is somewhat screen related, I can say that the fingerprint sensor is something to be desired. Its slow, sometimes taking 3 tries for it to read properly... I have tried multiple times to reprogram and it does not help. Definitely the G5 and P9 beat it hands down when talking about rear facing fingerprint sensors... Even touchwiz laggy S7 sensor beats it. Hopefully, updates help with this. Like capacitive buttons it has, in the configuration I like with back button on left... apps button also reveals the control center feature on the Max 2... similar to Apples swipe up control center... not placing these toggles in the notification panel is a fresh take on using these toggles and I like it... Color balance seems good on the phone as well if you care about those things... No Always-On feature for the Max 2 either but not a huge deal with a configurable notification LED.
WINNER: The S7 still has the best "looking screen"; G5 has the best always-on screen - Max 2 is ok but not the best in this class of phones.... Does get bonus points for the control center feature and correctly orientated IMO capacitive buttons
PHONE DESIGN
The Max 2 is a good looking phone especially with a premium metal chassis... I do have to say that I had to get the "Gold" version of the phone since it was the only one available at this point in the 6GB Version... I use "gold" here loosely as like other can report... gold is actually rose gold... not that rose gold is bad, but a pinkish phone for a guy is not cool... No matter, I got a Matte black hard case today the covers the back and pretty much takes care of the covering most of the pinkish gold exterior.... I believe there will be other colors out there soon but I could not wait any longer... Camera and button placement is nice. Phone feels great in hand. Although bigger than the other 2016 Flagships, its not gargantuan either... doesn't feel like putting a tablet up to your ear like other phalets can feel like. Pretty thin too and not overly heavy. The biggest design issue is of course no SD Card add-on memory since the SIM tray only accommodates dual SIMs. At 64GB, this isn't an issue for me as I don't save a lot to my phone and jam pack it with needless stuff. The fingerprint sensor is in a good natural position albeit if it only worked on the first try... Its not like Megan Fox / Candice Swanepoel good looking phone rather more like Melissa Benoist / Kate Upton good looking. You ain't going to wake up after a long night of drinking and go "my god... what did I do..." but you are also not getting the top of the heap in design characteristics either. It's nice looking but not someone you'd use your "hall pass" on over your wife, if you get my point..." Notification LED work great and should be noted as not being blinding at night like others can be.... looking at you HTC 10... I like no 3.5mm jack since I don't use it anyway... less holes to get dirt into... in this case, having less holes to stick stuff into wins out!!! :silly:
WINNER: Still S7 for overall design, wireless charging, etc. - Your not bad Max 2, but pinkish gold is makes my balls instantly shrink!!!
CAMERA
Another big deal for some but not really a huge concern for me is the camera on smartphones... Personally and I have gone over the reasons time and time again, I went to school for photography and have used some really great cameras, film and digital. So when you start looking at smartphone cameras, even in 2016, it is still hard to compare to the output of an actual camera. With that said, there is no real gimmick with the Max 2... looks to be an alright camera that I will post examples later of. Doesn't have "superpixels", low light lens, dual lens, etc, etc. etc. It will take pictures decently and in most cases that's all you need it to do. I can say that it does have one of my major pet peeves when it comes to the camera app in video mode... no focus lock.... honestly who uses always on auto focus in video mode.... looks like a bad wedding video... when you are recording something that you are a fixed distance away, like a concert lets say, you don't need for it to re-focus... it annoying. So, I am going to cut this section short and just say, the Max 2 has a camera, its nothing special and if you are ok with a no gimmick no frills nexus like camera than its absolutely fine for what its supposed to do.... :highfive:
WINNER: S7 for low-light, G5 for wide angled, P9 for dynamic range; HTC 10 for camera app & Max 2 for no frills OK no gimmicks camera
CONCLUSION
For my daily usage case, the Max 2 is great! When you consider that it outperforms in most cases phones that are $200 - $400 more than what it costs... It tends to soften the negatives. I think for me the greatest of which is the current functionality of the fingerprint sensor... I hate struggling to get it to read than having to still punch in a pin when it fails. Besides this, all the othe negatives are minor. Camera - its really ok just nothing special. Color - if you can wait, you can get a more manly color unless you want to go with the 4GB version (you can get different colors now). EUI - definitely not as big of a learning curve as EMUI but it does take a little bit of commitment to get use to all the customization you can do. Looks like LeEco plans to release updates frequently since there has been at least one since it released in May... Yeah, it doesn't have a headphone jack... grow up and get with the 21st century... hahaha. To get a 6GB phone, under $500, 64GB internal is not too shabby. Would it be stellar with a SD Card add-on, yep it sure would but I can make do without having the SD Card in most cases unless I really started ROM-ing and backing up TWRPs with it.... I think if you are looking for a good, well performing phone at a good price with some decent specs and killer sound, this does the trick, most definitely. Could it be better, you betcha... but I can say that for any of the 2016 Flagship phones. Lastly and as always, this is just Some Guy's Opinion... :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot this is thorough.. Impressive stuff

I really like my Le Max2. It's not perfect, but no phone is. It is certainly a fast and powerful phone. No lag and handles everything I throw at it with ease. Antutu scores of over 140K are crazy in a $230 device!! I am enjoying its audio output and have been mostly very impressed with the photos I have taken so far. The fingerprint scanner is very fast and reliable for me. I quite like eui as it is fairly light and has some very useful features, especially for power management (I have generally been getting 5 to 7 hours SOT). This is my first 2K display phone, and the clarity is fantastic. The black levels are good, and the colours are vibrant. Probably my main criticism of the phone is the viewing angles and max brightness level of the display. Colour shifting is pronounced when viewing at any angle much off straight, and the max brightness is just OK - I would like to be able to crank it up a fair bit more at times.

kanagawaben said:
I really like my Le Max2. It's not perfect, but no phone is. It is certainly a fast and powerful phone. No lag and handles everything I throw at it with ease. Antutu scores of over 140K are crazy in a $230 device!! I am enjoying its audio output and have been mostly very impressed with the photos I have taken so far. The fingerprint scanner is very fast and reliable for me. I quite like eui as it is fairly light and has some very useful features, especially for power management (I have generally been getting 5 to 7 hours SOT). This is my first 2K display phone, and the clarity is fantastic. The black levels are good, and the colours are vibrant. Probably my main criticism of the phone is the viewing angles and max brightness level of the display. Colour shifting is pronounced when viewing at any angle much off straight, and the max brightness is just OK - I would like to be able to crank it up a fair bit more at times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anything special you did to improve fingerprint response
Mine does work but it becomes unresponsive if not used for a while but after first unlock the consecutive ones are fast
Which rom are you on?
Did you never had any fingerprint problem?

