The CUBOT H1 Smartphone Test: A Month with 3-4 Days of Battery per Charge
by Ian Cutress on December 23, 2015 9:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Battery
- CUBOT
Final Words
I'll be brutally honest - while I keep a good tab on some elements of the smartphone market, more so on the business side, when it comes to deep dive analysis I leave it in the hands of Josh, Andrei and Brandon. That doesn't mean I don't need a device though, and despite their suggestions it seems I wanted a lot and wasn't prepared to spend the money. As a technical editor, my search for a smartphone caused a series of positive and negative feedback loops - some days I'd decide that DRAM was the most important, whereas others it would be the display resolution or the storage capacity. In the end it comes down to compromise and what is good and within range at the time I was looking. At one point I was adamant I wanted something more powerful than a Snapdragon 600 series, but I've ended up with a quad core MediaTek A53 device running at low frequency. There were some no-brainers – it had to be big enough and good enough to work on when I have short 20 minute public transport trips, and support dual SIM so I don’t have to keep losing my SIM card each time I travel.
The CUBOT H1 was the result of the search. It’s a smartphone that boasts 5200 mAh of battery, which is 3.4x the size of the battery in the iPhone 5c or 2x the battery in the Galaxy S6. When combined with the 1280x720 screen and the 1 GHz quad-core SoC, it gave 4 days of standard use battery which translated to 15 hours and 26 minutes on the PCMark battery test that runs from 100% to 20%, beating the Zenfone 2 by over nine hours. That is pretty much pre-2000 smartphone territory, more akin to what we used to have when playing games like Snake.
My smartphone use case has adapted over time – I want it to do work on. That means writing, switching between apps, being somewhat responsive, and always being available. The SoC means it doesn’t break any sort of record for performance, but ultimately so much of my use doesn’t require performance but rather latency in app switching and updates. Having enough memory to keep apps available means a lot, so moving up from 1GB to 2GB was a big enough change to notice, as well as the bump up to Android 5.1. The 16GB storage model is pretty basic, and the microSD compatibility is only at 32GB, rather than something bigger, and I know it will fill over time with the consistent photographing of my cats. But that is a risk that I’m going to have to take, or synchronize with Dropbox.
Without the silicone case that comes free with the phone, I will grant that despite the patterned edge, it does feel like the plastic the rear is made from, and arguably it slips out of the hand too easily. With the silicone case, it just feels like a smartphone with a case, which a lot of people use anyway. The raised power and volume buttons helps discern their location, and the fixed buttons is something I like to have on my device, even if it means giving up screen real estate.
It is clear that the cameras are not for taking glamour shots. But at a trade show, as long as you are in the front row, and have a second or two between shots, taking pictures of slides to work on later is good enough. To get a good shot taking advantage of the EIS though, you really need to use the burst mode which supports 40 shots at 13 MP each. The video is also an afterthought. That comes down to the price and what needs to be cut to meet that price. I purchased the device, brand new from Amazon, for £125 which translates to $160 pre-tax. Almost everyone I showed the phone to, probably due to the battery life argument, thought it was more expensive. The only people who guessed under (and only by $10) were a pair of senior ARM employees. But truth be told, I could buy four of these a year and it would still be cheaper than an S6. Of course, there are obvious caveats with that comparison.
I would say that this is going to be my phone for the next two years. But since I purchased it in October, two extra high end smartphones that others at AnandTech have tested have both landed on my desk for similar experiential testing. It almost seems sad to shelve the Cubot H1 immediately unless I adapt to carry two phones at once, with the H1 as that long-battery backup.
| CUBOT H1 | ||
| SoC | Mediatek MT6735P 4x ARM Cortex-A53 at 977 MHz ARM Mali-T720 MP2 at 400 MHz |
|
| RAM | 2GB LPDDR3 at 533 MHz | |
| Storage | 16GB NAND | |
| Display | 5.5” 720p IPS | |
| Modem | 2G / 3G / 4G LTE UE Category 4 DC-HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, CDMA2000 1x/EVDO Rev. A, EDGE |
|
| Networks |
TDD LTE | None |
| FDD LTE | B1 / B3 / B7 / B20 | |
| UMTS | 900 / 1900 / 2100 | |
| GSM | 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 | |
| Dimensions | 154.5 (h) x 76.6 (w) x 9.2 (d) mm, 201 grams* Weight Measured by AnandTech, conflicting numbers online |
|
| Cameras | Rear | 12.8MP ( 4128 x 3096 ) |
| Front | 8MP ( 3264 x 2448 ) | |
| Battery | 5200 mAh (19.76 Whr) | |
| OS | Android 5.1 | |
| Connectivity | 802.11a/b/g/n 2.4GHz BT 4.0, GPS, A-GPS, Micro-USB |
|
| SIM Size | Micro-SIM (FDD-LTE, WCDMA, GSM) Nano-SIM (GSM Only) Also Separate MicroSD slot, up to 32GB |
|
| MSRP (UK) | 16GB | $160
£125 as purchased |
So the final question becomes ‘how is it pronounced?’ Do we say cue-bot? Or perhaps cub-bot, or cue-bow? After writing this review, and looking at their online ‘CUBOT enterprise propaganda film’ on YouTube, it turns out to be coo-bot.
