Doogee S68 Pro test - a cheap laptop with rough capabilities

Doogee’s new unbreakable phone has got amazing knowledge that has swept the market-leading manufacturer.

Introductory

Before we get into this article, we need to clarify one thing. Until now, I thought I wouldn’t encounter better Chinese strapphones in my life than the Ulefone Armor family. It’s no coincidence that I also use the Armor 6e when I’m in shaky conditions, you know, I’m going on a longer motorbike tour. But I know it's not just me. The Armor name is much better known than the name of the manufacturer, Ulefone, even though Armor is just one of the phone families manufactured by the company.

What happened to that? Here’s the Doogee mid-range mobile and roasts to the big rival in essentially every area. Strong, but not only inside but also outside, but to what extent, the article below shows. I think you will like it too!

Packing, garnishing, outer

The hardware or what's inside? - Doogee S68 Pro

Processor

I usually start the presentation of the phones with the central unit, and in this case it is of special significance. The Doogee S68 Pro features a chip, the MediaTek P70 (MT6771T), which is modern and of course quite fast. The manufacturer MediaTek unveiled its predecessor, the Helio P60, sometime last spring, and soon after, the wrinkled successor, the P70, which not only improved its capabilities, but also its clock and energy efficiency compared to its immediate predecessor. The Helio P70 targets the upper third of the mid-range and, as such, is one of MediaTek’s most powerful solutions. The P90 currently leads in this category, but it’s still new enough to look through the magnifying glass at the phones they’ve put it in. Nonetheless, according to the manufacturer, it can outperform the previous generation Helio P80 by up to 30 percent in speed, and its consumption is even lower than the P23, one of the stronger inserts in the lower category. The strength of the MediaTek P70 is well illustrated by the fact that the manufacturer says it is a worthy competitor to the Snapdragon 670 chip, which is not an underestimated capability.

The chip uses a processor based on “traditional” ARM cores. The eight cores are, as we are accustomed to, divided into two clusters, one sharpened for low power consumption and the other for high power. The interesting thing about the processor is that, unlike usual, each of the cores can scale up to 2,1 GHz as a function of performance. However, these seeds arranged in clusters are not the same. Cortex-A53 cores work in the lower, ie energy-saving section, while Cortex-A73 cores work in the upper part tuned for performance. The latter is a special feature, because in the case of Chinese phones, we usually only encounter its predecessor, the Cortex-A72 cores.

Of course, the proci also comes with a graphics accelerator, or GPU. It is one of the most modern units of ARM, a three-core ARM Mali-G72 MP3 based on the Bifrost architecture, with a clock speed of 900 Mhz. As usual, a memory controller has been integrated into the central unit, in this case one that can handle both LPDD3 and LPDDR4 modules, as well as up to 8 GB.

However, the most interesting part of the system for us at the moment is not the CPU or the GPU, but the neural accelerator already mentioned in the chapter title. A neural accelerator is nothing more than a dedicated solution for artificial intelligence like the GPU, it is only responsible for graphics, while it accelerates artificial intelligence operations. A dedicated solution is usually much more powerful, much faster than entrusting these special operations to a processor or graphics accelerator.

Although the Helio P70 has a neural accelerator, it would be a shame to hide that its performance is not in line with the performance of the Kirin 970 used by Huawei, for example, so to speak, it is weak. True, it should not be forgotten that the Helio P70 has also accelerated in this area compared to the P60. Due to more efficient voltage scaling, the manufacturer said an increase of 10 to 30 percent was achieved. It is likely that MediaTek experts also knew that despite the acceleration, chip performance was not always sufficient, so they implemented a technology called NeuroPilot, which can distribute some computational tasks between the neural accelerator, GPU and CPU if necessary.

The Helio P70 also stands out quite well in the field of multimedia. A maximum of 32 megapixels can be transferred from a camera to a phone built on the P60, and if the manufacturer wants a dual camera, the upper limit is 20 + 16 megapixels. Also noteworthy is support for hardware vibration damping as well as HDR and zero shutter lag function. The chip, of course, supports the new display sizes, including 18: 9 and 19: 9 aspect ratio displays.

Kamerák

The Doogee S68 Pro got a camera on the front panel, which is 16 megapixels. I can’t say good or bad about the quality, it brought me to the level I expected from it. Obviously this is the less important camera, but he gave the selfie in decent quality.

On the back, next to the double LED flash, three cameras supported by artificial intelligence (the hardware's central unit knows this in hardware) were built, in the currently fashionable rectangular layout. According to data circulating on the net, they all contain Sony sensors, which unfortunately is not true. The main sensor is certainly a Sony IMX230, but under the double magnification telephoto and the 130-degree wide-angle lens, a sensor from a manufacturer called GalaxyCore has been added, and although the resolution is the same, the type is not (GC8034 / GC0310).