[email protected] said:
Anything special you did to improve fingerprint response
Mine does work but it becomes unresponsive if not used for a while but after first unlock the consecutive ones are fast
Which rom are you on?
Did you never had any fingerprint problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am currently using the Parasite debloated version of S19. I have also used Cuoco92, stock Chinese 17S and 19S, and Indian 16S. Haven't had the slightest problem with fingerprint on any of them. I always register two with the same finger (my right index) and the other with my left index. I'd say it is 99% accurate - it really only misses if I put my finger in at a very weird angle or move it too much. Fast too, not instant but pretty near it - less than a count of one.

kanagawaben said:
I am currently using the Parasite debloated version of S19. I have also used Cuoco92, stock Chinese 17S and 19S, and Indian 16S. Haven't had the slightest problem with fingerprint on any of them. I always register two with the same finger (my right index) and the other with my left index.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you never have problems like the fingerprint doesn't recognize the first touch?
Or after all night standby the fingerprint takes a few seconds to unlock?
Do you think my fingerprint problem is hardware?
I bought it like 2 weeks ago I can return?
But it's a really good phone for the price
Only things that annoy me is fingerprint and lack of custom rom support both of which letv is to blame

[email protected] said:
So you never have problems like the fingerprint doesn't recognize the first touch?
Or after all night standby the fingerprint takes a few seconds to unlock?
Do you think my fingerprint problem is hardware?
I bought it like 2 weeks ago I can return?
But it's a really good phone for the price
Only things that annoy me is fingerprint and lack of custom rom support both of which letv is to blame
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly never. Scanner has been rock solid for me. What ROM are you on?

One week with the Redmi Note 4

Received my RN4 last week, and after spending a week with it I am definitely impressed.
Observations
1. Battery life is the phone's strongest suit. Can definitely get even better SOT if I was more careful using this thing, but fact is this is the first phone I've owned that I only need to charge once a day. (See attachment for SOT)
2. Build quality is solid as well, but definitely not top notch. Seams can still felt, and SIM tray is a bit hard to push in.
3. Display is great. Nothing out of the ordinary.
4. Helio X20 is a solid chip, but Javascript performance is underwhelming. Does not appear to have many benefits over the SD650.
5. Camera is underwhelming, quality is around the level of the Moto X 2014, but PD focus is quick and accurate, unlike the CDAF on the X14.
6. MIUI is not as intrusive as most Western media will have you believe, but I do not like the aggressiveness with which it kills background processes. GSam Battery monitor doesnt work reliably as it always gets kicked.
7. One handed usage is poor. The next model could definitely use smaller bezels on the X axis.
8. I got an update last week for "bug fixes", but was strangely 1.3GB big and took over an hour to download and install.
Overall, for $200, I'm definitely impressed. Can't say I feel a noticeable performance difference with my last phone, the Galaxy S7. Only place I can feel I got what I paired for is the camera.

AB__CD said:
Received my RN4 last week, and after spending a week with it I am definitely impressed.
Observations
1. Battery life is the phone's strongest suit. Can definitely get even better SOT if I was more careful using this thing, but fact is this is the first phone I've owned that I only need to charge once a day. (See attachment for SOT)
2. Build quality is solid as well, but definitely not top notch. Seams can still felt, and SIM tray is a bit hard to push in.
3. Display is great. Nothing out of the ordinary.
4. Helio X20 is a solid chip, but Javascript performance is underwhelming. Does not appear to have many benefits over the SD650.
5. Camera is underwhelming, quality is around the level of the Moto X 2014, but PD focus is quick and accurate, unlike the CDAF on the X14.
6. MIUI is not as intrusive as most Western media will have you believe, but I do not like the aggressiveness with which it kills background processes. GSam Battery monitor doesnt work reliably as it always gets kicked.
7. One handed usage is poor. The next model could definitely use smaller bezels on the X axis.
8. I got an update last week for "bug fixes", but was strangely 1.3GB big and took over an hour to download and install.
Overall, for $200, I'm definitely impressed. Can't say I feel a noticeable performance difference with my last phone, the Galaxy S7. Only place I can feel I got what I paired for is the camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the feedback, I also have an S7 and on the verge of selling to buy either the note 4 or the redmi pro. I know it will generally be a downgrade especially in terms of camera as nothing can touch the S7. But it seems a great device and would let me free up some cash. The redmi pro seems to have a better camera than the RN4 although a bit gimmicky with its dual cams, but both pack nice builds and big batteries. Although I think the RN4's finger print scanner looks better and is in a better location, I'm not really that impressed with the S7's as it still needs to be pushed and isn't that accurate. How do you find audio quality over say a pair of headphones compared to the S7?
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

gsmyth said:
Thanks for the feedback, I also have an S7 and on the verge of selling to buy either the note 4 or the redmi pro. I know it will generally be a downgrade especially in terms of camera as nothing can touch the S7. But it seems a great device and would let me free up some cash. The redmi pro seems to have a better camera than the RN4 although a bit gimmicky with its dual cams, but both pack nice builds and big batteries. Although I think the RN4's finger print scanner looks better and is in a better location, I'm not really that impressed with the S7's as it still needs to be pushed and isn't that accurate. How do you find audio quality over say a pair of headphones compared to the S7?
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very loud, and decently clean and crisp too. There seems to be some decent audio equipment on this thing, both speakers and headphone, and I suspect there may be a discrete DAC on this, impressive for a $200 device. I went for the RN4 over the Pro for one reason and one reason only: there is an official global ROM out for this phone, while the Pro would require me to install GP package through a third-party solution.
I can definitely say that the FPS is way better on the back. Very accurate, and as long as I don't give it some super-weird angle it authenticates me without fail, quicker and more accurately than the S7.