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Mondozai - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
Other than the complaint about a bit more technical and more thorough testing of call quality, I do greatly appreciate this review(glod medal!).I thought Ian was an entertaining and detailed writer who went through his daily routines into a lot of depth and adapted the review after it. I also appreciate AT doing these kinds of reviews instead of just the ultra-high end.
I have an imported Lenovo K3 Note and it's stunning to me that people pay 3-4X of what I paid for a phone which is better but only marginally so for real world use.
KUTGW, Ian, I hope this is just the beginning of some more unorthodox reviews from you :)
failquail - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
Nice to see there is finally starting to be some options for those of us who like sane battery life in a phone...My past two phones have had 3rd-party XL battery replacements because that was the only way to get a high capacity phone (currently a Galaxy S3 with a 4600MaH battery replacing the stock 2100MaH one) without resorting to fiddly charging banks/cases.
The general industry obsession with phone thinness and the move to fixed-battery designs which makes these XL battery replacements impossible was starting to really concern me. But perhaps things are coming around finally.
fanofanand - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
Fantastic review Ian, I thought you explained what it was like living with this phone extremely well. My Nexus 5 is nearing it's death (screen is delaminated etc.) and only gets about 2 1/2 hours of SOT, so I am slowly and sadly perusing what's out there. Nothing has seemed overly compelling, and I'm a bit of a tightwad with phones too so reviews like this are pure gold to me. Keep up the great work!Cold Fussion - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
We must different opinions on what is considered satisfactory quality for publication. The quality of photos out of that camera are absolutely abysmal, this is what I would expect from a 2002 point and shoot camera. In 2015 when quality cameras are so unbelievably inexpensive I find it unacceptable that a publication that prides itself on the quality of its content would have such low quality media.Ian Cutress - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
Wait what? I'm confused as to your comment.For AT's photos in general, you'll notice that our photos are all resized to 575px with med-high jpg compression to reduce bandwidth when viewing with a slow connection, and you click through for the full image. AnandTech has been this way for at least five years.
For the images coming out of the H1 itself, they are what they are and I really don't know what you're getting at. I'm not going to change the images coming out of the device I'm testing - that would skew the results.
Cold Fussion - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
It's in regards to the images coming from the H1 were you said they were acceptable for publication (the photos from the super computing conference). Obviously changing the images coming out of the camera to showcase what the camera of would be unethical/fraudulent.Having looked at the photos you posted from the H1 (in the biggest sized offered from the gallery mode), I wouldn't consider it an acceptable imaging device for publications. The images look akin to hand holding a vaseline covered lens in front of a camera, with poor noise and colour to boot. When a full frame DSLR can be had for less than $300, or any number of mirrorless cameras, it would be disappointing to see future publications be utilising images from the camera in the H1
Ian Cutress - Sunday, December 27, 2015 - link
Ah yes, I see what you mean now. For print publication, I'd agree with you. For our 575px images, they're OK for that at least. When you go deeper into detail, it doesn't have the clarity I agree. There were a number of SC15 pictures I couldn't make out the details on some PCB images, purely because of a lack of finer detail. But that's part of the parcel for this phone; for photos for print publication or detail, I carrying around a decent point and shoot or DSLR.blzd - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
I thoroughly enjoyed your review. Also nice to see some lesser known devices get the AT treatment even if it's not quite as in depth as we're used to.As for the H1, it appears the performance is not much of an upgrade to the One Max and the camera appears to be a downgrade compared to your (now ancient) GS2.
I hate the idea of "downgrading" anything when I buy a new device but objectively, most of our devices are complete over kill for the software they're running.
mkozakewich - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
You should mention that it's MicroSDHC. If you remember, SD went to 2 GB, SDHC went to 32 GB, and SDXC should go up to 2 TB. It seems weird that everyone spends so much time wondering about maximum sizes when we've got those three monikers.Coup27 - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
I know it's more than you wanted to pay but you can get a Sony Z3 sim free for £300 with a nice 1080p screen, 3GB of RAM, 801, waterproofing, stereo speakers, micro SD and 3 days of battery life for moderate use and some cool ultra power saving modes for when you're in the sh!t.I've had one since they came out and hands down the best Android phone I've seen or used.