iNew V8 - special, but not perfect

    In early July, the Chinese company iNew (created in 2012) announced the V8 model - a clone of the famous OPPO N1 smartphone, famous for its 180 degree PTZ camera.



    A closer comparison, we see that the similarity is rather only external, because the filling of the V8 is not similar to the filling of the model from OPPO. Therefore, we will consider the smartphone as a separate full-fledged model, without affecting its origin in terms of design and main features. At the same time, the smartphone has one more “trick”, which I will tell you about later in the review.

    ▌ TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS


    iNew V8 is equipped with a new six-core processor from MediaTek called MT6591, the cores operate at a frequency of 1.5 GHz. Inside, there are 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal memory expandable with a microSD card. 5.5-inch display with HD resolution (1280x720 pixels) and IPS matrix, covered with a protective glass Corning Gorilla Glass 2. Camera 13 megapixels, the sensor is from Sony second generation with an aperture of F2.0. V8 runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat operating system. There is also wireless communication using NFC technology, support for 2 SIM cards and a special rear touch panel.



    imageScreen: 5.5 ", 1280x720 px, IPS, OGS
    imageProcessor: MediaTek MT6591T (6 cores, 1.5 GHz) Video accelerator
    image: Mali-450MP 700 MHz
    imageOperating system:Android 4.4.2
    imageRAM: 1 GB
    imageUser memory: 16 GB + microSD
    imageCamera: 13 megapixels + dual LED flash
    imageCommunication: 2 SIM cards (GSM / GPRS / EDGE + UMTS / HSPA)
    imageExtras: GPS, A-GPS, Wi -Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, OTG, accelerometer, compass, light and distance sensor
    imageBattery: 2400 mAh
    imageDimensions: 155.7x77x6.8 mm
    imageWeight: 166 Gram
    imagePrice: 214 $ (~ 7,700 rubles)

    ▌PACKING AND PACKAGING


    We see a solid monolithic box smartphone iNew V8. In front of us is an iridescent inscription iNew Smartphone that does not say anything about the phone model, and about what lies inside.



    We guess we’ll flip the box over and see the name of our gadget with brief technical specifications.



    On the side of the box is a fabric loop, with which we open the box of the phone, turning it back over. After opening our eyes opens the phone iNew V8.



    For now, put the smartphone aside and see what is inside.



    We will decompose everything separately so that it is better to see what equipment complements the gadget.
    We see, bundled with a smartphone are:
    • Wired stereo headset
    • USB cable
    • Charger
    • User's manual
    • Protective film
    • Protective bumper



    A pleasant addition was precisely the translucent bumper, which sits well on the device itself.

    ▌ DESIGN, DIMENSIONS, CONTROL ELEMENTS


    iNew V8 has a very interesting and custom design. Smartphone dimensions: 155.7x77x6.8 mm. Weight: 166 grams.



    Now, in almost all such devices, the front of the phone consists of one monolithic glass closed with a frame around. Immediately we see the top of the phone, consisting of a beautiful white non-glossy plastic, which smoothly goes into the front of the device. There are also light sensors, proximity and earpiece.



    Below, on the front of the smartphone, we see three touch control buttons: menu, home, back. They are highlighted, so there will be no problems with their use at night. These buttons are present on almost all android smartphones, so everyone will be familiar with their use.



    On the right side of the iNew V8 there are volume rockers and a device on / off button. The location of these buttons is good, they fit well under the thumb and are pressed with a little effort. They are also perfectly tactile, so there will be no problems finding these keys with your finger.



    There are no keys on the left side, just a beautiful frame on the entire perimeter. I think that the manufacturer did the right thing by moving all the control buttons to the right side, because with such a large diagonal it will be difficult to press anything on the left side.



    On the bottom of the phone there is a connector for charging and connecting to a microUSB PC, a talking microphone and a 3.5 mm audio jack. Through native headphones on a standard player, a good balanced sound, not exquisite of course, but solid. Cables are well inserted, I did not observe any problems with connecting to these connectors.



    There is nothing on the top of the camera except the PTZ mechanism. There is nothing more and should not be, since all the alleged control parts are on the right side.



    The back is made of soft-touch white plastic. In the middle is iNew. Below the inscription is a square touch panel that can be used to fit your needs. It is slightly highlighted on the plastic so as not to lose its location. Below is a speaker, its volume is large enough, it is enough to hear a call in the noisiest place. A little higher than the speaker is the marking of the smartphone. Above is a mechanism with which we can rotate the camera as much as 207 degrees. There is a camera peephole and a dual LED flash on it. Under the camera there is a ribbed surface, for which I need it I did not understand. Perhaps so that the device does not slip out of the user's hands.



