JiaYu S1 officially the most affordable Snapdragon, 1080 Android phone!


JiaYu have finally announced pricing and rough launch details of their Snapdragon powered JiaYu S1!

JiaYu have upped their game with the JiaYu S1. The handset is their first 5-inch FHD 1920 x 1080 phone to date, and the first JiaYu model to use a Qualcomm processor instead of a Mediatek SoC.

Full specifications of the JiaYu S1 include a 1.7Ghz Snapdragon 600 processor, 2GB RAM, 5-inch OGS 1080 display, 13 mega-pixel rear camera, NFC and wireless charging! Below is a short hands on video we made with the S1 last week.

Gizchina News of the week


JiaYu S1 hands on Video

So when can we expect JiaYu (who are famously late to market) to launch this beast of a phone? Well according to today’s news next week is looking likely for preorders with early customers likely to get their S1’s before the end of the month.

So what about the price? Well JiaYu have informed us that the first batch of phones will be sold at a special promotional price of 1899 Yuan ($310) making it the cheapest 1080, Snapdragon phone on the market! However there is still no news of an international launch or international pricing.

[ JiaYu ]
Previous Russian Meizu MX3 $160 higher than China!
Next ZTE Nubia will launch Snapdragon 800 flagship phone in November

33 Comments

  1. anony
    September 26, 2013

    If you can get one for that price that is.

    • September 26, 2013

      “However there is still no news of an international launch or international pricing.”

      • anony
        September 26, 2013

        Oh pricing will be highly marked up like what happen now, even more so for Jiayu products. Well at least it’s a good thing for local Chinese crowd.

  2. Carlos
    September 27, 2013

    Jiayu can have it for that price. Just like Apple, selling overpriced products.

    • September 27, 2013

      $310 for a Snapdragon 600 phone with 5-inch 1080 display and wireless charging… Hardly overpriced

      • Marius
        September 27, 2013

        But I don’t need or want 1080p, they just made it to the specs so they’d have the same thing.
        The Xiaomi Mi-3 is not much more expensive, has a Snapdragon 800 and well it’s Xiaomi whom I trust more then Jiayu and they’re going to release the source code.

        • September 27, 2013

          Xiaomi are going to release the source code?

          • Marius
            September 27, 2013

            Indeed they are. Just search google for: “Exclusive: Xiaomi device kernel will be open sourced!”

            As was once saying once you want to go international and play with the big goys you need to release the source code. And Jiayu can’t blame this one on Mediatek, I’m sure Qualcomm won’t stop Jiayu from releasing the kernel code.

            • September 27, 2013

              Wow, totally missed that! πŸ™‚ super happy!

  3. September 27, 2013

    This perhaps a good looking phone and all that- buy JiaYu have made a fatal design mistake..in order to keep the phone slim size zero- put a 2300 mAh. Battery- that too non user replaceable !! This puny battery to drive a full FH 5 inch screen with a power hungry processor will kill the battery by 4 PM..then run for Juice– No thanks JiaYu !!

  4. Shaunuss
    September 27, 2013

    Hate to sound like a broken record, but what would make this phone any better than the Neo N003 which has a replaceable 3000mAH battery, OTG and MHL, and Yamaha audio? There would be no noticeable performance difference between the two to justify the price difference, right?

    • anony
      September 27, 2013

      Yes there would be noticeable performance difference, whether it justify the price difference however vary between people.

    • September 27, 2013

      Performance is much better, and you have the chance of some dev support thanks to the Qualcomm chip

      • Shaunuss
        September 27, 2013

        Cheers for the reply. Can you please expand on your statement that the performance is much better? In what way is it noticeable? Or is it only when you are running a whole bunch of apps at once, multitasking?

        Dev support is pretty cool I guess, though I plan to mod mine up custom πŸ™‚

        • Shaunuss
          September 27, 2013

          By the way I’ve never owned an android phone before that’s why I’m asking these questions… I’m a noob to android :). The Neo I ordered will be my first. I’m upgrading from a Nokia 6120C Symbian v3 phone, so it’s a pretty big step. In all the videos I’ve seen of MTK6589 phones I haven’t seen any performance issues with 3d gaming or applications, apart from that slight lag that was present in your N003 youth review phone (which I haven’t seen on others).

