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Rajeshkiran
Rajeshkiran 24 Mar, 2016

Honest review of Le1s after 2 months of usage

Hi Guys,

This is Rajesh and today I am sharing my views on the LeEco Le 1s that I have been using for the past month. Yes, we all know that LeEco, formerly known as Letv, launched two smartphones in the market - Le 1s and Le Max. The Le 1s is priced at Rs. 10999 and the Le Max (64GB) is priced at Rs. 32999. Le 1s is their lowest priced phone but at the same time gives features of a flagship phone. LeEco claims that they are selling Le 1s at lesser than BOM (Bill of Materials) price (which is more than Rs. 16000). Let’s move on to the review then.

BUILD & DESIGN
The first time I opened the box I was like “Wow, awesome!”, yes guys it looks great, it really looks fantastic. One of the most beautiful phones I have ever seen. The mirror-surfaced fingerprint sensor, a smart looking camera and all metal body - all these things make Le 1s a looker! It looks premium and it feels premium. The weight is a bit on the upper side but still with a 5.5-inch Full HD display and bezel-less design it is very handy and easy to use.
9/10

SCREEN & MULTIMEDIA
Le 1s comes with a 5.5-inch LCD IPS Display covered by Gorilla Glass 3. The display is great with awesome colours and contrast levels. It is sharp enough and watching Full HD videos on the display is a visual treat. Mediatek’s clear motion technology is there, so there is not even a single frame drop. It can compete with flagship phones for sure.
9/10

CAMERA
Le 1s comes with a 13 MP rear camera and a 5 MP front camera. Rear camera is an ISOCELL unit with PDAF and high aperture for low light capturing. Still, with all these features, this is where Le 1s suffers a bit. The daylight pictures are good with good details and natural colours but in lowlight the camera is just okay. The pictures turned out to be noisy and macro shots turned out to be “whitish” in low light. I also found some reddish tint on the photo. Front camera is good enough for video calling but for selfie lovers it will be a “hit or miss” as the camera works sometime good and sometime bad. Lots of software optimisation is needed in the camera section as the basic things like “beauty mode” is missing. I hope LeEco will release an OTA update which can rectify these issues. UPDATE: The latest OTA improved the camera experience by a huge margin – both front and rear cameras!
8.5/10

PERFORMANCE
This is where Le 1s outshines every other smartphone in the same category. Le 1s has Mediatek’s current flagship 64-bit Octa Core Processor MT6795 Turbo (aka Helio x10 Turbo) clocked at 2.2 Ghz. Almost every other smartphone in this price range uses cheaper processors while LeEco uses this flagship processor. We can find this processor even in the flagship phone of HTC M9 (Which costs almost 45 K). Le 1s also has 3GB RAM with the system using almost 1.5 GB RAM but still the phone performs very well. No lag at all. Almost every high end game plays butter smooth. I have tested Asphalt 8 and Temple Run, both run fluidly. As far as the performance is concerned, it is really a beast. It warms a little bit, but that is common for all metal smartphones, so not a deal breaker for me.
9.5/10

CONNECTIVITY
Le 1s supports 2G/3G/4G networks in India. Everything is working fine. I didn’t experience any network issue so far. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are up to the mark. Le 1s supports dual SIM - one micro and one nano. Both are working perfectly fine. A small negative side is that it doesn’t support VoLTE, so for Reliance Jio users it is a deal breaker. Still it satisfied me. Thumbs up!
8.5/10

MEMORY
Le 1s comes with 32 GB of internal memory which is really good considering the price. It doesn’t support SD cards but it supports OTG. I was able to connect a 64 GB pen drive through USB Type C OTG cable and it was really fast and I had a nice experience. Overall at this price range it is really good.
8/10

SOUND QUALITY
The external speakers perform well and after plugging in earphones, it sounds really great. It is superior to the competition in this price range. Soothing to the ears and a good option for audiophiles.
8.5/10

PROS:
Stunning design
Premium Feel
Great Display
Good Speakers & Sound Quality

CONS:
Okay Camera
No VoLTE
No External SD card support
Considering the price point of 10999, LeEco provides a super “value for money” product which can break all records in the Indian mobile market. As their tag suggests a #SuperPhone at a #SuperPrice
Overall Rating: 8.5/10
Verdict: Paisa Wasool..!

