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Hello everyone and China Phone Arena staff

Introduction:
I'd like to help other users on this forum, so I'll review the most recent phone I've received. I previously owned a HTC HD2, which was getting to slow for Android once you install 3-4 apps, which I put up with for a year and a half

I'm rather experienced with Android, mainly ICS and Jellybean, so I started to do some research for phones under $200 ICS/Jellybean MTK china phones. I came across the DaPeng i9977 on DX, which just fit within my budget, some sellers on eBay will have them $10-$15 cheaper than DX but at least with DX I'll have good service if I have problems (which I'll get to later in the review).

Review:
I received the i9977 within a week of placing the order. I opened the box and look around the phone for defects (this is a normal thing to do when buying China Phones, I've bought some in the past (A738) which had some issues with the touch screen LEDs.)

Cons:
As I was removing the phone from the box the back cover was detached, and it's very difficult to place the cover back on without knowing how it was attached originally. I've found most China phone back covers just slide up or down, and this was the case with the i9977 as well - but it required a lot of force, and which it didn't break anything.

There's only 3 physical buttons on the i9977 placed on the right side of the phone. The back cover acts as buttons, so if the back cover breaks in some way, the buttons will be broken, and if your back cover is defective in a way, the lock button will be impossible to press. Volume keys work pretty well, but you'll need to use your left hand to hold the phone, as many phones have the volume keys on the left side of the build.

The back cover lens blocks the camera, this will result in photos being blocked with a circle shadow, as you can see in the photo below:



When the back cover is removed, the picture is sharper and the shadow disappears.



So with that issue, I removed the lens by poking it out with a small screwdriver and then removed the glue that held the lens in place. After that I got a wide screwdriver and made the camera hole larger, no more shadows and now images a lot clearer. I'm unaware if this was a defect of the back cover but incase many other builds have this issue, the fix is pretty simple.

Headphone jack is 3.5mm, however again the back cover is the only thing that's stopping you from using your own headphones with 3.5mm jack. This can be solved by drilling a larger socket into the back cover to allow your headphones to fit. There's no clips near the headphone socket so you could make a cut. If you don't want to modify the back cover of the phone then you have no choice but to use the headphones supplied with the phone, which sound alright but if you're an audiophile you'll notice the quality straight away...

I've started the review with the negatives I know, but bear with me, there's plenty of pros

Pros:

Now onto the good stuff!

First off, the 6.0 inch screen is great - some owners complained that their screen wasn't sharp, and pixelated. This leads me to believe that those owners have the i9977 not the branded DaPeng i9977 version as my LCD screen is rather clear and has great colours and viewing angles.

The phone's touch screen is also very good, accurate and responds to multi-touches. So it's a very good phone for games, if you like playing games on your phone! For me, I use the phone for basic smart phone features, like email, facebook, ebay and so on.

Like many other MTK phones, GPS can be a bit of problem to get working. There's tutorials on this very forum which solved my issue with it originally. Since the issue can be resolved by ticking a few options I'd say it's no longer a con. Once the GPS is set, it's pretty good and locks pretty well.

With the back cover issue aside, the phone's camera is average, it claims to have a 8mp camera but I find that hard to believe, to me it looks more like a 5mp camera as the details are not captured very well. You can touch to focus anywhere in the frame which is very useful. All smart phones have a camera, but what's a camera without a flash? i9977 has a single LED flash which isn't very powerful and doesn't help all that much when taking photos in the dark, but does help in dim areas. The flash also acts as a great flashlight, which this phone has one built in as an APK.

Signal is important, I haven't had any issues with 3G at all. I'm able to use 3G rather quickly while out and about, it rarely drops out (come to think of it, it hasn't dropped out yet!).

Battery life is excellent, it's like the old Nokia days in 2002! The battery can last 2 days with frequent use of 3G and WiFi. On standby it can last 3 days and 2 hours.

The phone has 1 speaker on the back, which is placed in a great position and can rarely be blocked by the user. It's very loud while on YouTube, and very loud for incoming calls and notifications. There's very little distortion while on max volume as well.

Photos:





!More images in post below due to image limit!

Conclusion:
Great phone, for a great price. It's quick, clear and easy to use. I would highly recommend it to anyone!

I believe I've hit on all points about the phone, but I can answer questions if you have any, so please ask if you're curious about this phone. I'll be adding photos of the phone very soon. Thanks for reading

This is awesome. Thanks very much for taking the time and effort to post your review on CPA.

Too bad about the back blocking the camera, but good there's a fix for it. Is it a design flaw? Or just how the camera was angled with your unit?

Looking forward to the pics. Cheers.

(2013-07-07, 21:10)Gizbeat Wrote: [ -> ]This is awesome. Thanks very much for taking the time and effort to post your review on CPA.

Too bad about the back blocking the camera, but good there's a fix for it. Is it a design flaw? Or just how the camera was angled with your unit?

Looking forward to the pics. Cheers.

Hi Gizbeat

That's no issues at all, I'm glad I can contribute to the forums.

I believe it's a design flaw with the back cover, at first I thought it was just the lens cover that's stuck on the cover by glue. It's actually the hole in the cover is just too small, also comes away from camera quite a bit and creates a shadow. Without that lens cover the photos are really clear but the phone does look weird without the lens on the back :p

With the phone right now, I basically want to backup the current ROM and store it in case something bad happens with the phone. I believe this is possible by rooting the phone, but sadly the phone is not rooted by default

I'll get the pictures soon for you as well.

Here's the photos of the phone, as promised