AB__CD said:
Very loud, and decently clean and crisp too. There seems to be some decent audio equipment on this thing, both speakers and headphone, and I suspect there may be a discrete DAC on this, impressive for a $200 device. I went for the RN4 over the Pro for one reason and one reason only: there is an official global ROM out for this phone, while the Pro would require me to install GP package through a third-party solution.
I can definitely say that the FPS is way better on the back. Very accurate, and as long as I don't give it some super-weird angle it authenticates me without fail, quicker and more accurately than the S7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great that's good to hear, I assumed there was a global rom for the pro but must have been something else I seen. I had a feeling the finger print scanner was better, I do find the S7's quite fussy and a lot of times I exceed the try limit and have to wait 30 secs[emoji34].
I really do appreciate the camera on the S7, although from the reviews I've watched the RN4 seems to have very quick auto focus and capture speeds. It obviously seems to suffer in low light but no phone is immune from this really only to lesser extents. I generally take most photos outside in good conditions anyway and usually of the kids where a quick shutter is needed. The camera app also seems fast to launch as well which again is an important to be able to snap photos quickly.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Wich rom are you using? Do you root it?

gsmyth said:
Great that's good to hear, I assumed there was a global rom for the pro but must have been something else I seen. I had a feeling the finger print scanner was better, I do find the S7's quite fussy and a lot of times I exceed the try limit and have to wait 30 secs[emoji34].
I really do appreciate the camera on the S7, although from the reviews I've watched the RN4 seems to have very quick auto focus and capture speeds. It obviously seems to suffer in low light but no phone is immune from this really only to lesser extents. I generally take most photos outside in good conditions anyway and usually of the kids where a quick shutter is needed. The camera app also seems fast to launch as well which again is an important to be able to snap photos quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fingerprint scanner really is great. Worlds better than the S7. Location isn't always ideal for when the phone is on a table top, but it is great when pulling the phone out of the pocket. I suspect that the only way to solve this is give people two Fingerprint scanners
Camera launches quickly and focus is reliable. Better than my 2014 Moto X ever was. Shutter is not as fast as the reviews make it out to be, but that may be because I have HDR on Auto, and HDR photos do take a while to process. Outside photos are reasonably crisp, inside the noise starts to become uncontrollable. Remember to go to Settings and select image quality "High" and enable "Enhance lowlight pictures automatically" when you get this phone. Hugely important, as the default Medium setting is too aggressive in compressing.

AB__CD said:
Received my RN4 last week, and after spending a week with it I am definitely impressed.
Observations
1. Battery life is the phone's strongest suit. Can definitely get even better SOT if I was more careful using this thing, but fact is this is the first phone I've owned that I only need to charge once a day. (See attachment for SOT)
2. Build quality is solid as well, but definitely not top notch. Seams can still felt, and SIM tray is a bit hard to push in.
3. Display is great. Nothing out of the ordinary.
4. Helio X20 is a solid chip, but Javascript performance is underwhelming. Does not appear to have many benefits over the SD650.
5. Camera is underwhelming, quality is around the level of the Moto X 2014, but PD focus is quick and accurate, unlike the CDAF on the X14.
6. MIUI is not as intrusive as most Western media will have you believe, but I do not like the aggressiveness with which it kills background processes. GSam Battery monitor doesnt work reliably as it always gets kicked.
7. One handed usage is poor. The next model could definitely use smaller bezels on the X axis.
8. I got an update last week for "bug fixes", but was strangely 1.3GB big and took over an hour to download and install.
Overall, for $200, I'm definitely impressed. Can't say I feel a noticeable performance difference with my last phone, the Galaxy S7. Only place I can feel I got what I paired for is the camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been using RN4 for 2 weeks. And I do agree most of the views.
1. Battery: it seems not that good if you care about the numbers. But the overall performance is pretty good. Playing some 3d games with performance for an hour costs less than 10%.
2. CPU: I don't think this is a big leap as I can't from Nexus 5. The performance is not overkill. And I don't feel anything is super smooth. I guess the reason is that 10 cores are still to much for an Android system to operate with. I doubt the kernel fully utilizes the CPU.
3. Camera: don't expect much on it even though they claimed it's 16MP. The quality is quite glitchy in my opinion. If you really care about the quality of the camera on your phone, consider carefully. Despite the quality, the speed is fine as the focus, HDR and burst mode work perfectly fine.
4. MIUI: I just want a CM. That's it.
5. Price: this is the most pulling reason for me to buy this. You can just switch to a new one if this breaks somehow. :laugh:

Hello.
My name is Gabriel, from Romania.
I have a redminote 4 since 25 october 2016.
Since yesterday it doesn't display, in the upper right corner, the icon for mobile data - you know, the H, or H+, or 4G or 3G, next to mobile network signal icon.
The mobile data connection is working good, but the fact that the phone is connected to mobile data is not displayed any more.
Is there any setting for this?
Thanks.

Gabriel Sbircea said:
Hello.
My name is Gabriel, from Romania.
I have a redminote 4 since 25 october 2016.
Since yesterday it doesn't display, in the upper right corner, the icon for mobile data - you know, the H, or H+, or 4G or 3G, next to mobile network signal icon.
The mobile data connection is working good, but the fact that the phone is connected to mobile data is not displayed any more.
Is there any setting for this?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you solve this? Are you on the global rom?
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

No.
I had the intention to perform a factory reset during this weekend, but I didn't, I was too busy with other things.
And yes, is the Global ROM - I have Romanian language (not only...)
Thanks.

Gabriel Sbircea said:
No.
I had the intention to perform a factory reset during this weekend, but I didn't, I was too busy with other things.
And yes, is the Global ROM - I have Romanian language (not only...)
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A factory reset is probably the best option take first although it is a pain having to backup/ set everything up again.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 video review

Originalas said:
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 video review
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks will watch this later.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

gsmyth said:
Did you solve this? Are you on the global rom?
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello
I have black screen with my Redmi Note 4 but led of charge work have you some ideas how can i solve this issue?
Thanks

