I have Lenovo P2 I charge it 'only' once in 2 days. The fast charger is fast enought to charge the 5000 mah battery in less than 2 hours also as a bonus, I can use the front touch sensor as an all in one button that enables one finger use
I've got an H1 back when you recommended it, it's been quite the adventure. I don't know if you've ever found out, but the thing had two screen protectors on. It was pretty surprising to peel the second one off to have these scratches I put up with for a year disappear.
In terms of quality, I've dropped the thing a million times and the screen is fine, and it doesn't pick up scratches like the screen protector. The glue is coming apart, the volume buttons have fallen off, and the power is soon to follow suit. Speakers are toast after a steamy shower. Battery is still great, sometimes I only charge it once a week but then again I only use it as an alarm, and reading material when taking a dump.
Software side, it's always been laggy, I could barely play fgo, it's on the verge of being usable, definitely not a phone you can go back to after a flagship. I can't wait for this thing to die, but at the same time there's no phone with good software support at the entry price point.
I'd like to see some investigation done on android one, to see if it really is delivering on the promise, or pushing iffy patches.
Unless Mediateks suddenly became as energy efficient as Qualcomms it's still stuck in the same contradiction many of these Chinese monster battery phones are - awesome battery + power-hungry SOC.
One of my sons is a volunteer firefighter and works as a coast guard during summers. So instead of going for the high-end--like the rest of the family--he wanted a phone built like a tank, that could take a beating and serve as a torch or a hammer if need be, so he got himself a Blackview BV6000S using a similar recipe: Big battery, middle-class SoC, IP68 rating and a tough metal jacket for an outdoor exterior.
Perhaps he enjoyed a little too much dropping it on concrete floors in front of the shrieking girls, who guard their Samsungs and iThingies better than their virtue, but eventualy after a week of duty on the coast of the Baltic sea, the phone, or rather the battery inside wanted to go expansive... but couldn't within the confines of the phone's metal straight-jacket.
I told him to switch and leave it off and we were about to do as full a backup as anyone can do on a phone not rootable, but he made the mistake to leave it on the charger over night.
Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, it exploded.
No, no, nothing interesting (he likes his fires!), more like diphteria.
Lithium batteries come with platic sealing. That sealing ist designed for flexibility, so that the gases that can develop as a batteries aims for a supernova afterlife, are safely contained within.
That's why good smartphones developed by engineers have a plastic back-cover that is even removable. Unspeakable iThingies and their fiendish imitators use metal, ceramics or even glass to give you "the edge".
In this case the frame was so sturdy, the only way of escape was through the hole left in the chassis to connect SIM and SDcard to the PCB. And through that hole went all the pent-up gas/fluid combination as it punched through the plastic foil, which was designed to sustain an overall 2:1 or perhaps as much as a 4:1 expansion across the entire battery's surface, but not within that tiny SD+microSIM cutout... something like the Amdahl's corollary of explosion.
The SIM did not make it. Nor did any of the on-board electronics. The SD-card did, however, and he was ever so happy all those photographic memories of a teenager's summer had come to rest there, not in the part that died as part of the "better user experience".
On the upside, the phone got replaced. It took about 6 months because exploed phones were a tad unpopular after that "Samsung Summer" and even with surface transport Customs needed a lot of assurance the "new" phone was actually a repair unit.
On the downside, even the replacement phone's battery soon started started to act up, perhaps because of what he does or how he goes about it.
I have been hunting for a replacement using the 10nm process size to double the run-time, instead of a bigger battery. But as it turns out, the 10nm middle-class isn't really there yet, while 2017th high-end is eight where the 10nm would be in terms of pricing, only so much better in terms of value.
So I've just managed to rooted a Nokia 8, which he'll get as a birthday present, that offers perhaps even better up-time using a 10nm Snapdragon 835 with just a 3000mAh battery than a 22nm Mediatek could offer at 6000mAh (and much worse performance).
Just like in real-life, the middle class is getting ... over so I'd recommend you not go there.
How about a Mi Max 2 or 3 from Xiaomi? The 2 has a 6.4" 16:9 screen with 5200 mAh, the 3 has a 6.9" 18:9 in the same chassis size but with a 5500 mAh battery. These are less likely to blow up as a cheap Chinese no-name device. They also run midrange Snapdragons so power efficiency is much better than Mediatek junk. They're not ruggedized but a good armor casing should offer enough protection.
