Cubot Note S

Review

This is a really interesting and a profitable model for those that are not discouraged by less popular, Asian brands. For young – this slogan indicates for who the Note S model was originally designed – but everyone who is looking for a good, cheap phone with a large diameter will be pleased with it.

Chinese products, which more often appear on European markets, no longer give rise to such concerns when it comes to the quality and the solidness (as they used to). We are dealing with “made in China” products every day, and when it comes to smartphones, Chinese brands boldly enter European markets, not giving way to the European competition when it comes to parameters and efficiency (and it is possible that most of them are manufactured in China either way). One of these brands is Cubot, and standing behind it is Shenzhen Huafurui Technology Co., Ltd. This is a brand, which portfolio is focused on good and cheap smartphones – if someone is interested in this segment of the Chinese production, you can check the offer of companies like Elephone, Ulefone, Dogee, THL and others.

Contents

• Housing and display
• System and applications
• Multimedia
• Connectivity and communication. Efficiency (benchmarks)
• Packaging and accessories. Battery. Summary

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages:

• profitable
• 2 GB of RAM
• smooth work
• battery can be replaced
• system without bloatware
• dual SIM
• a rather quiet speaker
• works with Aero2
• housing and the quality of construction
• good display
• microSD cards support
• battery is capacious and can be replaced
• silicone case in the set

Disadvantages

• average photos
• cameras resolutions are interpolated to 8 and 5 megapixels
• buttons below display have no backlight
• efficiency in games
• lack of notifications LED
• does not support LTE
• ekran mógłby mieć rozdzielczość Full HD
• long time of charging the battery
• average lifespan
• no earphones in the set

Housing and display

When it comes to the housing Note S is dominated by plastic. The back panel is a white, matte plastic, while on edges the material has a metallic-gold colour. I did not like this solution, I would prefer a uniform colour. That is why I enjoy the whole black or the whole gold version more. The housing is solid, it does not creak and the back panel holds tightly to the rest of the housing thanks to a series of latches.

Cubot Note S has a 5.5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels, thanks to which we can consider it is a phablet. The pixels’ density is on the level of 267 per inch – which is not particularly impressive, but it is enough for most applications (except for games). It is a pity that there is no FullHD display, but it would probably increase the price of the device and reduced the lifespan. There had to be a compromise. Colours are perfect, just like viewability angles and the contrast. The image is bright enough, though in a full sunlight it will be necessary to find a darkened place. The front panel is covered with glass with arced edges (2.5D). The manufacturer delivers the smartphone with a preinstalled protective foil – not only does it protect the display, but it makes fingerprints less visible as well. Above the display we have a speaker for calls, sensors and the front camera, while below it there are three touch system buttons without a backlight and a hole of the microphone.

On edges we can find a typical set of buttons and sockets. But not on the left and the lower ones – they are free from any additions. On the upper edge we will find the universal jack and the microUSB port, while on the right there are volume controls and a power/lock button.

On the back panel we can see centrally placed manufacturer’s logo, a set of markings and holes of the external speaker in the lower part and the camera lens in the upper left corner. This panel can be removed – it is made easier thanks to a cavity in one of corners. The first element that catches our attention inside the phone is a large battery. Only after we will remove it we will gain access to sockets for memory cards and a SIM card in the micro version.

Basically the device is rather big and rather heavy – but this is not a novelty for a person who decides to buy a phablet. Still, I must commend the handiness and the general ergonomics and the quality of the construction.

System and applications

The device works under Android in the 5.1 version with a few elements added by the manufacturer. The add-on is not that pretty, I do not like the preinstalled set of icons the most. But, what is most important is that everything works smooth, without errors, forced apps shutdowns and lags.

The personalization covers changing wallpapers and adding and rearranging widgets and icons (and creating folders as well). What is more, there is a technology for enhancing the displayed image and changing the sharpness and the temperature of colours. Gesture support, that is SmartWake, is a great advantage. Thanks to it we can wake the display by double tapping or running selected apps from the level of a locked display by drawing an appropriate letter.

The fact that the manufacturer did not garbage the system with bloatware is an advantage as well – from external manufacturers’ apps we only have Clean Master (but this is not surprising, after all Cubot, in association with Cheetah Mobile, responsible for this app, created a smartphone called CheetahPhone).

Multimedia

It is comfortable to watch videos on a big display, but when it comes to the sound it could be better. I have met with much worse speakers – the external speaker in Cubot Note S is placed on the back panel and I can describe the sound that is coming out of it as decent. There is no bass and the loudness level is rather low. But we can always use earphones – but we must use our own, as the manufacturer did not add any to the set.

The app for playing music does not have any interesting functions – we have standard features, like sorting songs, a support for playlists or the possibility to enhance the sound using the equalizer. The app for using radio is much more interesting, it is visually enhanced by the manufacturer (though it does not reflect on the comfort of usage). It is possible to save broadcasts to the OGG format. There is a recorder, which saves files to the OGG format as well.

The main camera takes rather average photos – though, if we consider the price shelf, it still deserves a commendation. Colours are natural and the level of noises in moderate. With a good lighting and not moving objects we can achieve really nice photos. In a full Sun the white balance does not work too good, a lot of photos are overexposed. The autofocus is not the fastest one, it will not always focus on the target as well. Close-ups come out better than landscapes – here we can see a great drop of details. The LED flash is basically a useless addition – it will be better as a torch than for illuminating photos. I recommend dropping night time photos. But I will repeat myself – for a model for less than 80 euro it is decent.