    Under the back cover we see slots for SIM, microSIM and microSD. The battery of the phone is 2400 mAh. Hot swapping is not provided. On the reverse side is the area of ​​the touch panel that connects to the phone when closing and the area for wireless communication through the NFC module.



    We can say with confidence that iNew V8 is built efficiently. Nothing creaks and does not play. A kind of monolithic bar, which looks spectacular and relatively convenient to use, given the size of its screen. But still, I think such a screen is too large for mobile devices. Also, one of the minuses is the lack of an LED event indicator. I don’t know why the manufacturer chose this solution, because it is a very convenient common feature. Vibro is at an average level, nothing special. You can not always feel the vibration, it all depends on the case. Therefore, I missed one call out of three.

    ▌ DISPLAY


    5.5-inch display with HD resolution (1280x720 pixels). The display is based on the IPS matrix. Covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 2. The frames on the sides are quite narrow - 4 mm.



    The display processes up to 5 touches, no problems with the touchscreen have been noticed. All touches are perfectly recognized, there are no false positives.



    The screen is very high quality and juicy. Knowing that the diagonal of the display is 5.5 ”, and the resolution is only 1280x720, I was preparing for a clear grain. But when I picked up the phone in my hands, I tried to take a good look, I did not see the grain. This made me very happy. Granularity is visible only when enlarging the photo screen.



    The margin of brightness is very good. I saw many different phones and their behavior in the sun. This display fades, but not as much as it could. With the sunniest day, it’s still possible to read information from it, but not as easily as we would like.



    The viewing angles of the display are maximum. If you look at the display from the sides, you can see that on one side the image turns yellow, and on the other it turns blue.



    These are the features of the matrix, in other phones I watched something like that. Above and below, the image remains the same as it is, only slightly darkens.



    The display is not bad, in general, he pleased me.

    ▌CAMERA


    One of the main features of the iNew V8 is the PTZ camera with a dual-LED flash. The camera mechanism allows it to rotate as much as 207 degrees. To save on the front camera and deliver a high-quality rear camera, the manufacturer came to this decision. Especially this solution will be relevant for lovers of "selfie". Inside is a 13 megapixel second-generation sensor from Sony with an F2.0 aperture. The maximum resolution of photos is 4160x3120. The maximum video resolution is 1920x1080 / 30fps. In my opinion, the camera shoots very high quality, only the software processing goes too far with sharpness in some places, and in some soaps. Below are pictures in different conditions, with the help of which everyone will make a conclusion for himself.







    Shot at night, focus on the tower with fire.



    Macro shot, focus on the red area.



    A snapshot of the text, focus on the left page.



    As we can see, even though the flash is a two-LED, it does not give anything special. Lighting like a conventional single-LED flash. It was a little upset, as I had a lot of hope in her, thinking that there would be great pictures at night.
    Video recording in maximum quality.

    The videos are amazingly good quality, maybe only autofocus is not ideal. But still, for the smartphone’s camera, very decent videos are obtained. On the laptop screen, the video looks as beautiful as on the device screen.

    ▌ SOFTWARE PLATFORM


    iNew V8 runs on Android OS 4.4.2. There is support for the ART runtime, which is what the new version of Android is famous for.



    The shell is not stock, but modified by the manufacturer iNew.



    Further we can see the changed dialers and SMS applications. They are quite convenient to use.



    A screenshot of the settings window shows us that there are several sections below, through which we can quickly find the settings that we need. The Russian language was originally in the stock firmware, but unfortunately, there are places where the manufacturer did not bother to make a translation. Therefore, in these places, we see English words.



    And the rest of the problems were not noticed. The interface works smoothly, no brakes are noticed. And thanks for that, because there are top-end phones that have done a poor job of optimizing the shell.

    ▌ WIRELESS NETWORKS


    The iNew V8 supports 2 SIM cards, one full-size and the other micro-SIM. Both 2G and 3G standard are supported. The quality of both is very good. Both you and your interlocutor can hear him perfectly.
    Wi-Fi is quite far-reaching. Communication does not lose and works stably. Below are screenshots: 1) next to the modem, 2) through 2 walls, 3) through 3 walls.



    Bluetooth also works without problems. Files are perfectly transmitted, no gaps were observed.
    GPS, surprisingly, worked just fine. Knowing how many rumors go about the curvature of this sensor on the MediaTek platform, I was delighted. There is support for AGPS. Below are screenshots of cold starts: 1) the windowsill of the second floor, after 1 minute 30 seconds, 2) sitting in the car, 30 seconds, 3) standing on the street, 20 seconds.



