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A checklist every affordable Android smartphone has to tick off is very different from the flagships. It must offer smooth performance, good design and long battery life. We test the LeEco Le 1S Dual SIM phone to see if a buyer gets all this and more from this smartphone.
The good stuff
This affordable phone is doing really well in terms of display and performance.
Display: The 5.5-inch screen has a resolution of 1920x1080p (Full HD). This is a big screen phone, and allows flexible user experience for a variety of uses, be it for reading ebooks, browsing the web or even for watching movies during a cab ride. The display looks sharp and has a fair amount of detailing. LeEco is offering a range of colour settings, such as vivid, natural and soft, that allow the user to select one based on how rich and vivid they want the screen to look.
Performance: The LeEco Le 1S runs a 2.2GHz HelioX10 MediaTek octa-core processor, with 3GB of RAM. Though, not a commonly used processor in smartphones yet, it is powerful enough for most use-cases. The phone handled graphically intensive games such as FIFA 16 and Smash Hit better than most similarly priced phones.
The middling factor
When it comes to design, camera and battery life, the Le 1S doesn’t really have significant advantages but that does not mean that it is disappointing.
Design: LeEco Le 1S is a well-built phone with a rugged metal exterior. The lustreless metal finish and the sleek silver rim on the frame makes it look a bit premium which is not common among budget smartphones. It is available in rather subdued gold and silver colour options, and for once, the former doesn’t look too blingy. The sides are flat, and on the back sits a fingerprint sensor that falls nicely in the range of the pointing finger when you are holding the phone. This rather accurate sensor adds another layer of security, and is infinitely more convenient than punching in a personal identification every time to unlock the phone. But the LeEco Le 1S falls back a bit because the phone is heavy (169g), is 7.9mm thick and feels quite slippery. In the Indian summer, when sweaty hands are common, this phone is likely to slip ever so easily.
Camera: The phone’s 13-megapixel camera, is a bit inconsistent. Low-light shots, as expected, get blurry or miss out on details because the sensor doesn’t capture enough light. What surprised us was that even some daytime shots had a lot of ‘noise’, which was visible even with slight zooming.
Battery life: For a phone that packs in a 3000mAh battery, it lasts just one day on a single charge when used as a primary phone. We would expect better from a battery of this size, but then again, this sort of battery life is useful.
The not-so-good stuff
Software and USB port are the problem points of this phone.
Software: The phone runs an older version of Android (5.1 Lollipop), at a time when newer phones are launching with Android 6.0 (Marshmallow). On top of it is a custom interface, which is a common feature in all Chinese smartphones. All apps are arranged on multiple home screens automatically, instead of being placed in a separate app drawer as we see on phones such as Samsung’s Galaxy Alpha series or HTC’s Desire series. To first-time users, the interface will feel a bit overwhelming and confusing.
Future ready: This is the first budget Android smartphone to offer a USB type-C standard instead of the usual micro USB. With a USB type-C port, both sides of the connector are similar (just like Apple’s Lightning port for the iPhone) so you can plug the phone in for charging without having to bother which side is the correct side up. However, the cable for this is not easily available.
Verdict
The LeEco Le 1S is doing well in terms of design and performance, but before buying, consider the Moto G (3rd gen; Rs.10,999) for its clean Android user experience and the Lenovo K4 Note (Rs.11,999) for a simpler interface and a better camera.