What is their quality? Let’s start with the worse news, forget about the wide-angle and telephoto cameras. It’s nice and good to be there, but they deliver a dewy performance compared to today’s expectations. With the wide-angle camera, the manufacturer emphasizes that it is also suitable for macro photography, which in this case means that we can take a needle-sharp image from 3 centimeters. Don't even try this, the result is just the most acceptable level, far from needle-sharp as Mako is from Jerusalem. What you don’t have, or just a great way to use, is blurring the background. To put it mildly, it’s overdone, but if we drag the effects close to the minimum with the two adjustable sliders, it won’t be bad. So, let's deal with that common sense!

That was the bad news so far. The good thing is that the 21 mega Sony touchscreen main camera, on the other hand, is quite usable. Okay, this isn't a Xiaomi Mi 10, but not even a Redmi Note 8, but it's not bad. Well, it's worth taking close-up photos with this camera, there are several of them included. Their quality is particularly good, no significant distortion is visible, the middle of the picture is really needle-sharp, the colors are loud, the picture is alive!

If we want to take normal, so non-macro images, we already have a few bugs, but this can be tolerated with a basically work-type strapatphone. The type of corners distorts the image a bit, but this is a common problem due to the optics installed in tiny phones. The colors are more or less okay, although the sky likes to burn out a bit, especially when the sun is strong. The middle of the pictures, on the other hand, is quite detailed, in the photo of the flowering tree, even the small flowers can be clearly seen, the petals are fairly separated from each other. So in good lighting conditions, we can take photos with it, we get usable, shareable images in return.

The camera software is already used to the basic Android anyway. We get the usual features, so we have a panoramic image and we also get facial beautification features that make the skin smoother, thin the face, so we take photos with them and we look like a mannequin patterned about us, but if someone likes to see themselves like that, then good news that it works.

Display

In the phone, at least in a long-distance comparison, we find a huge display. Next to the 5,9-inch image diagonal, the resolution is 1080 x 2280 pixels. The display is based on IPS technology, meaning it is backlit, which stays usable in sunny weather if not directly fired. Due to the small image diagonal, the pixel density is very good, 428 pps, so the image does not wrinkle, the letters and straight lines run nicely.

Overall, I think we get the quality for the category, and rather the top third of it, from the Doogee S68 Pro.

Durability

It’s important to have strong hardware in an impact-resistant cell phone, but perhaps more importantly, to be able to withstand all kinds of physical impact as much as possible. And the Doogee S68 Pro is truly the pinnacle in this regard. Its water and dust resistance, the ratings obtained go far beyond the usual IP68 rating, they meet conditions that are sufficient even for military use.

I tried to summarize which standard means protection in the following:

The phone is IP68 and IP69K rated on the one hand, with the first number after the IP mark for dust, the second for water protection, and the K mark for a special, enhanced protection for IP69-only devices. poses against water.

• Dust protection is described by a six-point scale, where 6 is the peak, i.e. total dust protection.
• The scale of protection against water is 9 divisions, by definition the ninth is the best. This specifically means that IP69 mobiles are able to stay functional at a depth of 1-3 meters for a minimum of 30 minutes, but for some phones, such as the Armor 6E, the manufacturer can specify even better values. In our case, this means two hours of operation at a depth of two meters and 24 hours of operation at a depth of one meter.
• The K mark means additional protection against water, precisely that the phone must also withstand high-pressure water. This is numerically 14-16 liters per minute of 80-degree water from a distance of 10-15 centimeters at 30 bar cycles in 100-second cycles.

However, these equivalents are nothing compared to what resistance the MIL-STD-810 military requirement requires in addition to IP69K capabilities. The device must be able to

• extremely low and extremely high pressure,
• very high and very low temperatures,
• direct sunlight,
• the lasting rain,
• the salt,
• the mist, the fog,
• sand and dust,
• a quick dive,
• the high acceleration,
• the vibration
• icing
• the ballistic blow

As you can see, the rugged court also has grades, but the Doogee S68 Pro offers something quite special in this regard, in every environment, you have to have and can have all kinds of physical effects.

Of course, it is no accident that you endure these ordeals. The entire frame, ie not only the side braces or the frame, but also the part under the display, is made of titanium-aluminum alloy, which means that the device does not twist, twist, the housing does not deform, even if dropped or severely we hit something. Of course, this isn't enough for protection, because like any good rugged phone, the S68 Pro has a strong, flexible rubber jacket on the metal frame, which is thickened at the corners.

Strapa is testing the phone

If you feel like it’s still little for you (they’d be surprised, but maybe), it’s good to know that the front glass isn’t the norm either. The manufacturer used double-layer Gorilla Glass on this phone, meaning the front is like two hard, scratch-resistant glasses on top of each other. This is important not only because of the thickness, the two panes of glass can behave much more “flexibly” under physical exertion, i.e. in this case the math of resistance somehow comes out so that 1 + 1 will not be 2 but three. At least.

Other skills

The Doogee S68 Pro is a bloody work phone where capabilities and looks should not be compared to anything else in the category. In practice, this means that, understandably, traditional devices available at a similar price perform better, at least in most cases. The reason is understandable, of course, for a strapatphone, the impact-resistant housing and front glass make up a larger part of the manufacturing cost than for a traditional phone.