    NFC is not as common on phones as other wireless interfaces, but it is also present on this smartphone. With it, files were transferred perfectly to another phone with support for this interface. So there are no problems with this module either.
    There is support for OTG. We can connect any device from a flash drive to a keyboard. There is an FM radio. FM lovers will appreciate the opportunity to listen to their favorite radio stations.

    ▌ PRODUCTIVITY


    iNew V8 is equipped with a new six-core processor from MediaTek called MT6591, the cores operate at a frequency of 1.5 GHz. Video Accelerator: Mali-450MP 700 MHz. The same video accelerator is in the MT6592 processor, all the difference in the number and frequency of processor cores. RAM - 1 GB, it is enough to solve all the tasks assigned to the smartphone. Internal memory - 16 GB (13 GB available). There is a microSD slot for expanding the memory capacity, a 64 GB card was recognized perfectly. Let's look at the benchmark results:



    The results are pretty good. A smartphone is more than enough for all the tasks that are usually assigned to a smartphone. Problems are possible only with very heavy games, but this is a separate class of users who like to harness their device. Let's take a look at how individual games go.

    Real Racing 3 . In this game, there is a small subsidence FPS. But in general, it is quite playable. Half of the people will not notice the difference between a smooth and a little crushing game. The graphics settings were such that there were glare on the car, and from the view from the cockpit there were reflections in the rearview mirror.



    Dead Trigger 2 . The game runs smoothly, no lags were noticed at all. I note the fact that it is quite convenient to play shooters on such a large screen.



    Asphalt 8 . Graphics quality was automatically set to the penultimate one. With these settings, Asphalt 8 went the same way as Real Racing 3. There was a FPS subsidence, but also insignificant.

    Real Drift . This game goes without any brakes on the maximum schedule. For all the time of testing departures or any other problems were not.



    In games, heating is almost not observed, as well as in performance tests. For most users, the power of the smartphone is enough for all tasks. But juggling in games is a little frustrating and makes it clear that the smartphone is not perfect.

    ▌BATTERY, CHARGING, OPERATION TIME


    The smartphone uses a 2400 mAh lithium-ion battery. There is nothing special to be expected here, everything is at the level of similar products from other companies. It is enough for a day of very active work. If the owner does not use the phone so actively, then it will be enough for three days of work without problems, which includes several hours of calls, several tens of SMS, several hours of Internet and instant messengers. Below are the results of the Antutu Battery Test of the latest version, in which the phone scored 6595 points. The points were close to the numbers in the processor name of this device, which smiled. In the HD-video playback mode with maximum display brightness, the device worked for 6 hours 30 minutes, which is not so much. From the detailed history of battery discharge, you can roughly understand how the device consumes energy.



    In general, I expected a lower energy efficiency of the device than it turned out in reality. The screen is quite large, and the battery does not have as much volume as it would seem. But still, the results of the smartphone’s operating time pleasantly surprised.

    ▌ ADDITION


    In addition to the PTZ camera, the iNew V8 has another feature, this is the rear touch panel. It is provided initially for lovers of "selfie", like a camera. But this panel can be customized as you like: control your music player, control your camera, browse web pages or launch applications. Screenshots of the settings are presented below.



    Unfortunately, this part of the shell is not translated, but now is not about that. Very good idea and great implementation. Everything works as intended by the manufacturer.

    ▌ CONCLUSION


    Now my thoughts are on this phone. Let's push off from its price. She is $ 214. It is not officially sold in Russia, so you can order it only from Chinese electronics stores. What do we get for this money? A very solid phone with some "chips", without which it would be an ordinary Chinese phone on OC Android. Is it worth the money? If you are interested in what is emphasized in this device, then of course it is! Otherwise, I’m not sure, because for that kind of money, you can find devices with better fillings from similar Chinese manufacturers.

    ▌ ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES


    imageDecent performance.
    imageHigh-quality display.
    imageLatest OS version.
    imageLoud speaker.
    imagePTZ camera.
    imageRear touch panel.
    imageLow price.

    imageCloned design.
    imageMicro-logs in games.
    imageImpressive battery life.

    ▌ PRICE AND PURCHASE


    The device was purchased at Ru.Coolicool.com online store . Delivery was carried out by post of the Netherlands - PostNL. He came from there in 12 days, very fast delivery, knowing that the device was coming from China to the Far East via Moscow.

    image

    You can also buy iNew V8 in the Ru.Coolicool.com store by applying a $ 20 forum-v8-20 coupon . I will inform you that now in this online store there is a 9% discount on this phone, and with the use of a coupon the price will be only $ 214.99. This is an occasion to think about buying. Good luck to everyone.

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