          I just want to be sure I’ve spent my limited student money wisely!

          • September 27, 2013

            MTK6589T has a performance close to that of a Galaxy S3 with the Exynos 4412, if you look at antutu benchmarks all MTK6589T are close to 15K points while Snapdragon 600 scores 25K points.

            • Shaunuss
              September 27, 2013

              Thanks for the reply. I’ve never seen a Galaxy S3 be slow at anything… so it doesn’t really answer my question how a faster CPU offers more actual performance during use. Benchmark scores don’t really mean much. Having a snapdragon CPU instead of an MTK is kinda like having a Ferrari race car to drive down the street and buy milk with, in a 50km/hr zone..

            • anony
              September 27, 2013

              Never seen S3 slow at anything? Heck S4 still occasionally lack. Oh well, different people different stroke.

          • Robin
            September 28, 2013

            The big difference is the GPU, the Adreno GPU used in Qualcomm SoC’s is just way more powerful. Whenever you play a REAL HD game on your phone you will notice a lot of difference between a Qualcomm and a Mediatek SoC.

            The Mediatek phone will get into trouble after 30 minutes of gaming where the Qualcomm can go for hours.

  5. josejorge
    September 27, 2013

    its a shame that most chinese smartphones dont have support for 1900mhz 3g i cant use them with 3g on my country the only ones that have support are xiaomi and oppo

  6. Shaunuss
    September 27, 2013

    I know you’re a big fan of Jiayu Andi, but this one also has a big chrome strip around the outside which is something you really didn’t like about the Neo.

    • September 27, 2013

      Nope I’m a big fan of Xiaomi πŸ˜‰ JiaYu make great quality phones, not the best looking though

  7. anony
    September 27, 2013

    If they have model with removable 3000mAh battery and card slot I’d buy it.

  8. Allanitomwesh
    September 27, 2013

    $150 at JiaYu =$300 at reseller.
    $310 at JiaYu = $620 at reseller

  9. Google Now
    September 27, 2013

    in this price.. just wait for nexus 5.

  10. September 27, 2013

    This is a big step for JiaYu, and might well prove to be their entry ticket for the mainstream international market. I just hope they release kernel sources, and hopefully make a better looking version of this device with a removable battery…

  11. Ivan
    September 28, 2013

    Nice phone but bezel looks dated

  12. Shaunuss
    September 28, 2013

    I’m still confused as to how these snapdragon CPUs offer faster performance in day to day use. It seems to be a question that is being avoided. Does it load apps like half a second faster or something? Do apps fail to run, or not run properly on an MTK cpu? (haven’t seen this at all in any review videos). How exactly is the performance difference noticeable, if at all? Can someone please clarify?

    • September 28, 2013

      For every day uses not much difference. It has reached a threshold in performance. If you are an avid gamer with fast 3d games, it is noticeable and 600 series + are a league above. Partly because of its superior GPU and bigger cores.

      Also if you need GPS and require it to do something serious then mtk is not as hot. Its casually usable with fix posted by Eduardo on this site. It works on tcl idol x and zopo 980 + but generally Qualcomm chips are more solid performance in GPS applications.

      • September 28, 2013

        I would like to add generally devices on the mtk platform are paired with components that are budget price conscious in mind. So all lumped together with cheaper camera, GPS, display etc hardware thus putting it against a flagship 600 or 800 series phone or even intel, tegra 4 devices is a somewhat unfair comparison.

        • Shaunuss
          September 28, 2013

          Thanks for clearing that up for me! Sounds good, I’ll stick to gaming on my PC in that case haha πŸ™‚ Good to know I shouldn’t run into any serious issues!

  13. PeterP
    September 28, 2013

    Clearly at Least $100 overpriced. Big Fail. Althought international shipping helps about $30-40.
    Bring on the S2, make it much cheaper and make sure it’s got an 800+ AB processor. Or at least make huge jumps in design and/or craftsmanship (build quality) or other Mi3 beating features.

    • Airyl
      October 19, 2013

      That’s not fair. They need to make a profit too, you know.