2 weeks here...
I bought the Redmi Note 4 - S625 32 GB version as a replacement for another phone from another vendor, my old phone had the same hardware configuration, but was greatly lagging on performance, battery life and customization.
I have long decided on the Redmi, and have gone through several resources and reviews online, and was so far satisfied with what I read.
I was able to buy it at a discounted price in Egypt (USD 160), this is of course not a bargain for the global price, yet locally it was good compared to other similar devices.
I'll go through every aspect of my experience with the phone and provide you with my conclusion in the end.
The phone comes in a small box compared to other phones of the same size, the phone fits in exactly, with the charger and the charging cable, the extra space could've been better used to add earphones to the bundle, something Xiaomi should consider in the future, is to throw in one of their premium earphones.
The phone size is slim and nice to hold, something that counts for it, considering the huge 4100mA battery, I was unfortunate to buy the black edition, which is very prone to fingerprints and you can never keep it clean, let alone it also seemed scratch prone, I didn't want to risk it therefore the first thing I had to do was to go for a silicon cover.
Also the screen glass is clear with smooth edges, and gives the phone a very elegant look, yet I read it's not gorilla glass, so I had to go for a glass screen protector.
The screen is large enough with some bevel edges that could be improved in the future.
The dual SIM slot is an amazing idea, yet with a bit of better design I guess we can squeeze in a place for a memory card.
The camera and fingerprint sensor are very well placed and nice to use, having the camera non-protruding is a good design point, protecting the camera cover from scratches.
I don't mind the camera being 13MP, it has a clear quality, works well with the camera app, and is quiet responsive, I've seen cameras with higher resolution, but were a pain to operate, so good job Xiaomi.
The screen is clear and pleasant to use, I have even use it to watch movies using a VR box with no problems, it is also quiet visible in the sun with bright colors.
One thing I really liked about this phone, is its battery life, I guess Xiaomi went to great effort to squeeze much power into the battery space, and to optimize the power use by applications, clearly there is a power optimization software layer added to the OS to perform this well, I am a heavy user, having the phone in hand all day with the screen on, reading, watching videos, and streaming internet videos and music in the car all day, using maps and GPS applications, and acting as a Wi-Fi hotspot. Still at night, before sleeping, I plug the charger while the phone is at 40%, keeping me assured that even if I forget to charge the phone, it will remain there for another day of moderate use. BATTERY LIFE ON THIS PHONE IS AMAZING.
I have seen people complain that it doesn’t have a fast charging capability, yet it's no problem with a phone that can withhold its charge for two days.
The good thing about this phone is that it has all connectivity features of other similar phones, except for the NFC, which is becoming a defacto nowadays, though the FM radio is good and launches without any headphone connected, however the lack of RDS is a bit annoying, in addition to the fact that the radio interface is boring and non-themeable, I have posted this suggestion in the MIUI forum.
Software performance on this phone is amazing, and the dual app capability is extra nice, it is better than having the second space activated, specially with the availability of individual app locking capability, I can have my work and personal applications in the same space, while giving my work applications the necessary security level required. This beats all other phones offering second space while hogging the memory and system resources, and affecting the performance.
Also Xiaomi's keeping to its promise of a very responsive MIUI, even with an alternative launcher (I'll come to that later), I'm getting a very good performance, no launch delays, no botchy performance, etc... Which shows that enough effort has been put into OS optimization.
I haven't tried installing a custom OS yet, and this is mainly due to the fact that the factory OS is very well performing and doesn't need further optimization, till now!!
I had to resort to installing a third party launcher (Nova Launcher), since I didn't really like the way MIUI launcher treats the applications, without an application drawer, desktops can become really cluttered, specially that I always test new apps and remove them regularly. This may be convenient for iPhone users, but a no no in our Android world, Xiaomi should reconsider.
A nice addition to the UI is the floating ball, it comes with useful shortcuts, but to change them you have to dig deep into the settings, certainly there should be a better way to do this, still it is a good addition.
The screenshot shortcut saves a shot of the current screen and can later send you to the editing part if you need to crop and edit your shot, it would be better if a crop control can appear when a screenshot is requested, so that we can directly choose which part of the screen we want to capture and share directly.
The phone came with android marshmallow, but as soon as I started using it, a new update with nougat was pushed, I also guess and Oreo version in in the pipeline, still you can have the Oreo taste from any custom rom available for this phone, which are really numerous in comparison to phones from other vendors, I guess Xiaomi should capitalize on this as being one of the most custom ROM friendly phones.
The phone, contacts, and messaging native aps are quiet usable, and so far I haven't faced any problem with them, in comparison to other phones that sometimes struggled with my 1500 entry contact list, the Xiaomi is fully capable of handling such a contact list dispersed among two contact providers (google contact and exchange server), and fully capable of flawlessly handling them.
One small glitch with the messaging app is the inability to delete the newly received SMS from the notification area, something that is usually needed nowadays.
Coming to the notification area, I've seen it better implemented in other phones or ROM versions, where you can get full access to the complete message, and be able control it (delete or reply) from the notification area, I know that in MIUI there is the capability to expand the notification for more details by a two finger swipe, but this is impossible with one handed operation.
The phone also comes with nice extra applications, the security app is quiet useful, and hopefully it does what it promises in the background.
The remote app is also a great addition, making you able to control a vast list of IR enabled devices; yet it should be a good addition to be able to add and customize new non-listed devices, such as for example non-standard android tv boxes.
In conclusion:
I really love this phone and don't regret the investment I put in it, Xiaomi is on a very good track, it should soon reach and surpass market leaders if it keeps building such impressive devices with affordable prices, also having that MIUI forum and its community is a good addition of keeping the users close to the vendor.
My recommendation is to work on the software enhancements requested by the users.
My recommendations to the new buyers, is to install good screen and body protection, stay away from the black version, and invest in a good quality headphones to enjoy your Xiaomi.

Display issue on le pro3

I have heard that le pro 3 has some display issue.... First of all the screen mute Ness the screen colour accuracy is not true to life and cold colours and second of all the touch latency it's something to notice I think that is it's EUI's fault.
Please some clarity my doubts

Depends partly on rom
Hello, I have not read before about general display / touchscreen issues, but I have used 3 custom roms (and of course stock) in my time with this phone yet and can say that there is a noticeable difference in how it reacts depending on what the developer worked out. That said, I have to stress that every part of this phone so far feels and works as you would expect from a state of the art phone. Alright, beside the camera, that's close to crappy , but the rest is great. My comparison "group" so far is LG G4, Samsung S7 edge (yeah, that screen image quality is unbeaten, but it's all very close i would say) and Sony Xperia and the Leeco Pro 3 with for example Turbo Rom is snappier than all of them. There is definitly no lag or something like that.
Looking just at image quality, I mean, there are ways to adjust color and brightness, so you can set up what you like - I didnt look for color settings since it looks "normal" andbrightness is on auto adjust, it's always, even in direct sunlight, perfectly readable. A resolution beyond full hd in 5,5 inches is imo useless if your not going for VR stuff - so really, if you are looking for weaknesses on that phone, it's not the screen. Yes, I became a bit of a fanboy from using it .

