The Official Chinese Phones Thread

King4aDay · 6 May 2015 at 14:15

Hi all,

I'm getting pretty fed up with my Xperia T... support from Sony stopped ages ago, the current Lollipop builds on XDA run pretty poorly for me and are infrequently updated and I never seem to have enough app space despite moving everything I can to SD card. On the plus side I drop it almost daily and it's never cracked - build quality is amazing from that point of view.

I'm looking at replacing it and feel a bit miffed to have missed out on the super cheap Elephone P7000 pre-sale. Is there anything else out there in the £100-150 bracket worth looking at?

Also not sure where's best to buy from really - the best prices inevitably seem to come with the risk of import taxes.

Not fussed about camera quality, just want a nice snappy smooth experience and decent build quality. Good XDA developer support would be a bonus (or at least coming with lollipop). I'm on Three.

King4aDay · 6 May 2015 at 16:03

Cheers chaps. My gf has a Moto G which seems perfectly fine, but the P7000 just seems like ridiculous value for money... actually it looks like I misunderstood the Elephone pre-sale thingy. Have registered for a code in the hope of snagging one for £108 in the next few weeks but who knows what availability will be like.

Failing that, any thoughts on the Lenovo K3 Note?

King4aDay · 6 May 2015 at 16:37

Yeah the Bluboo X550 (love these names

) doesn't look bad with that massive battery, but seems to have lesser screen res and processor than most of the competition. Mi4 out of budget. Jaiyu S3 looks like a possibility now it's getting Lollipop. Think I like the P7000 and K3 Note best still.

King4aDay · 6 May 2015 at 22:43

Well, I got bored of deliberating and ordered a K3 Note (in lemony lemon colour) from GearBest for £116 including shipping insurance. I'll probably still try and get a P7000 as well to compare if I get a sale code. Now the long wait for el cheapo shipping via the Netherlands...

King4aDay · 7 May 2015 at 19:18

horrorwood said:
Didn't you consider the Mi4i ? Or is it needed urgently?

Well I didn't want to wait around too much longer seeing as delivery is going to take weeks anyway, and it wasn't immediately obvious when the Mi4i would be available. Plus it's about 30% more expensive than the K3 Note with very similar performance.

King4aDay · 7 May 2015 at 21:10

kona786 said:
where did you order?

You can go here - http://www.elephone.hk/ and register for a reservation sale code (you also need to pick which etailer you want to reserve stock with). However, reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis (I think) and 150k+ people have already registered. Then on May 11th, 13th, 20th and 23rd Elephone will send out an unknown number of codes which will allow you to order at the sale price of $159.99 from your chosen etailer. Alternatively, you can just order at the normal price of $229.99 from elephone or from whatever etailer you like. If you order from elephone and subsequently get a sale code then they'll refund you the difference, but you might stand a better chance of avoiding import charges (shush!) if you order from GearBest/coolicool/wherever.

Or something...

King4aDay · 7 May 2015 at 21:50

Columbo said:
The P7000 does indeed look great but the GPS on Mediatek SoC's is utter gash to the point of it being unusable, unless of course they've improved it with the latest sets.

I do have a slight concern about this, although my T has got to the point where Maps just dies every time it has to do an in-journey reroute so it can't be any worse.

King4aDay · 8 May 2015 at 17:31

Tauren said:
Quite interested in the elephone. Can seem to pre order anywhere? Hmm. The elephone website won't let me snap one up either.

Read post #18.

Or if you can't be arsed with jumping through hoops in the hope of a discount code then just pre-order at the full price from wherever, ie http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_147582.html

King4aDay · 8 May 2015 at 18:28

Tauren said:
Cheers. you getting one on order then? Seems to good to be true. Even at the non discounted price.

Holding out for a discount code. If I don't get one I'll probably just stick with the K3 Note I already ordered.

King4aDay · 10 May 2015 at 23:59

First wave of P7000 codes released tomorrow at 10am for those interested, think you have to be pre-registered and logged in to the elephone event page before hand, I hate this sales model.

King4aDay · 11 May 2015 at 10:59

dun said:
Mine just says 'System Queueing' still?

Mine too but I think they're all gone, just stuck queuing for nothing.

King4aDay · 11 May 2015 at 12:32

Looks like a waste of time - apparently only 100 discount codes released per week, vs 160,000 reservations :/

I'll just wait for my K3 Note to show up I think.

King4aDay · 11 May 2015 at 15:20

emu said:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-5-Lenov...337?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item58c468a4e1

this looks like a good deal?

i missed out on the elephone

That's what I've ordered, but it's cheaper from GearBest and if select NL post it should come via the Netherlands and hopefully avoid import tax.

Be aware it doesn't have LTE 800mhz so you might have limited 4g connectivity depending on carrier.

King4aDay · 11 May 2015 at 15:24

dun said:
I thought it was 100 per reseller meaning thousands. If its just 100 a time we've got no chance.

Oh yeah I got it wrong.... 9.5k just sold, next round on Wednesday is 15k.

King4aDay · 19 May 2015 at 18:54

Well my K3 Note just arrived. Less than 2 weeks via PostNL and no customs charges. First impresisons are pretty good - nice size and seems responsive. Chock full of bloat and malware as expected and the UI is horrible so rooting now and will clean everything up, install novalauncher then report back on GPS.

King4aDay · 19 May 2015 at 20:36

OK, looking good so far... rooted, most of the crap removed, 45k in antutu and standing in the driveway GPS Status is getting a fix in a couple of seconds, 9/10 sats and accuracy of 2-16m (average about 6), for comparison my Xperia T takes about 4 seconds for a fix, 11/21 sats and accuracy of 3-12m (average 4-6). Haven't tried to nav anywhere yet though...

My T already seems comically small, haha.

Now just to hope for some CM loving.

Downsides so far... the main buttons don't light up (come on!) and I'd much rather a 'recents' button than a settings one, although long-press on the home button brings up the recent apps list.

King4aDay · 19 May 2015 at 20:54

Tauren said:
Excellent phone. You got any pictures? I was tempted to get the yellow one at one point.

Yeah I got the yellow one

No pictures yet, but there's loads online. It looks... er, big, black and yellow

The back felt a bit plasticy when i took it off to fit the battery and sim, but it snaps on nice and firmly, no creaks or gaps.

King4aDay · 19 May 2015 at 20:55

Columbo said:
Sounds promising although the issues I had were nearly always while I was on the move although I did have some stand still lock issues so its good that you haven't seen any of that yet.

Yeah have to make a short drive tomorrow so I'll see how it does.

King4aDay · 20 May 2015 at 10:19

Just had a little bimble in the car and maps seemed perfectly happy with the GPS. This was just country roads and the main route through town though - might be a different story in the city.

King4aDay · 20 May 2015 at 14:15

Amazing; just managed a perfect first time installation of my Nillkin 9H screen protector. That never happens!

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