Those wouldn't be bad as such, but they fail with the competition.
Essentially the 636 is an 820 with 0.5 GHz and probably some GPU power removed. I have several 820 based LeEco Le Max2 running in the family, they are totally fine in terms of CPU/GPU power, but with 3000mAh batteries I feel the battery itch. As a former high-end phone, they have great ROM support but unfortunately even the last leftovers, which were down to €200, are gone now.
But the 820 based Le Max2 at €200 vs. the 636 based Mi Max3 €300 proves to me that it's not a good deal, even with double battery capacity, because now I can get 835 based 'lefovers' like a Xiaomi Mi Mix2 also for €300 and those maintain 820 performance levels, but essentially double the battery life.
But more importantly, it has LineageOS support and can be rooted, both of which I consider very important, but very hard to get for middle-class phones.
The Max series are designed for Chinese women, maximum screen size, total attention lock-in for a 14-hour day, media consumption, not a lot of game power. ROM programmers might buy them for their girl-friends but not to build ROMs for them: They reserve that for the smaller but more powerful phones they run themselves.
I wouldn't mind running such a big women's phone, because my eyes are getting older and I prefer gaming on PCs, but not when the price does't fit and I cannot control the phone like all my other computers.
Basically the one year delay of the middle class SoCs against their flagship cousins currently just means they have to compete with last year's high-end, a battle that's hard to win.
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27 Comments
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marees - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
I have Lenovo P2I charge it 'only' once in 2 days. The fast charger is fast enought to charge the 5000 mah battery in less than 2 hours
also as a bonus, I can use the front touch sensor as an all in one button that enables one finger use
Mumrik - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
I imported a P2 specifically for the very big battery combined with a power-sipping midrange SOC.It's exactly what I hoped it would be.
redpen - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
I've got an H1 back when you recommended it, it's been quite the adventure. I don't know if you've ever found out, but the thing had two screen protectors on. It was pretty surprising to peel the second one off to have these scratches I put up with for a year disappear.In terms of quality, I've dropped the thing a million times and the screen is fine, and it doesn't pick up scratches like the screen protector. The glue is coming apart, the volume buttons have fallen off, and the power is soon to follow suit. Speakers are toast after a steamy shower. Battery is still great, sometimes I only charge it once a week but then again I only use it as an alarm, and reading material when taking a dump.
Software side, it's always been laggy, I could barely play fgo, it's on the verge of being usable, definitely not a phone you can go back to after a flagship. I can't wait for this thing to die, but at the same time there's no phone with good software support at the entry price point.
I'd like to see some investigation done on android one, to see if it really is delivering on the promise, or pushing iffy patches.
Diji1 - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link
>there's no phone with good software support at the entry price pointI don't think you looked very hard.
Every Xiaomi phone gets updates. My Sharp Aquos S2 gets updates.
satai - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
> high-end Mediatek MT6763T processor (8xA53)WTF? 8*A53 is high-end?!
cfenton - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
Maybe Ian means it's high-end for Mediatek? It's not their highest end Helio (which is the P60), but it's probably second or third.satai - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link
Helio X.. is the higher-end brand (higher considering Mediatek abilities). Helios P.. are their mid-range.Mumrik - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
Unless Mediateks suddenly became as energy efficient as Qualcomms it's still stuck in the same contradiction many of these Chinese monster battery phones are - awesome battery + power-hungry SOC.Lolimaster - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
At this point in time, they should start using 4xA55.abufrejoval - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
Bigger batteries also mean a bigger risk.One of my sons is a volunteer firefighter and works as a coast guard during summers. So instead of going for the high-end--like the rest of the family--he wanted a phone built like a tank, that could take a beating and serve as a torch or a hammer if need be, so he got himself a Blackview BV6000S using a similar recipe: Big battery, middle-class SoC, IP68 rating and a tough metal jacket for an outdoor exterior.
Perhaps he enjoyed a little too much dropping it on concrete floors in front of the shrieking girls, who guard their Samsungs and iThingies better than their virtue, but eventualy after a week of duty on the coast of the Baltic sea, the phone, or rather the battery inside wanted to go expansive... but couldn't within the confines of the phone's metal straight-jacket.
I told him to switch and leave it off and we were about to do as full a backup as anyone can do on a phone not rootable, but he made the mistake to leave it on the charger over night.
Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, it exploded.