Customs ROM
[email protected] said:
Hello, I have not read before about general display / touchscreen issues, but I have used 3 custom roms (and of course stock) in my time with this phone yet and can say that there is a noticeable difference in how it reacts depending on what the developer worked out. That said, I have to stress that every part of this phone so far feels and works as you would expect from a state of the art phone. Alright, beside the camera, that's close to crappy , but the rest is great. My comparison "group" so far is LG G4, Samsung S7 edge (yeah, that screen image quality is unbeaten, but it's all very close i would say) and Sony Xperia and the Leeco Pro 3 with for example Turbo Rom is snappier than all of them. There is definitly no lag or something like that.
Looking just at image quality, I mean, there are ways to adjust color and brightness, so you can set up what you like - I didnt look for color settings since it looks "normal" andbrightness is on auto adjust, it's always, even in direct sunlight, perfectly readable. A resolution beyond full hd in 5,5 inches is imo useless if your not going for VR stuff - so really, if you are looking for weaknesses on that phone, it's not the screen. Yes, I became a bit of a fanboy from using it .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using custom official ROM like Lineage OS will fix the display latency/response time and colour mute Ness....?? Colours are not accurate on EUI

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "colors are not accurate" - as said, there are several possibilities of adjusting colors to your liking (there are apps for everything , some custom roms already include automatic night modes with less blue in it etc.
Regarding input lag, there simply is none whatsoever, this phone reacts blazing fast. I experienced some misinterpreted swipes taken as clicks in the first official lineage build, but that has been fixed with yesterday's update.
Despite the lower average camera, this phone is really good.

[email protected] said:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "colors are not accurate" - as said, there are several possibilities of adjusting colors to your liking (there are apps for everything , some custom roms already include automatic night modes with less blue in it etc.
Regarding input lag, there simply is none whatsoever, this phone reacts blazing fast. I experienced some misinterpreted swipes taken as clicks in the first official lineage build, but that has been fixed with yesterday's update.
Despite the lower average camera, this phone is really good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually it's camera is good it's software optimisation is really bad it has the same Sony imx 298 sensor which OnePlus 3t,mi5 and LG V20 has (excluding OIS) pictures from the rare camera should be great...
And one more thing is that though the camera take good shot you will not be able to enjoy it on the screen of the phone as it's mute colours....Just do one thing pull out the images from your mobile and copy it to computer and see it.
I debt you will see the difference between it colours with be more saturated and pops out that in phone

I heard the same thing from others in this forum - both the "sensor is same as xy, should be great" and "the pictures suck, no matter which camera app". All my pictures go to my pc via Onedrive and they are definitely worse than those of my previous Lg G4 or the oneplus 3t which my cousin took currently on a US visit and sent pics from or those my wife's xperia x compact takes. But it doesn't mean they are horrible. Just not "premium". And I don't care if it's hardware or software.
Back to the screen, I saw a friend of mine today owning a galaxy s7 edge. And yes, that screen is better. Although you can't count pixels on either display, I can see that that just by looking at it. But the difference is not that big, definitely a lot smaller than, just as an example, the pictures of the darn camera .
One question for me: What's your "point"? Do you have the phone and experience display issues? I would say that your either oversensitive or your device is flawed. Do you think about buying it and are worried about the screen? Then I would say don't worry.
Which is it?

Actually I'm going to buy it....saw some of the review on YouTube(Android Authority &pocketnow daily)they stated that its display is having a problem as it's colours is not punchier and vivid.So.....I created a Xda thread so that I can talk to people who own the device in real life day-to-day experience

Hi
Ayan0 said:
Actually I'm going to buy it....saw some of the review on YouTube(Android Authority &pocketnow daily)they stated that its display is having a problem as it's colours is not punchier and vivid.So.....I created a Xda thread so that I can talk to people who own the device in real life day-to-day experience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good choice . I think the criticism of "unpunchy" colors is just as common with LCD - Displays as criticism of too punchy colors on amoled.
I mean, buying this phone almost forces you to dig into TWRP and custom roms... So it's nothing for, e. g., my wife . But since you are here already, I bet you will be happy with it. In retrospect I could have saved a few bucks by not choosing the 6 / 64 GB Version - I use the second sim slot for a data only LTE 3 gb card for monthly 7 € and now stream everything. 54 gb free space ^^ and ram always more than 3 gb free...

ZTE axon 7 is also a competitive phone compared to le pro3.... The only problem with ZTE axon 7 is it's camera it preform really poorly is low light, but in good lighting it performs really well

Ayan0 said:
ZTE axon 7 is also a competitive phone compared to le pro3.... The only problem with ZTE axon 7 is it's camera it preform really poorly is low light, but in good lighting it performs really well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It certainly is, had it on my list for quite some time as well. And I bet 50 bucks that the camera beats leecos in every condition . But my main focus was battery life and, coming from the LG G4, I found it nonsense to go for more than Full HD on devices smaller than 7 inches - on 5,5, even fhd is far beyond "retina" and since I won't strap the phone to my face VR style, it's just wasted energy pushing the extra pixels.
Add the smaller battery, the (slightly) older soc, less ram and all of that for about 70 € more (64gb versions), made it easy for me.

One thing to say leeco's design language is very impressive and glossy
Any news when le pro3 is getting nougat update... Where as ZTE axon 7 and OnePlus 3T already got 7.1.1 update

Overall love

Yes, yes, it's possible to love a phone. Heck, you sleep next to it, don't you? Rate this thread to indicate your love for the Nokia 8, all things considered. A higher rating indicates that the Nokia 8 is an incredible phone that you enjoy tremendously. You love it.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

Got the phone yesterday and what can I say, it's an amazing phone.
Great to hold, the screen is world class, the camera's are fast and produce quality photo's even in low light.
The speed is amazing.
As for updates, it's had one already.
Highly recommended.

I've had the update just show up now - im installing it as we speak.

What are you comparing it to?

Great phone, but no native gallery or music apps? Ok, it is a pure android but still...

thETImo said:
Great phone, but no native gallery or music apps? Ok, it is a pure android but still...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google Photos and Google Play Music.. Photos wants to upload everything to cloud, you can say no or just upload it if you are ok with cloud. Haven't checked if you get unlimited Google Photos space with this like you get with Nexus. Google Play Music will automatically add stuff you put into Music folder in the phone. Tested with few .flac files and they automatically appeared in Play Music.

