Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Elephone S8 – The REAL King of Bezel-Less Smartphones?”.
This is pretty big news. In fact, I’d go as far to say that we’ve just found the budget bezel a smart phone of the year and with the Xiaomi me macstew, having just been announced, this firm really begs the question: do you even need it now? The phone in question is the elephone s8 and to get one thing out the way at 240 US dollars, it is far from flagship territory in terms of price, but in terms of what it can do, the story is a little bit more interesting. So the back of the phone is covered with this very thin glass, not Gorilla Glass, but nonetheless it does have some benefits. It’S a little bit lighter, but also feels nice in the hand it’s comfortable, grippy and also reflects light in quite a nice way. You get this sort of mirrored effect where it reflects light in a lot of different directions, something like what we’ve seen on the honor 8.
What was to me even more impressive, is there to somehow created an anti fingerprint coating. Whilst it doesn’t resist a hundred percent of fingerprints, the difference is honestly game-changing and the other thing that probably stands out is that giant single camera amidst a wave of not very good, cheap, dual lens cameras, we’ve been seeing recently. This is a nice touch and it’s actually a 21 megapixel sensor more on that later the phone is 8.1 millimeters thick and it’s also got a weight of 201 grams. So, even with that slightly thinner glass, it’s a very heavy device, but it does actually has a really large battery inside of it.
So I’d say the trade off is kind of worth it and the edges themselves are really nice they’re. Quite a contrast to the plasticky feeling back and they do add a premium feel to it anything is while they do feel great in themselves. The transition between them and the rear of the phone is a little bit sharp. So whilst it feels premium and impressive, it’s not the most comfortable to hold, you might have also noticed the absence of a headphone jack here and whilst they did include an adapter in the box, it feels like a bit of an unnecessary exclusion. Now we haven’t even got to the highlights yet because that has got to be the display, the C six inch 2560 by 1440 resolution IPS panel and it’s gorgeous. This is honestly up there with the very best ultra high-end flagship phones, we’ve seen for up to three times the price, even up close because of that resolution, it’s extremely sharp. You will not be able to distinguish pixels and also because of the brightness of the display. Pretty much from any viewing angle, even extreme being angles, it’s pretty readable, also at 92.4 %.
The screen to body ratio here is one of the highest we’ve seen on any bezels device, not quite as high as the me macstew, but very very close, and I was surprised to see that it gets better than that, because the battery capacity here is four thousand Milliamp hours considered by most as humongous now, because that huge bright and high-resolution display does zap a lot of battery. You might not quite get the full two days of heavy usage. You would otherwise, but nonetheless, battery life is really good. In fact, I was so impressed because, just with a little bit of intermittent charging, I was able to film almost all of this review on three percent.
Okay, one more thing: this is a very, very fast phone when you’re using the operating system, it absolutely flies – and this is in part because it’s a fairly powerful device, but also because elephone has done a really good job with the software they’ve, not only optimized it, But they’ve almost completely removed the transitions, so it feels even faster than it actually is. It also helps that the screen is very responsive. So, almost all the time, while you’re using the phone, except when you’re playing the most demanding games, you can barely tell it doesn’t cost 500 in terms of gaming. Whilst I wouldn’t say it’s the holy grail of budget gaming devices, it does do a pretty good job. We’Ve got the 10 core Helio X 25, which is not to be mistaken with the p25, because this one is quite a bit more powerful than that, and so combining that with four gigs of ram we’ve got a pretty upper mid-range gaming spec. The only problem is, is that is kind of designed for a 1080p resolution trying to play games at this ultra high resolution. They look fantastic and they play okay, some games, especially the more demanding ones. You will start to see lower frame rates, but there’s very few games that it can’t play outright. So the company has done some work with their home button. It functions as a very fast fingerprint scanner, but it’s also a back button home button and a menu button. Whilst I do like how they’ve bundled in all those things into one button, it makes a lot of sense. I feel like they’ve done it in kind of the wrong way, because when you double tap it, it goes home and when you hold it down, it starts to multitask. It feels like those two, a kind of the wrong way around another.
Pretty impressive thing is that the software is pretty much a stock version of Android 7.1.1, but there’s nothing to run home about it’s nothing, crazy, exciting, but at the same time it’s sticking to something. That’S very solid, it’s about as up-to-date as most other phones on the market and does have a few useful and interesting features. So then we’ve got that 21 megapixel camera and, of course, on paper.
That is a hugely impressive specification and in practice it’s really pretty good. Whilst I would say the shutter time, the time it takes to click, a photo is kind of long. That is a trade-off. We’Ve got to accept for such a high resolution and speaking of resolution.
We really can’t argue that these are not sharp photos. Having said that, they are lacking a little bit in terms of vibrancy and contrast, but at the same time, I’d say it makes up for it in terms of its depth of field effect, we’re getting great blurring of the background, which is exactly what you need for Professional looking photos – something that kind of took me by surprise here – is that it shoots video in 4k resolution now to get one thing out the way this is not the best 4k video you’re gon na be able to take on a phone. You will be able to tell the difference between this 4k and the 1 plus 5s 4k, but at the same time it’s good. It’S definitely a step above 1080p and whilst it doesn’t have the best electronic image stabilization, it is really quite good for the price.
So there we go, that is the alifair and essayed a complete breath of fresh air in what was starting to become a bit of a concentrated unsaturated market. Once you can accept that it’s a hefty dual handed device, it’s combination of screen, camera and performance, will absolutely delight you and stop watching. I’M mister he’s the boss and I’ll catch you in the next .