Let us mention a bit about the resolution – the manufacturer provides information that we have 8- and 5-megapixel at the front and at the back respectively. Basically these are interpolated levels, real ones are 5- and 2-megapixel respectively. On websites that sell this model straight from China this is clearly indicated (for example gearbest.com or aliexpress.com), while the manufacturer’s website gives higher specifications without indicating the software enhancement.

Here are results of the photography (those and other photos in a full resolution can be seen here):

The camera app did not underwent any manufacturer’s modifications – the interface is known from cheaper Androids, it is rather primitive, still, it offers a set of functions. For example it has panorama, face detection or the HDR mode, which can be run by single taping the display.

For browsing photos and watching videos we have a preinstalled Gallery app – when it comes to images, we can share photos via Bluetooth, mail or social media or we can edit them. And when it comes to videos we can loop the recording or we can cut it – with such a limited functionality it will be best to install an alternative player from the Google store.

Connectivity and communication

The budget shelf does not mean that the manufacturer can forget about installing the most important communication modules – in the case of Cubot Note S we have a Wi-Fi with the hotspot function, Bluetooth in the 4.0 version (for example, it worked without any problems with the HDMX Jam Plus speaker), GPS with aGPS (not too fast, not always precise, during a 2-hour car ride it lost the signal three times), while from physical connectors we have the microUSB and the 3.5mm mini-jack. For transferring image we can use the Miracast technology. We have HotKnot (an equivalent of NFC, we can transfer data by touching two devices) as well.

The smartphone supports two SIM cards – in the micro size. Only one of them can work in the 3G network, the second one switches to 2G. The lack LTE support is a big disadvantage. Default cards for making calls, texting and transferring data can be set up in the menu. The quality of calls is decent, the sound is bearable, we can hear and understand our interlocutor without any problems. The quality of calls in the loud speaking mode is quite different. Interlocutors complained about an echo and distortions. The phone does not support video calls through the mobile network, but we can record voice calls (to the OGG format). For typing we have the preinstalled Android keyboard.

Memory and efficiency

The user is left with 12GB of space from the 16GB declared. What is more, microSD cards of up to 32GB are supported.

The heart of the smartphone is a quad-core MediaTek CPU marked as MT6580 with 1.3 GHz – this is neither a fast nor an efficient unit, but it is enough for most usages. Mali-400 MP is responsible for graphics. The amount of RAM is surprising – 2GB is rarely seen in the budget shelf price. And how it is with the efficiency? Basically it reflects the price. In an everyday usage the device works smooth, but not exceptionally fast. We need to wait a bit for loading more demanding apps. Just like with the Internet. We need to give Cubot some time to load contents of websites, but after that browsing, zooming, swiping and so on works without any problems – even when it comes to more advanced websites for video streaming. Cubot Note S can deal with games as well. The simpler ones, so-called casual ones are no problem for it, but even the more demanding ones can be played as well. Like Real Racing 3 – well, we must be tolerant when it comes to graphics (pixels, pixels…), some races load rather long and the image sometimes lags (especially in animations before races) but the gameplay itself is alright. I must honestly admit that in a such a cheap model this was a big surprise. I will add that the smartphone likes to heat up in the upper part of the back panel – the hotter it is the more it reflects on its efficiency.

Packaging and accessories

Cubot Note S is reasonably priced and in the set we will receive not only the smartphone, but a 1A charger, microUSB-USB cable and a silicon etui with cut-outs for sockets, the camera and the speaker as well. It only lacks even the simplest earphones.

Battery

The lithium-polymer 4150 mAh cell should provide a long lifespan, but in fact the work time on a single charge is really average. Basically, the average time achieved with a moderate usage was a day and a half – with the Wi-Fi module on, two SIM cards active, the automatic brightness and a usage narrowed to making voice calls, taking photos and watching videos on the Internet. Similar results were achieved after switching the work to a more social one, that is I connected Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and synchronized two mail boxes. Basically after unplugging the phone in the morning at the evening I was left with around 15-20% left. I suspect that with a more moderate usage I can achieve two (or even more) work days. The lifespan with the display on (50% of brightness, looped YouTube videos through the Wi-Fi, two SIM cards) was 9 hours.

In the standby mode, at the night time, the battery lost around 2-3%, but a better solution was to charge the cell fully during the night – especially that with the charger from the set it takes a lot of time (around 4 hours). Unfortunately, the Quick Charging function for budget models is a distant future. I will add that we must carefully watch the battery indicator – it happens that it drops irrationally quick and then it stops a bit longer at one point. The charger itself is not of the best quality. Not only does it slowly charge the smartphone but it heats up noticeably during the process as well.

Summary

For two weeks during which I had the occasion to review the Cubot Note S phablet I have developed a positive opinion about it. Most of all this is a profitable model, it has a few major shortages, but advantages outweigh them. It has a great display, two slots for SIM cards, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal memory – in the budget segment it is really difficult to find a better occasion. A similar price and specification, but with a smaller display has Bluboo Picasso. But let us get back to Cubot – for more advanced users and gamers its specification might not be enough, but for those who like to focus on more traditional functions of the phone, surfing the Internet, texting or using apps like Facebook or Whatsapp - Note S will be enough.

Source: GSMchoice.com

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