On the other hand, capabilities come to the fore that will be important in order to be able to use the phone wirelessly if possible, ie we do not have to bother with connectors and cables. This is important because both the USB connector and the SIM tray on these phones have been given a watertight “cap”, opening them and closing them incorrectly will compromise the integrity of the phone.

Because of this, the Doogee S68 Pro was given a number of modern capabilities. A basic example is the existence of NFC, which can also be used for payment. But more importantly, there’s also a wireless charge, it’s 10 watts, which means it doesn’t interrupt the stride, but in practice it’s still good to have at all. If we charge with a wire, the situation is a little better, because we have a 24-watt fast charge.

And here comes one of the biggest curiosities of the phone, namely that wireless charging is not one, but two-way. That is, we can charge the mobile wirelessly with 10 watts, but with the S68 Pro we can also charge other devices wirelessly, of course only those that have been given such a function. If the Doogee is used as a charger, it will be able to charge another mobile phone with 5 watts, such as another S68 Pro, with XNUMX watts.

Reverse wireless charging test

To make this work well and make sense, the S68 Pro has been given a buffalo battery with a capacity of 6300 mAh. According to the manufacturer, this means 756 hours of standby time, or 80 hours of phone calls, or 49 hours of video viewing, or 22 hours of gaming on a single charge. Cable charging works via USB Type -C port.

You may have read more about the processor above, but I didn't write down that we get quite a lot of memory and storage space next to the proci, exactly 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of built-in storage capacity.

The mobile is not ashamed of other capabilities either. In addition to the back fingerprint sensor, sensors include a gravity sensor, proximity sensor, light sensor, compass and geomagnetic sensor. These are also needed because we get a complete package of software for the phone, with which they can actually be used.

It is only worth mentioning, because it is already basic that we also get wifi and Bluetooth, so we can use three types of wireless connections together with NFC. There is no support for navigation systems either, in addition to the basic GPS system, it also supports BEIDOU, GLONASS and Galileo satellites, so there will be no error with accuracy.

What I haven’t mentioned before is the SIM tray, it’s shown in one of the pictures above. You can insert either two SIM cards or one memory and one SIM card at a time. This is bad news for those who would use a lot of storage and two SIMs at once, but all the cure for it is that 128GB of built-in storage will be enough for a while.

Usage Software Doogee S68 Pro

I start with the software because there is not much to tell about this. We get essentially basic Android, free of all kinds of shit, and I also got an update for it, so Android 9 comes with the relatively recent security package of March 5 (I am writing the article in early April).

The only interesting thing about the software is the software package called the toolbag, which I have already mentioned above, about the sensors. In this we will find programs such as protractors, compasses and the like, which means that they will be especially suitable for work and hiking. In the latter case, for example, we can measure the height of an opposite mountain peak, a good thing.

Let’s move on to what is perhaps the most important thing about what your phone is like when you use it. The hardware is flawless, the Helio P70 was a long-time familiar to me, and this mobile also brought what we would expect from hardware. Due to the large amount of memory, multitasking also works well, in Hungarian the device does not slow down even if many programs are open in the background.

I only used it live, as a primary phone, for only three days, I didn’t have two days on a charge due to the test, i.e. constant and non-stop pressure, but I stress, the use during the test is not in line with an average use either. Based on my experience so far, I believe that with average use, you should know two to two and a half days, and using it more sparingly, you can get an extra day out of the battery.

I didn’t have a problem handling the satellites either, but this was also the case with the previously tested Doogee phone, and then there was someone in retrospect who complained that it wasn’t accurate. True, there were some who complained about the volume of the speaker, for me it was as flawless as it is now, and the Doogee N20 has been used by our neighbor’s daughter ever since, and it doesn’t seem too quiet for her either.

So overall, everything was fine with the phone.

Summary - Doogee S68 Pro

As I mentioned in the introduction, Doogee didn’t put a simple phone on the table with the S68 Pro. They put in a pretty hard blow to the Ulefone Armor series, although in fact, for the time being, they are more likely to attack the mid-range, various Armor 6 devices, the Armor 7 is still too big a wall. However, it should also be noted that the Armor 7 is already playing in a completely different league, which is well reflected in its price, which is currently more than double that of the Doogee S68 Pro. The direct competitor, the Ulefone Armor 6e, which I also used and loved, costs about 3 forints less, but the Doogee gives more than 3 forints, just to think about the inverse wireless charging, the double front glass, or the better cameras.

Overall, then, the Doogee S68 Pro is one of, if not the best value for money in its mid-range today. If you are looking for such a phone, it is worth considering buying it, because the end user price of a little over 60 thousand forints is quite friendly for this knowledge.

Here you can buy:

Doogee S68 Pro long distance phone - 65 900 Ft

Don't forget, choose the EU Priority Line mode for duty-free shipping.

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