Nokia 8
Pros :
Build quality
Display.. The best in price segment
Processor and and no lag at all
Pricing
Brand image
Doesn't get heated even after heavy usage
Cons:
Camera app
May be design is not 2017 model

One thing worried me from the reviews and that was the accuracy and speed of the fingerprint sensor which was supposed to be poor. Coming from an HTC 10 with an excellent sensor I was concerned. I've been glad to find the review opinions is absolute hogwash. The Nokia sensor is every bit as accurate and fast as you'd expect it to be in a flagship.

Really want to get the Nokia 8, can someone coming from the Galaxy S6 tell me two things
1. How does the camera compare to the S6
2. In the Galaxy s6 there is a private mode where some notes and pictures are hidden from view. Is there a similar facility in the Nokia 8, not interested in a different app for this.

mitchst2 said:
One thing worried me from the reviews and that was the accuracy and speed of the fingerprint sensor which was supposed to be poor. Coming from an HTC 10 with an excellent sensor I was concerned. I've been glad to find the review opinions is absolute hogwash. The Nokia sensor is every bit as accurate and fast as you'd expect it to be in a flagship.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have both HTC10 and N8 and fingerprint sensor on HTC is a bit faster and snapier.
As for my personal opinion about N8:
Superb build quality and overall specs. Camera is a bit dated but we will see what will upcoming updates bring. Pure android experience after coming from device like HTC M7, 10 is really meeeh. Lack of configuration, stock apps are just really simple. No weather app preinstalled. Google calendar is a complete **** as far as UI goes comparing to aftermarket solutions. Stock google dialer and contacts are also unimpressive.
Stock N8 launcher is also meh so I bought Nova couple of minutes after playing with the phone.
Hidden option to show percentage batter is a joke, you need to have magnifying glass to see the values *inside* the battery icon, lol.
So far the biggest drawback is lack of screen color calibration and night mode. This should be included in any moder phone. N8 screen should be a little warmer.
Overall I am really happy with this phone and my family member is happy even more. She can get used to all things that I consider drawbacks. If it would not be for a lack of out of the box config options I would actualy rate N8 higher that my beloved HTC10 which I consider one of the best devices ever made for my personal preferences like build quality, finger sensor on the front and hardware buttons below the screen.

cavist said:
I have both HTC10 and N8 and fingerprint sensor on HTC is a bit faster and snapier.
As for my personal opinion about N8:
Superb build quality and overall specs. Camera is a bit dated but we will see what will upcoming updates bring. Pure android experience after coming from device like HTC M7, 10 is really meeeh. Lack of configuration, stock apps are just really simple. No weather app preinstalled. Google calendar is a complete **** as far as UI goes comparing to aftermarket solutions. Stock google dialer and contacts are also unimpressive.
Stock N8 launcher is also meh so I bought Nova couple of minutes after playing with the phone.
Hidden option to show percentage batter is a joke, you need to have magnifying glass to see the values *inside* the battery icon, lol.
So far the biggest drawback is lack of screen color calibration and night mode. This should be included in any moder phone. N8 screen should be a little warmer.
Overall I am really happy with this phone and my family member is happy even more. She can get used to all things that I consider drawbacks. If it would not be for a lack of out of the box config options I would actualy rate N8 higher that my beloved HTC10 which I consider one of the best devices ever made for my personal preferences like build quality, finger sensor on the front and hardware buttons below the screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm the opposite I prefer the pure experience. On both HTC one and 10 I ran stockish custom ROMs to keep os up to date because let's face HTC didn't. That's my hope for Nokia that maybe just maybe I won't need to do that.

I never bothered with updating every month since I was and still am running custom roms on my HTC10 and previous devices so I just wait patiently for new update and switch every 2-3 update. I think if I would run stock, for me it would be enough to have only one update before switching to new Android version. I really do not care about the monthly security updates just because I am ignorant and do not feel compromised. Having phone memory and storage encrypted + password locked device on boot and lockscreen is enough security. So I do not bash HTC for being slow and lazy with updates.
But I completely understand people, who would want to have updates as often as possible and that is why Nokia is a better choice. It is faster to update stock android rather than branded one like with HTC and optional carrier branding.

cavist said:
I never bothered with updating every month since I was and still am running custom roms on my HTC10 and previous devices so I just wait patiently for new update and switch every 2-3 update. I think if I would run stock, for me it would be enough to have only one update before switching to new Android version. I really do not care about the monthly security updates just because I am ignorant and do not feel compromised. Having phone memory and storage encrypted + password locked device on boot and lockscreen is enough security. So I do not bash HTC for being slow and lazy with updates.
But I completely understand people, who would want to have updates as often as possible and that is why Nokia is a better choice. It is faster to update stock android rather than branded one like with HTC and optional carrier branding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my opinion HTC needed to commit to the monthly updates. For me being stuck on June update in November on last year's flagship was the last straw. Too many major security flaws in that period being left unpatched. HTC themselves made a point of being near stock for fast updates then failed to deliver. Google will eventually take over fully.

I've had the phone for 2 days. My first powerful Android phone, upgrading from BB bold 9000. So I might be biased. The overall experience is good.

So in the UK the Nokia 8 was £400, absolute bargain for a phone with THAT processor and THAT screen. But Nokia was still an unknown quantity with android. In the end I decided to buy the Nokia 8 with a 14 day exchange policy. It was too good of a price to pass over and I ain't letting Samsung and iPhone rob me for £600 plus.
The best thing is the pure stock android and overall performance it really is as fast as any android phone except the Pixel 2. Battery was good enough; you have to consider that there's that 2k screen. The 2k screen looks great for an LCD although there's really no need for 2k if it's at the expense of battery life. But yeah the pros of this phone are definitely the screen quality and performance.
On to the bad stuff. First thing I didn't like are the dimensions of the phone; I've used bigger phones but this doesn't feel right in the hand, too wide for the height imo. Next thing is the camera, I don't care for the extra stuff I just want a good point and shoot camera; this phone sucks in that regard. Really slow and really underwhelming quality considering how it was marketed. Next, the fingerprint sensor. It's just too small and it led to it misreading enough to become frustrating. Even when it reads my fingerprint it unlocks much slower than the competition. This the deal breaker for me. The quick glance screen was very basic, only showed text and call notifications no WhatsApp notifications I dunno it just annoyed me.
In the end I returned the phone and paid 100 extra to get the Pixel 2, absolutely outstanding phone but that's for another review.
To conclude the Nokia 8 is a very underrated phone and provides great value for money. But I wanted a phone that I can use for the next 2-3 years without frustration and Nokia just didn't do it for me.

