It is no exaggeration to say that Chinese telephone production has reached a milestone.

Elephone was founded in 2006 in Shenzhen. The company has placed an enormous emphasis on research and development over the past eight years, thanks to which both the company and the phones they have developed have undergone tremendous development in recent years. Already last year, they created a device that got our heads up, it was the Elephone S8. It was characterized by beautiful design and strong hardware, which won a lot of customers. Perhaps it is also due to this device that the company’s sales volume has exceeded 10 million devices sold.

After the success of the Elephone S8, many waited for the sequel, and in the fall, the news of a new handset, sometimes referred to as S8 Plus or sometimes S9, began to take off. An interesting, so to say incredible, element had already appeared in the news, and that was that the new phone would get a real curved display. Needless to say, we didn’t even believe the thing, the fact that it seemed more like a cheap duck than a well-founded fact. Then a few weeks ago, the news started ringing about two brand new mobiles called neither S8 Plus nor S9, but Elephone U and U Pro. Based on the preliminary information, it was conceivable that the company was rolling a lot, but we were only now able to find out how much. The new phones will be a real milestone with which the Elephone has set the bar so high that at best only the biggest ones can jump. With these two devices, the company has entered a market that is gripping manufacturers like Xiaomi, Huawei or OnePlus. That we are not exaggerating what we claim, we can prove, as detailed specifications have been published, pictures and videos prove that the new, affordable Chinese phone, which can be put into a ring with the biggest ones, has arrived!

The interesting thing about the two devices is that although they differ greatly in terms of hardware capabilities, the display used in the external and the phone is the same, just as we do not find any differences between the cameras. With this solution, Elephone has made it possible for those who spend less money to buy their latest, most beautiful phone. However, we will present the two devices separately so you can see we are not talking in the air. Let’s start first with the cheaper version, the Elephone U.

Elephone U

The phone resides in a 72,5 x 154 x 8,4 millimeter housing with a total weight of 160 grams. The central unit is a chip manufactured by MediaTek, the Helio P23, also known as the MT6763. We also wrote a more detailed article about this tile last year, who are interested in deeper technical details, they ITT they can read our writing.

Processor

In a general tutorial like this one, we’re more into the processor, video accelerator, and memory management, so we’re doing it now. The Helio P23 processor can handle eight cores, located in two clusters. In the lower group, four ARM Cortex-A53s work at a maximum clock speed of 1,5 GHz, while the other group consists of four ARM Cortex-A2s also operating at 53 GHz. Many times we are asked what good these many cores are in a phone processor. Fortunately, we also have an exhaustive answer to this question, as you can read a detailed article on the subject here. ITT.

The Helio P23 and its processor are known to be 16-nanometer bandwidth, 64-bit, and support the ARMv8_A instruction set. In addition to proci, the chip contains the integrated GPU, which is the hardware responsible for speeding up graphics operations. In this case, it is a dual-core ARM Mali-G700 MP71 solution operating at 2 MHz, which in our opinion provides completely adequate performance for this lower-middle-class SoC. The memory controller integrated in the P23 handles dual-channel LPDDR4X memories, this phone comes with either 4 or 6 GB, depending on this configuration. The memory clock is 1600 MHz. The phone we are presenting has a capacity of 6 GB, as well as no less than 128 GB of built-in storage!

Display

In the Elephone U, we find a display that we haven’t discovered in any Chinese phone so far. Although the hardware is strong enough, this display is what makes us claim that this phone and its bigger brother are a milestone in the history of Chinese phone manufacturing.

The device has an AMOLED display, but not just any one, but a true bent display, much like the much more expensive Samsung phones. So it's over for magic, we're not going to read the phone next to 2,5D and 3D glass, but to be a curved, bent display. That's exactly what we used to do with Samsung, and it slides down to the frame on both sides, so real pixels live in the downhill section.

The panel itself is a 5,99 colos 18: 9 aspect ratio with a resolution of FHD +, 2160 x 1080 pixels. The display is protected by a curved Gorilla Glass glass from the harsh outside world, whereby the sensor surface can handle 10 finger touch simultaneously.

What we know from the display panel is that the six-inch diagonal and FHD + resolution result in 403 ppi (pixel per inch) pixel density. The color depth is 24 bit, with the number of colors displayed 16 777 216. The display on this phone occupies the percentage of 83,2 on the front panel and the NTSC color space coverage is 103. These are data that sounds very good, but since we're talking about the AMOLED display, we do not have to be surprised. And although they are not surprised, they have a strong desire for us to be able to admire them in hand.

It appears in the pictures that it is no exaggeration to say that the Elephone has made a giant move in the field of telephone production, for example, that Xiaomi did this with the first successful frameless phone Mi MIX.

Kamerák

The Elephone U adds three cameras for photography. There is an 8- on the front panel and two 13-megapixel sensors on the back panel under the optics. We have not yet received reliable information about the aperture value of these optics, so we need to get data that the front camera is capable of performing face detection, and the back camera knows things like true depth blur, HDR, white balance and ISO adjustment, or continuous shooting. .

If there is something missing from the capabilities of the cameras, there is the possibility of high-frame recording, which would allow you to shoot cool slow motion. These features are no big deal nowadays for an expensive phone, but you will see that this phone offers a lot of 100 for under $ 1,000 for all the features and capabilities you've ever read!

Other skills

Let's see what else Elephone U has to offer us! Wireless connections are here first. The phone comes with advanced dual-channel WiFi, which in addition to the traditional 2,4 GHz band also supports the increasingly widespread 5 GHz. Unfortunately, the latter option can be found in very few Chinese phones, but here it is! On the other hand, we only get version 4.0 from Bluetooth, although if we look at the differences compared to the more common 4.1, we will see that it is not very worth grieving about it. In the end, I left a very important piece of information, even that we can find support for the B20 800 MHz LTE, or broadband internet connection, used in my phone!

