Elephone P6000 MT6732 Review – 2GB/16GB OTG OGS 720P


Review of: Elephone P6000
Price:
$151.99 (Coupon)

Reviewed by:
Rating:
4
On January 14, 2015
Last modified:January 22, 2015

Summary:

Please see the conclusion at the end of the review.

Elephone P6000 OS revisited / compass / OTG

The test app shows that OTG host support does exist, but unfortunately it’s not working at this point. It may be an issue with the new chipset and drivers, and hopefully will be fixed by Elephone. I very rarely use OTG, and I don’t consider it a strong factor when purchasing a phone, but this could be a deal breaker for some.

The compass as well is not working. As with the OTG, the hardware is there, but it’s not currently functioning. In considering a phone, this is the absolute last thing on the list, but could be a consideration for some.

Perhaps the biggest issue I’ve come across is that the phone jumps from matrix point to matrix point when scrolling.

The phone remains 100% usable in this state. Taps between matrix points are detected without issue (see image), however when scrolling or sliding anything slowly (swipes animate fine), the object/window/bar jumps from matrix point to point as your finger reaches them, rather than sliding smoothly.

I will be contacting Elephone regarding these issues and hopefully a software update will fix all of these problems. I will write more about this in the summary.

the Elephone P6000 lasted nearly 7 hours onscreen over a period of 12 hours.

Elephone P6000 review WiFi

The WifI on the P6000 can be rated as very good. It didn’t quite reach the distance I require to be considered excellent, but it came very close, maintaining a steady, fast connection up to about 50m/160ft.elephone-p6000-review-IMG_2446

Elephone P6000 review camera

The camera on the P6000 is a quite good. Colors are rich and dynamic range is good. In my shots I noticed little evidence of artifacting until zooming in to 100%. Heavy sharpening, as you sometimes see in cheaper phones, was absent . Even when zoomed at 100% with 8MP pictures, some of the images remain looking decent. The square images in this gallery are 100% crops of 8mp shots.

There’s room for some decent edits as well. Take a look at this image with heavy shadowing in the foliage. A quick shadow adjustment in Android’s native editor yields some nice results.

Here we have two images. One was taken with Canon S120, an enthusiast 1/1.7″ sensor compact, which up until just recently was a $450 camera. The other shot is taken with the P6000. Both are unedited. Guess in the comments, or on the forum, which came from which.

Elephone P6000 review earpiece/external speaker/mic

The earpiece loudness is outstanding, requiring me to turn the volume down several levels when in a phone call.

The P6000’s external speaker is very good, outputting above average loudness and quality.

elephone-p6000-review-IMG_2452

The earpiece loudness is outstanding, requiring me to turn the volume down several levels when in a phone call.

The mic provided good pickup and even when using VoIP over an unsteady connection I could be heard clearly and well.

Elephone P6000 review charging

Charging is smooth and fast. There were no jumps and a full charge takes about 3 hours.

elephone-p6000-review-Screenshot_2015-01-16-10-17-19

Elephone P6000 review battery life

One thing I was very curious about with the Elephone P6000, is it’s new chipset — MT6732, which you can read more about here. Deep sleep was not an issue, and even pushing 720p, the Elephone P6000 lasted nearly 7 hours onscreen over a period of 12 hours.

For 60% of battery life, the usage was my standard — Lowish brightness, WiFi turned on 100%, SIM in, surfing/chatting/email/flipping around.

For most of the last 40%, an image heavy webpage was set to refresh every 6 seconds.

elephone-p6000-review-Screenshot_2015-01-16-23-40-50On this particular run, the phone showed juice left at 1% and so I gave it the reigns rather than shutting it down. It took about an hour to run from 3.6 down to 3.51 with the screen on and page refreshing.

Over several discharges, this could calibrate to a more even %, and it will depend on your usage as well. Staying on standby for long periods of time can affect %’s and voltage.

As always, pay attention to voltage. I shut my phone’s off/put them on the charger at 3.55. This is a fairly good rule of thumb for Lithium Ion, though not all batteries are created equal.

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Elephone P6000 review conclusion

The bad

  • OTG not currently working (may be software related)
  • Compass not currently working (likely software related)
  • Scrolling with finger is jumpy (likely software related)

The good

Consider

While there are negative points to be considered here, I still put this phone in the *Buy* category. As always, the negatives need to be weighed against the positives and in almost every case there are some tradeoffs. I do also expect the 3 issues mentioned to be ironed out as they were with the P3000, although there are no guarantees.

Discuss this review on the forum

Some things aren’t a bargain at any price, but I don’t think that’s the case with the Elephone P6000. Here we have a great looking, well built mobile, with strong GPS, good WiFi, good battery life, nice 720p OGS/IPS display, the new MT6732 SoC with outstanding 3D performance, 2GB of RAM and generous 16GB storage for a great price.

Use the limited time coupon code “EPLM” at www.gearbest.com to get the P6000 for only $151.99.

These positives are shadowed by a few issues that likely will end up being fixed with updates from Elephone, though of course there are no guarantees.

Please see the conclusion at the end of the review.


9 thoughts on “Elephone P6000 MT6732 Review – 2GB/16GB OTG OGS 720P”

  1. nice review, was looking at a youtube video a few moments ago and its only 32bit until they upgrade the os to 5.0 then its 64 bit

  2. Not real good for us aussies, while it will support our 4g Freq’s no 850 WCDMA makes it near useless once you leave town. unless of course you like GSM

  3. also a few people are reporting that the touch sensor isnt working can you confirm this before i buy it as it happened when i bought the elephone g5

  4. This looks like a pretty decent phone. However no working compass (for now) is a problem. I won’t be able to use it to fly my ARdrone and suspect it may cause problems with maps/navigation as well, someone else may be able to clarify on this further?

    1. Hello Damage123, generally this is not a problem unless you’re at a standstill and don’t know which direction you’re facing. GPS is locked onto you, so when you’re moving, navigation software knows which way you’re headed, when you should turn etc. My current carry around phone is the THL 4000 which has no compass. I use it for navigation all the time without issue.

      Regardless, I do expect this to be ironed out by Elephone shortly. I can’t guarantee it of course, but the hardware does exist according to Z-Device.

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