junaidmatlub1 said:
So in the UK the Nokia 8 was £400, absolute bargain for a phone with THAT processor and THAT screen. But Nokia was still an unknown quantity with android. In the end I decided to buy the Nokia 8 with a 14 day exchange policy. It was too good of a price to pass over and I ain't letting Samsung and iPhone rob me for £600 plus.
The best thing is the pure stock android and overall performance it really is as fast as any android phone except the Pixel 2. Battery was good enough; you have to consider that there's that 2k screen. The 2k screen looks great for an LCD although there's really no need for 2k if it's at the expense of battery life. But yeah the pros of this phone are definitely the screen quality and performance.
On to the bad stuff. First thing I didn't like are the dimensions of the phone; I've used bigger phones but this doesn't feel right in the hand, too wide for the height imo. Next thing is the camera, I don't care for the extra stuff I just want a good point and shoot camera; this phone sucks in that regard. Really slow and really underwhelming quality considering how it was marketed. Next, the fingerprint sensor. It's just too small and it led to it misreading enough to become frustrating. Even when it reads my fingerprint it unlocks much slower than the competition. This the deal breaker for me. The quick glance screen was very basic, only showed text and call notifications no WhatsApp notifications I dunno it just annoyed me.
In the end I returned the phone and paid 100 extra to get the Pixel 2, absolutely outstanding phone but that's for another review.
To conclude the Nokia 8 is a very underrated phone and provides great value for money. But I wanted a phone that I can use for the next 2-3 years without frustration and Nokia just didn't do it for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Finger print sensor snappier after 8.1 and also i never faced any misreading. This was very strange problem you faced
Sent from my TA-1012 using XDA Labs

Toedwarrior said:
Finger print sensor snappier after 8.1 and also i never faced any misreading. This was very strange problem you faced
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had loads of misreading issues on 8.0.
8.1 fixed it.
Also, as you saying. Fingerprint sensor is twice faster on 8.1 beta.

I'm considering buying another Nokia 8 that's how much I like this phone
Pros
The display is amazing for LCD + no AMOLED burn in
Speaker is louder than my iPhone 7 plus
Battery is good
Stock android 8.1
Smooth/fluidity/fast
Price
Daytime pictures
Headphone jack
Micro SD card
Cons
Lowlight pictures
Fingerprint sensor location and odd shape/size
Vibration/haptic isn't that strong
Shape of phone (it's not so fun to hold vs say my moto g5 plus) awkward shape
Back metal doesn't feel like metal, more like plastic
Great great phone. And yes you can tell the difference between 1080p and 1440p. Even at a distance. Try changing the resolution to 1080p in adb using same way with xz premium to 4k, you will notice the fuzz from 1080p to 1440p

its a great phone when it was locked and without root, now that mine is rooted, lets see what it can do !

The fact you can get this now from carphone warehouse here in the UK for £300, like I did on Monday, is unbelievable. The absolutely blows anything else for that price and up to the OnePlus 5 out of the water. I haven't been this happy with a device in a long time and in 2017 I had a lot of devices. It's only £70 more than the Moto G5s plus. There's no contest.

Overall love

Yes, yes, it's possible to love a phone. Heck, you sleep next to it, don't you? Rate this thread to indicate your love for the Huawei P30, all things considered. A higher rating indicates that the Huawei P30 is an incredible phone that you enjoy tremendously. You love it.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!

The 'If Only' phone of the year.
The things that Huawei have removed in comparison to the pro ruin what could have been one of the phones of the year especially at the price.
I love the reduced size and flat screen but I always get a sense I am using a compromised device when I pick it up. The model that Samsung adopted with the S10 IMO makes more sense.
Shame.

....humm, do you need 10x zoom? in real life No. Time-of-Flight(TOF) for Ultra Boken effect, No. Wireless Charge.... Cool, but No. And IP68: I never broke a smartphone in my life because of water, but broke too much on the ground!!
Saving 200$ USD and I have better battery life, all the main spec of the Pro and I can Hook and use it in ONE hand!!
I compare with Samsung S10 and try it. But, cost me 300$ USD more than the P30 and battery life pain to last one day... No. Hole in the screen not compatible to many app... and Bixby!!!
If someone speak french, there's a link here: youtu.be/5yCJ8o85fXI

I've been using the P30 for a month now.
I need the headphone jack more than wireless charging or 10x zoom. I also prefer the smaler form factor and I drop my phone every now and then and I don't think curved displays like this a lot.
I am coming from a Galaxy S7 so it was a bigger jump and I am completly happy with this phone. Great performance, great screen - but the two most important things are for me - impressive camera and impressive battery life. The Galaxy S10e was an option but then I read about its mediocre battery life, and to my expierience Samsung always looses in this department.
No faults or bugs so far. I've been using Nova Launcher for years so I am not bothered with EMUI. I like the dark mode and the gestures, though. The Huawei software seems a bit too nosie for my taste so I deactivated most of it and I did not activate the Huawei-cloud. But in general I consider this phone the best deal for me at the moment.

tricki said:
I've been using the P30 for a month now.
I need the headphone jack more than wireless charging or 10x zoom. I also prefer the smaler form factor and I drop my phone every now and then and I don't think curved displays like this a lot.
I am coming from a Galaxy S7 so it was a bigger jump and I am completly happy with this phone. Great performance, great screen - but the two most important things are for me - impressive camera and impressive battery life. The Galaxy S10e was an option but then I read about its mediocre battery life, and to my expierience Samsung always looses in this department.
No faults or bugs so far. I've been using Nova Launcher for years so I am not bothered with EMUI. I like the dark mode and the gestures, though. The Huawei software seems a bit too nosie for my taste so I deactivated most of it and I did not activate the Huawei-cloud. But in general I consider this phone the best deal for me at the moment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi!
same situation , s10e was an option, but battery in samsung is something annoying, same with not symmetrical front camera...
p30 is great choice for me!

