Elephone P3000 Review – 1GB / OTG / 720p


Review of: Elephone P3000
Version:
MT6582
Price:
$143.99

Reviewed by:
Rating:
5
On January 21, 2015
Last modified:January 22, 2015

Summary:

Limited time coupon code "ELEPPLM" to get this phone for $143.99. See conclusion at end of review.

The Elephone P3000 is Elephone’s latest MT6582 offering. It’s priced a bit higher than what we’ve been seeing with some recent MT6582 mobiles. Let’s see if it’s worth the extra dough.

It’s obvious a lot of thought went into the design of the Elephone P3000

Elephone P3000 review design / build / style

If there’s one flaw with the design of the P3000, it’s the back piece. Whatever material they used here, it seems somewhat absorbent. I’ve tested both the black and the white P3000. The black is moderately prone to fingerprints, and the white one absorbs dust and begins to looks dirty after just a few days in the pocket. This is a minor consideration, but worth mentioning. Choosing between the two, I would take the black one as it cleans up nicely.

It’s obvious a lot of thought went into the design of the Elephone P3000. Check out the cool capacitive buttons. Though unlit, these modern-styled dot shapes are just a few of the little things Elephone has added to make the phone unique.

elephone-p3000-review-IMG_4469On the black version of the phone, the camera and fingerprint reader sits in a black cylinder accentuated by silver and red, which adds significant class and character to the phone.

elephone-p3000-review-IMG_4474The sides taper into the back, and the top and bottom curve slightly adding further flavor to the P3000.

There is a notification LED which is capable of showing all colors. A few of them are selectable in the Android settings menu or you can use a 3rd party app for notification color control.

elephone-p3000-review-Screenshot_2015-01-20-22-13-38The power buttons and volume buttons give a tactile click. There are minor creaks in the back piece, but overall the phone feels very solid.

Elephone P3000 review OTG

The OTG on the Elephone P3000 works perfectly. I tested a mouse, a gamepad and an SD reader and they were all detected and working without issue and with no adjustments needed.

elephone-p3000-review-IMG_4320

Elephone P3000 review compass

The compass on the Elephone P3000 is working without issue.

elephone-p3000-review-Screenshot_2015-01-17-20-06-10

Elephone P3000 review OS

The OS on the P3000 is KitKat 4.4.2. As with all of Elephone’s recent ROMs, this one came already rooted. For beginners this is a huge time saver, and for those who are tech savvy it can save a minor hassle.

Thankfully the root and SU is SuperSU. That their phones are coming rooted and with a proper SU shows Elephone at least partially have their thinking caps on. The SU updated via standard SU installation without issue.

MT6582 is pushing 720p on the P3000 without issue. The OS is very smooth. All apps I tested worked without any problems. Play Store runs, installs and updates apps without issue. The standard array of test apps I use, as well as the popular apps such as Facebook / Skype / Line app / Gmail / Maps run without a hitch. There were zero force closes from any apps during my time with the phone.

Slow scrolling and sliding is smooth in all situations. There were no double-taps or ghost touches. Rapid typing went off flawlessly. Auto brightness is operating normally and transitioning smoothly between levels.

As with the P6000, the P3000 has all storage relegated to internal.

After an hour with the phone I received a notification that informed me an OTA update was available. After the update was finished downloading, the phone rebooted and auto-installed the update from within recovery without issue.

elephone-p3000-review-Screenshot_2015-01-13-17-12-51As with the P6000, the P3000 has all storage relegated to internal. The total storage available is 6GB. This is easily enough space for hundreds of apps. This should give even the most hardcore users more than enough space for everything they need to fit as storage is expandable by adding an SD card. Many apps and games nowadays allow themselves and/or their data to be moved to SD.

elephone-p3000-review-Screenshot_2015-01-17-18-55-56

Elephone P3000 battery life & charging

Charging of the battery on the P3000 is fast and charges fully in about 2 hours with no jumps.

elephone-p3000-review-Screenshot_2015-01-12-20-48-52The screenshots here show the phone to be behaving very well in terms of battery use. Over 50 hours of standby and 45 minutes onscreen the phone still has a strong 3.8V / 50+% left. The P3000 is deep sleeping with no problems.

Elephone P3000 review frequency support

For those just coming to the China phone market, I’d like to note it wasn’t but 4 months ago that low-mid priced China phones were coming only with 850/2100 WCDMA.

Elephone has made a great move with the P3000 and given it worldwide 3G support with its 850/900/1900/2100 WCDMA.

It’s an awesome thing to see phones now starting to come more regularly with quad-band worldwide 3G support. Some brands are slow to catch on, but Elephone has made a great move with the P3000 and given it worldwide 3G support with its 850/900/1900/2100 WCDMA.

Also included is LTE/4G bands 1,3,7 & 20 which gives it 4G support for a good portion of the world, including Asia, Africa, Europe, Middle East, Oceania, South America and Central America.

For a limited time, the P3000 is available from www.gearbest.com for $143.99 with coupon code ELEPPLM

According to the LTE carrier list, Rogers network in Canada is on band 7 as well. Most of North America is out of luck here, but the phone does support H+ 3G, which I find to be easily quick enough for even image heavy pages and with a strong connection can sometimes be as fast as LTE.

(Continue to page two of the review)

Limited time coupon code "ELEPPLM" to get this phone for $143.99. See conclusion at end of review.


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