The phone has one of its capabilities, or maybe a little bit more battery. The 3620 mAh capacity unit is Lithium-Polymer technology. It can be downloaded on a Type-C port, which can be accessed through the fast download using MediaTek Pump Express Plus technology. Particularly interesting is the fact that there is no possibility of wireless charging from the phone either!

The mobile can handle two Nano-SIM cards, the mass storage, if the 128 GB is scarce, with a maximum memory card of 128 GB capacity. As for other capabilities, sensors, we get what's expected from such a phone. There is a fingerprint reader, if you want to discard facial recognition, we get a gyroscope, a compass, and a gravitational sensor.

Before we switched to the bigger brother, the U Pro, we still had debtors with one thing, and that is the price of the device. As I promised above, the phone will stay well below HUF 100, which is also due to the friendly Dollar exchange rate we are experiencing recently. In the introductory campaign, we have to ring 350 dollars, or roughly 87 thousand forints. Since the EU Express delivery is available at Gearbest again, this price is the final amount, we only have to pay the cost of the delivery, ie about 1400 forints.

The phone can be found here: Elephone U 4G Phablet - 6GB RAM + 128GB

Elephant U Pro

As you may have read above, the two phones, the U and the U Pro, are only partially different, and this part is the central unit, embodied in a chip called the Qualcomm Snapdragon 23 MSM660 Plus, much more powerful than the MediaTek Helio P8976. For this reason, parts such as the display and cameras will not be discussed again, as there is no difference between them. The two devices are the same in size, the only small difference being that the Pro version is 6 grams heavier.

Processor

Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 MSM8976 Plus, like Helio P23, processes eight cores in the processor, but they are not ARMs but Kyro cores. With Snapdragon 660 you need to know that Qualcomm is in the mid-range phones, but it's worth knowing that thanks to the improvements, the Snapdragon 835 is close to its peak performance last year, leaving it with 10-15 percent! That is, we can say that this SoC is far more combative, it is almost twice as fast as the Helio P23 used by Elephone U. True, the phone is also more expensive, but we think the price difference is not the same as the difference in performance, so it is worth the extra investment if our wallet can handle it.

Snapdragon 660 has eight seeds, which are also divided into two groups. In the lower, slower cluster, four 1,84 GHz and four 2,2 GHz maximum Kyro 260 core work in the second fastest group. This chip is made in 14 nanometer strip width, also 64 bit, and the supported instruction set is ARMv8. In addition to the processor's integrated graphics accelerator, this card is equipped with an Adreno 512 for this phone.

On the previous phone we could refer to a previous article where we presented the Helio P23, but here we can not, so let's go into the details for a few sentences!

Nowadays, centralized manufacturing companies place great emphasis on the raw power of developing multimedia capabilities. That's why a mid-range chip like Snapdragon 660 can not miss advanced camera support. At this unit, the phones built on it when using a backplane camera can even make 24 pixel sensors under the optics, but if there are two cameras, they can even mount up to 16 megapixels, of course, per camera. Cameras support features such as Zero Shutter Lag, ie pressing the shutter release button, no delay, instant image capture, hybrid autofocus, and optical zoom, of course if the phone manufacturer uses them in the Snapdragon chip potential opportunities.

Snapdragon 660 also has a maximum 2560 x 1200 pixel display, and the video recording option can be 4K 30 FPS or 1080p up to 120 FPS. These are serious skills, especially if we know that we are still "only" talking about a mid-range tile.

Unfortunately, we did not find any reliable information about what of the above capabilities we found in the Elephone U Pro, so it will be expected to find out during the real tests.

As indicated above, apart from the central unit, we find no significant difference, no other difference. The same sensors, battery with wireless and fast charging - of course MediaTek Pump Express does not work here - and the same cameras.

It is up to you to decide whether the extra cost is worth the extra cost for you, we say that the price of $ 420, or 104 thousand forints, is about 20 thousand forints extra, for which we get a phone with almost double the speed. So in our opinion, this extra cost will pay off well in use.

You can find the phone here: Elephant U Pro 4G Phablet

Closing Remarks

We rarely get used to writing such a detailed presentation from a telephone on the occasion of a presentation, let alone a news article, but rather an article. Of course, there is a reason for this, which we hope you will see in the pictures. A phone was born in Elephone’s workshop that the company can be proud of. The Elephone S8 has already scratched the top category, but the U and U Pro have also jumped to the level that makes this top category among Chinese phones.

It is a special pleasure for the company to launch its new phones in two versions, as this way even those who do not want to go over 100 thousand forints when buying a phone can afford it.

We think the central units are a well-hit election. The Helio P23 is one of today’s most modern lower-middle-class pieces, and the Snapdragon 660, while being made for the mid-range in performance, is approaching the performance of last year’s top solution, the Snapdragon 835.

By the end, there are two more important things. One is that the prices listed above are valid for the introductory promotion and only live on a limited number of pieces, pay attention to that. The other is that in this introductory promotion, you will also receive bonus gifts in addition to the phones, with an additional discount of $ 5 and $ 10 with a coupon, and a free screen protector for the Elephone U and a free 2 amp quick charger and foil for the U Pro. It is also important that when choosing EU Express delivery at Gearbest, according to the distributor's promise, we do not have to pay customs duties or VAT for the ordered phone!

You can find more information about the introductory campaign here: Elephone U and U Pro introductory action