No, no, nothing interesting (he likes his fires!), more like diphteria.
Lithium batteries come with platic sealing. That sealing ist designed for flexibility, so that the gases that can develop as a batteries aims for a supernova afterlife, are safely contained within.
That's why good smartphones developed by engineers have a plastic back-cover that is even removable. Unspeakable iThingies and their fiendish imitators use metal, ceramics or even glass to give you "the edge".
In this case the frame was so sturdy, the only way of escape was through the hole left in the chassis to connect SIM and SDcard to the PCB. And through that hole went all the pent-up gas/fluid combination as it punched through the plastic foil, which was designed to sustain an overall 2:1 or perhaps as much as a 4:1 expansion across the entire battery's surface, but not within that tiny SD+microSIM cutout... something like the Amdahl's corollary of explosion.
The SIM did not make it. Nor did any of the on-board electronics. The SD-card did, however, and he was ever so happy all those photographic memories of a teenager's summer had come to rest there, not in the part that died as part of the "better user experience".
On the upside, the phone got replaced. It took about 6 months because exploed phones were a tad unpopular after that "Samsung Summer" and even with surface transport Customs needed a lot of assurance the "new" phone was actually a repair unit.
On the downside, even the replacement phone's battery soon started started to act up, perhaps because of what he does or how he goes about it.
I have been hunting for a replacement using the 10nm process size to double the run-time, instead of a bigger battery. But as it turns out, the 10nm middle-class isn't really there yet, while 2017th high-end is eight where the 10nm would be in terms of pricing, only so much better in terms of value.
So I've just managed to rooted a Nokia 8, which he'll get as a birthday present, that offers perhaps even better up-time using a 10nm Snapdragon 835 with just a 3000mAh battery than a 22nm Mediatek could offer at 6000mAh (and much worse performance).
Just like in real-life, the middle class is getting ... over so I'd recommend you not go there.
serendip - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
How about a Mi Max 2 or 3 from Xiaomi? The 2 has a 6.4" 16:9 screen with 5200 mAh, the 3 has a 6.9" 18:9 in the same chassis size but with a 5500 mAh battery. These are less likely to blow up as a cheap Chinese no-name device. They also run midrange Snapdragons so power efficiency is much better than Mediatek junk. They're not ruggedized but a good armor casing should offer enough protection.abufrejoval - Thursday, September 20, 2018 - link
Those wouldn't be bad as such, but they fail with the competition.Essentially the 636 is an 820 with 0.5 GHz and probably some GPU power removed.
I have several 820 based LeEco Le Max2 running in the family, they are totally fine in terms of CPU/GPU power, but with 3000mAh batteries I feel the battery itch. As a former high-end phone, they have great ROM support but unfortunately even the last leftovers, which were down to €200, are gone now.
But the 820 based Le Max2 at €200 vs. the 636 based Mi Max3 €300 proves to me that it's not a good deal, even with double battery capacity, because now I can get 835 based 'lefovers' like a Xiaomi Mi Mix2 also for €300 and those maintain 820 performance levels, but essentially double the battery life.
But more importantly, it has LineageOS support and can be rooted, both of which I consider very important, but very hard to get for middle-class phones.
The Max series are designed for Chinese women, maximum screen size, total attention lock-in for a 14-hour day, media consumption, not a lot of game power. ROM programmers might buy them for their girl-friends but not to build ROMs for them: They reserve that for the smaller but more powerful phones they run themselves.
I wouldn't mind running such a big women's phone, because my eyes are getting older and I prefer gaming on PCs, but not when the price does't fit and I cannot control the phone like all my other computers.
Basically the one year delay of the middle class SoCs against their flagship cousins currently just means they have to compete with last year's high-end, a battle that's hard to win.
abufrejoval - Thursday, September 20, 2018 - link
Yeah, and I got long fat fingers, which is why I want EDIT!jabber - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link
I dont see an issue with a 4000mAh and an extra 1mm of depth to be honest.I reckon 4000mAh is the sweetspot for most folks needs.
benedict - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link
I got a Motorola moto e4 plus specifically for the big 5000 MAh battery. With light use it easily lasts a week.yhselp - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link
King Kong ain't got shit on me!djayjp - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link
"...a high-end Mediatek MT6763T processor (8xA53)..."You definitely mean low end....
Santoval - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link
A 8xA53 SoC is considered "high-end" in late 2018? Seriously?