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Rajeshkiran
Rajeshkiran 23 Mar, 2016

Which is better? Le 1s or iPhone SE?

Apple announced the iPhone SE and the web is going wild about it! The Verge says "The new iPhone SE finally makes a small phone feel powerful", TechRadar says that its "Small but mighty!" and The Telegraph calls it "Apple's secret weapon". Lots of superlatives are being thrown around, as is always the case with Apple products.

So, in the midst of Apple's reality distortion field, I decided to compare it to my Le 1s - that I've been using for more than a month now. The results, at least for me, are very conclusive.

Let's start with the OS. Android and iOS are now at-par on features, freely taking inspiration from each other and the perennial also-ran Windows Phone. However, if you've been using an Android phone, the move to iOS is jarring regardless of preparation. Trust me, having moved from a OnePlus 2 to an iPhone 6S, I know this better than most. If you're an iPhone user already, there is no discussion required. If you're an Android user, then I'd say "Don't even consider an iPhone!"

Moving on to design and build, the new iPhone is, in line with Apple's policy "thinner, smaller and lighter" than the Le 1s. However, the Le 1s has an astounding screen-to-body ratio of 75% that enables single-handed use and the phone doesn't feel too big. After all, within reason, bigger is always better! Both phones offer amazing build quality at their respective price points, so that's not really much of a contest.

On display, if you like smaller screens, the iPhone SE will appeal to you. But for someone who has used a 4+ inch screen device earlier, going back to a smaller display doesn't really work. In this respect, the Le 1s scores with its big but not too big display, and its helped by minimal bezels. Resolution-wise, its a no contest with the Full HD In-Cell display on the Le 1s ruling the roost with its fantastic color reproduction, great viewing angles and almost-zero bezels.

On connectivity, both the Le 1s and the iPhone SE are at par with each other on Wi-Fi and Network compatibilities, but the Le 1s scores with its dual-SIM capability.

When it comes to performance, I believe that specs are just one part of the game. Real-world performance is key. And in this area, despite having lesser amount of RAM than the Le 1s, the iPhone SE performs equally well due to better memory management in iOS versus Android. Its a straight tie!

Camera is another key feature where specs are just one part of the game with actual photo clarity being the key identifier. The iPhone SE uses the much-lauded camera module from the iPhone 6S, so its a given that photos will come out well. The Le 1s on the other hand had a few initial hiccups with photo clarity but they've since been resolved by OTA updates, so overall - its a good camera experience on both smartphones. The Le 1s scores in lowlight clarity and front-camera! Apple, for reasons that defy logic, went with a 1.2MP sensor on the front-camera. Now megapixels might not be everything, but with a 5MP sensor, the Le 1s handily beats the iPhone SE on selfies. Another reason is the smaller aperture size on Le 1s cameras – both front and rear (f2.0) compared to the iPhone SE which has f2.4 on the front camera and f2.2 on the rear camera – in photography parlance, smaller is referred to as “wider”. A wider aperture lets in more light which gives better photos in low-light and indoor situations, and gives you that beautiful blurred “out of focus” effect on wide shots.

With respect to sensors, the Le 1s has an infrared sensor to control home appliances that the iPhone doesn't. Everything else on this front is a tie.

Finally, the "essential spec" in today's world, battery! The Le 1s has almost double the battery capacity of the iPhone SE, with fast-charge built-in! While iOS has better power management than Android, the huge difference in capacity should result in longer standby times with the Le 1s!

Regardless of all technical specifications and performance comparisons, there will still be people convinced that an Apple product is the next best thing since sliced bread! So, to those people, here is a final nail in the coffin. Both the Le 1s and iPhone SE are good phones that do almost everything you can expect them to. Most importantly for a budget-conscious Indian, the Le 1s costs INR 10,999 while the iPhone SE starts at a whopping INR 39,000! That’s three times more expensive than the Le 1s!!! Case closed.

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