The time of the budget smartphone has come, and 2016 has already seen a strong start, with Chinese manufacturer LeEco (formerly known as LeTv), bringing its products to India. LeEco has chosen a two-pronged approach to the Indian market, targeting the Rs.10,000 price bracket with the affordable Le 1S and the premium segment with the Le Max. We got our hands on the Le 1S, and here are our impressions.
The LeEco Le 1S may have a confusing name, but there is no lack of focus about the way it is built. It’s available in a shimmering metallic finish that borders somewhere between rose and champagne gold, and looks great either way. The metallic construction gives the phone a nice heft, and despite a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS display dominating its front, it is stretched almost to the edge of the frame to keep the size manageable. The phone comes with 3GB of RAM, dual-sim support and 32 GB of internal storage, which LeEco deemed was enough in this price bracket as expandable memory is not an option here. The whole package draws from a 3,000mAh battery. LeEco’s implementation of the notification and capacitive button lights deserves special mention here, as they show up only when needed, and the rest of the time fade into the metal body so well, it is near impossible to locate them when they are not lit.
For a budget phone, it is packed to the gills, with 13MP back and 5MP front cameras, a fingerprint sensor (with a nice-looking mirror finish), an IR blaster for remote control capabilities, and USB C with fast charging. Unlike its bigger brother the Le Max, the 1S misses out on the Snapdragon processor family, but uses the octa-core Mediatek Helio X10 chip clocked at 2.2GHz, which is a sensible move, given the value-for-money USP it has going on. The phone runs on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, with version 5.5 of the company’s EUI skin pasted on top of it.
Turn it on, and it’s hard not to appreciate how good the display is. The colours are nice and bright, and even the blacks are deep to the point where onlookers suspected it might be an AMOLED panel rather than IPS. It is rather reflective, but holds up well even in bright sunlight, though the brightness control shows erratic progress, with moderate levels even up to 75 to 80 per cent and a jump in the level towards the extreme end of the slider. EUI also offers a few different display modes such as ‘vivid’ and ‘natural’.
On the topic of EUI, like most Chinese manufacturers, it is very iPhone-like in design, with the app drawer being absent, and a tap on the app switcher key displaying the Control Center, which houses toggles for important functions and app shortcuts, along with brightness slider and the list of running apps, which are arranged horizontally. It makes sense in a way, as one does not need to drag down the notification drawer every time to turn on WiFi or Bluetooth. It is not an exceptionally heavy skin, but packs enough extra to differentiate it from stock Android. One small gripe we have is that the fingerprint sensor, while it adds extra security, is not the fastest or most accurate, as it sometimes requires a couple of tries and occasionally makes you look silly as you keep your finger on it and wait for the phone to unlock.
Performance, despite the skin, was commendable, with the Helio handling heavy-multitasking with ease, with stutter only creeping in under excessive load. Light gaming is not a problem either, and neither is overheating. All things considered, the 1S handles itself well for the segment it is in.
The cameras, both front and rear, do rather well too, with the option to take a selfie by tapping the rear-facing fingerprint sensor being a nice touch. Shooting modes are basic, but work, with a nice slow-motion video recording option available. In bright light, the camera produces exceptionally good images, with vivid colours, but as lighting becomes less ideal, some noise creeps in.
Battery life, as one would expect with a FullHD display, is on a par for the course. We found our review unit running short on charge by late evening quite often, but EUI includes three power-saving modes (smart, super, and ultra-long standby), to help you squeeze out the most from it. On the plus side, the included fast charger powers up the phone so fast, that we often complacently let the phone reach critical levels in the assurance that it would charge up enough in the time it took us to get showered and dressed.
At the end of the day, the 1S is by no means perfect, but it is a well-equipped phone that punches several classes above its weight in terms of build and everyday performance. For a buyer who needs a great-looking phone that works, and doesn’t care too much about surefire software updates and stock Android, we’d recommend the Le 1S wholeheartedly.