Just got my P30 2 days ago. It's also my first Huawei phone. No regrets. I absolutely love this. I'm coming from a Pixel 2, and although I prefer stock Android any day, I found it so hard to ignore the hardware innovation from other manufacturers. I didn't want to wait for a miracle and hope Google would design their next Pixel up to modern standards and have more than 4GB of RAM.
EMUI isn't perfect, but it's honestly not as bad as YouTube and tech reviewers say it is. To me, slapping on Hyperion Launcher made it so much better.
Don't even get me started with the battery life of this thing.

theeagleeye said:
Just got my P30 2 days ago. It's also my first Huawei phone. No regrets. I absolutely love this. I'm coming from a Pixel 2, and although I prefer stock Android any day, I found it so hard to ignore the hardware innovation from other manufacturers. I didn't want to wait for a miracle and hope Google would design their next Pixel up to modern standards and have more than 4GB of RAM.
EMUI isn't perfect, but it's honestly not as bad as YouTube and tech reviewers say it is. To me, slapping on Hyperion Launcher made it so much better.
Don't even get me started with the battery life of this thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you notice a blue tint when going into the recents screen? Happens to me when using ANY third party launcher, right now i'm using Smart Launcher. Had to remove Huaweis Launcher to get an older, unaffected recents screen back. Quite annoying.

xPandamon said:
Did you notice a blue tint when going into the recents screen? Happens to me when using ANY third party launcher, right now i'm using Smart Launcher. Had to remove Huaweis Launcher to get an older, unaffected recents screen back. Quite annoying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I did notice that. It's likely how EMUI handles app switching, so any third-party launcher we use will always have that effect.
Though I wish it didn't have to happen, it doesn't bother me very much.

Hello,
I got this device for free. I had a Oneplus 6t , and a Mate 10 Pro before.
I can tell, scrolling on this phone is smooth as hell. Compared to the Mate 10 Pro, this is really a complete different level. Oneplus is known as one of the fastest and smoothest phone out.. But really, this phone beats Onplus 6t in scrolling smoothness... Really amazed and surprised after having Mate 10 Pro... Huawei has done its job well! This phone is really fast
The camara is nice and is probably good enough for most of the people out there... but the camara of the Pro model is the way to go if you want to have the best.
I thought battery would be to small for me after having Mate 10 Pro with 4000 mha and Oneplus 6t with 3700. But i m really pleased by the battery life of this phone.. its comparable to the other devices! Nice!!!
Emui isnt that bad as everyone says... And it has improved a lot compared to my Mate 10 Pro. I m sure you wont regret it if you buy this phone, i prefer it over my Oneplus 6t.
Good job!!

XDA_RealLifeReview said:
Yes, yes, it's possible to love a phone. Heck, you sleep next to it, don't you? Rate this thread to indicate your love for the Huawei P30, all things considered. A higher rating indicates that the Huawei P30 is an incredible phone that you enjoy tremendously. You love it.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whats gonna happen to the P30 now with Google pulled out.....Just happened, like today! Google is done with Huawei.....It says the only way to get google on it now is through open source (AOSP) but do this mean we will still be able to sign into our goolge accounts and get play store updates???
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/19/18631558/google-huawei-android-suspension

theeagleeye said:
Yes, I did notice that. It's likely how EMUI handles app switching, so any third-party launcher we use will always have that effect.
Though I wish it didn't have to happen, it doesn't bother me very much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay. It really boggles me how they implemented it in their launcher. I guess it gets closed by their aggressive RAM management and that causes this issue. Pretty dumb and a problem for atleast a year now. I did contact them though so they know about this issue and explained it as thoroughly as possible. They told me that they don't need any further information for now, maybe they'll have a fix ready for the next update. That's the only downside to Huawei phones for me: Their UI and software changes aren't really done well, causing issues that shouldn't exist.

Between P30 and P30 pro, for me, my biggest concern is losing is OIS which is helpful in night mode. Having 5X optical would be nice, but not at the expense of suffering with digital between. The 3X optical is probably more useful. Gaining the headphone jack is great and I prefer not having a curved screen. And I prefer a smaller phone. Though at that point, I start to wonder if I should get a S10.

I owned P20-pro and P30.
Except for battery life and camera, everything else is better with S10.
Camera quality is good enough, but battery life is not good.
Sent from my Galaxy S10 using XDA Labs

Well, they are both OLED's and I think the resolution is "good enough". Both are better than my current phone so I guess I wont know what I'm missing. As for one UI vs EMUI, I'm not certain how much it matters. I use nova launcher + lineage right now. I'm unsure how much I'd be affected by the mfr skin. One HUGE thing is that the S10 series can be rooted, the P series can't even be unlocked let alone rooted. So If I don't like EMUI, I can't just install lineage. More importantly, after 2yrs, if it hasnt been unlocked, I won't be able to prolong the life of the phone by installing a newer UPDATED rom. That is probably the big thing that is making me lean towards the S10 series. The other things all seem minor.
But P30 vs P30 pro, its mainly the camera. In reality, I'm not sure how important all the night shooting is to me. I just know that the most frustrating thing about every past phone camera has been its inability to take a phone when lighting is poor so I'm tempoted to go towards the P30.

P30 is probably the best phone I've ever had but it has few downsides. For example scrolling lag in youtube while watching video, while searching for bluetooth devices(probably software bug that will be fixed in near future). That doesn't bother but autofocus is pretty bad compared to my old s8+. I often get blurry images when taking shot on the go sometimes even on steady shots. It's strange that 2yr old samsung phone can do better autofocus. Phone is super fast with amazing battery life(I don't remember ever getting 7hours SOT on 48hours usage with 10% left), the photos that are not blurry are super gorgeous. Call quality, wifi connection.... are excellent. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with my purchase.

Klaudas said:
P30 is probably the best phone I've ever had but it has few downsides. For example scrolling lag in youtube while watching video, while searching for bluetooth devices(probably software bug that will be fixed in near future). That doesn't bother but autofocus is pretty bad compared to my old s8+. I often get blurry images when taking shot on the go sometimes even on steady shots. It's strange that 2yr old samsung phone can do better autofocus. Phone is super fast with amazing battery life(I don't remember ever getting 7hours SOT on 48hours usage with 10% left), the photos that are not blurry are super gorgeous. Call quality, wifi connection.... are excellent. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with my purchase.
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Can u share what is yr phone's setup?

mab71 said:
Can u share what is yr phone's setup?
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Click to collapse
128gb, 6gb ram, resolution auto, brightness auto, location on and disabled almost every gestures except do a screenshot with knuckle. System firmware: 9.1.0.178. Mostly using instagram, facebook(and messenger), snapchat, spotify and some not heavy games.

Ok

Do I love this phone? Yes!! It has the performance of a flagship without having an out of this world price. Unfortunately, Huawei support is a cluster****, you need to register your phone with Huawei ID for warranty purpose but there's no link on their Canadian webpage. Also, they advertise support for Huawei Cloud backup but it's unavailable in Canada.

Worst Android device I have owned since 2011, possibly ever