The dire state of “premium” Android

monomono · 24-09-2015, 06:31 PM

There are many decent phones from tier 3 manufacturers. I have my eye on the Mlais MX base which has been as cheap as $680. Most interesting feature is a 4300 mah battery.
Currently using an Elephone P6000 which is totally fine. Cost about $750 and came pre-rooted with stock Android 5.0. Dual sim, 2gb ram, 4g, good battery, meh camera.
I'm not really sure if tier 3 is the right way to call brands like Mlais and Elephone, but I do know there are even more obscure ones that I would personally avoid.

alexdown · 24-09-2015, 07:28 PM

Originally Posted by pin:

Anyway xiaomi mi4c is a no go for me. Lack of NFC basically. Also note it doesn't have fingerprint reader which seems to be standard in new release phones these days.

If you want nfc for things like android pay AND plan to flash it with a different rom, keep in mind that AP is very likely to be blocked on rooted devices.

GeoTommy · 29-09-2015, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by pin:

I have looked at Oppo before but I think reason I decided against was the rootability. I do find the Chinese companies heavily customise their firmwares, so the only way I would go with them is if I know they have good custom rom support, which from my research I found Oppo was average on that front.

CyanogenMod will be available soon for Oppo R7:

Expanding the CM device family | CyanogenMod

imparanoic · 01-10-2015, 09:04 AM

Originally Posted by monomono:

There are many decent phones from tier 3 manufacturers. I have my eye on the Mlais MX base which has been as cheap as $680. Most interesting feature is a 4300 mah battery.
Currently using an Elephone P6000 which is totally fine. Cost about $750 and came pre-rooted with stock Android 5.0. Dual sim, 2gb ram, 4g, good battery, meh camera.
I'm not really sure if tier 3 is the right way to call brands like Mlais and Elephone, but I do know there are even more obscure ones that I would personally avoid.

china 3 tier or almost non brander phones are risky, apart from very price, there is no advantages over budget well known brands

this seems better, even worse, the UI seems to be their achilles heel for all china phones, but this one has potential, cyanogen is trust worthy for producing quality UI for modest specs

ZUK Z1 makes its international debut tomorrow with Cyanogen OS - GSMArena.com news

Seagulls! · 01-10-2015, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by Plutark:

I have a Xiaomi, paid around 1K one and half year ago. At first they're ok phones, but they become crap pretty quickly. On mine GPS broke down very quickly, also when you type too fast it capitalize the first two characters. After a bit it becomes really slow, I dont have a day when the phone doesn't freeze it's really annoying. i'm not the type to buy a phone unless it's broken, but I will never get a Xiaomi, it's ok phone to get as a backup if you break a phone but that's about it.

This is exactly how I feel about my OPO. At first I thought it was fantastic, given the specs for the price, but having owned it for a year now my performance gripes are identical to yours.

I'll be starting well clear of Xiaomi and OPO when I next upgrade. Thinking of going back to Apple, after 4 years of Android, but that's a last resort.

jimbo · 01-10-2015, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by Seagulls!:

This is exactly how I feel about my OPO. At first I thought it was fantastic, given the specs for the price, but having owned it for a year now my performance gripes are identical to yours.

I'll be starting well clear of Xiaomi and OPO when I next upgrade. Thinking of going back to Apple, after 4 years of Android, but that's a last resort.

What model oppo do you have?
I have an iPhone 6 and an Oppo R5 and I prefer the Oppo to the iPhone.

Ah just realised you mean one plus, yeah don't buy 'cheap' androids

Seagulls! · 01-10-2015, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by jimbo:

What model oppo do you have?
I have an iPhone 6 and an Oppo R5 and I prefer the Oppo to the iPhone.

Sorry, is one plus one same as oppo?

imparanoic · 01-10-2015, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by Seagulls!:

Sorry, is one plus one same as oppo?

One plus one was very decent on Android 4.4 according to the reviews,because the ui was designed by cyanogen. Stable with very few bugs, hardware was decent

But they lost cyanogen support and designed their own ui, oxygen which has bad reviews, buggy and has issues. My sister in law regrets updating the firmware

Seagulls! · 01-10-2015, 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by imparanoic:

One plus one was very decent on Android 4.4 according to the reviews,because the ui was designed by cyanogen. Stable with very few bugs, hardware was decent

But they lost cyanogen support and designed their own ui, oxygen which has bad reviews, buggy and has issues. My sister in law regrets updating the firmware

Sounds very similar to my experience, sticky keys, restarts itself, screen flickers, screen locks itself even when I'm using it etc etc

monomono · 01-10-2015, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by imparanoic:

even worse, the UI seems to be their achilles heel for all china phones

Most of the cheap ones these days come with stock Android. The Elephone I use now is pure 5.0, and its rooted so I can customize the UI as much as I want. The key for these kinds of phones is do research in places like xda, see how long the manufacturer has been around, how many people are making custom roms, what are the common issues etc.

Yes there is always a risk, but for me it's easily offset by the price. I can buy 2 or 3 of these for the price of a xiaomi, or about 10 for an iPhone.