Reader review: Green Orange N1 Speed Review


[templatic_contentbox type=”about” title=”Guest Post”] This is a guest post submitted my GizChina reader Klive Reytan. If you would like to post a review, how-to or article please feel free to get in touch! [/templatic_contentbox]

A few weeks ago the Green Orange N1 appeared like a mirage! Its top-level specs and beautiful design appealed to me so much that I didn’t think twice before buying it!

Green Orange offer 3 versions of the N1, the top of the range one being the Green Orange N1 Super, which packs a full HD display and is probably the one which many of you will be interested in buying. After some thought though I decided the mix of a 1080 display and 2000mAh battery wouldn’t go well together, you probably would have to run the brightness as low as possible meaning you wouldn’t take advantage of all those lovely pixels to get your self through the day! So I decided to go for the Green Orange N1 Speed!

In my opinion a 1280 x 720p display is more than enough for most people, unless you happen to read your emails with e magnifying glass that is, so the lower pixel count doesn’t isn’t a big issue as I can enjoy better performance and longer battery life.

Buying the Green Orange N1 Speed

I bought the Green Orange N1 Speed from Android-Cream. I decided to use this company thanks to the excellent service and the considerate customer care they had shown when I bought a ZTE grand S for my brother. The thing i like most about android-cream.com is that they present the worst case scenario instead of fooling you with empty promises like other shops do (in my experience).

In my case, the phone was at my doorstep six days after my order, despite the notice on their website saying that the shipment could take place after a week due to low stocks. Shipment with DHL was fast and I didn’t pay any customs duty since I asked to declare a commercial value below the 27USD threshold set in my country.

I immediately downloaded instructions and tools provided by Jamie (very kind guy at android cream support team) and in 10 minutes my phone was rooted and translated to Italian language- and i’m the noobest android noob on plant earth! AMAZING! Rooting this phone is required to add custom locales, since most of locale switching apps are not supported on Android 4.2.
The only way to get apps in your language is to root the phone, download “MoreLocale 2” and grant it needed permissions through Supersu. (Supersu is automatically installed after rooting process)

Green Orange N1 Speed Review

First Impressions N1 – Simple, clean, and thin!

green orange n1 review

Green Orange seems to be attentive to details. The packaging is quite elegant and minimalist with an interior layout similar to current iPhone boxes. The phone feels really sturdy and heavier than I expected (The ZTE Grand S feels like a toy compared to the N1 ), in fact it is more or less the same weight as an iPhone 4. I find the power button position, in the middle of the left side, really convenient. The micro usb at the top is also handy when using the phone while on charge.

green orange n1 review

The N1 design is simple and clean, so thin and sexy that I can’t stop looking at it.

Screen – Bright and crisp!

The 1280*720p 5” display is really bright . The content looks crisp and colors are vivid and not overly saturated (unlike my Oppo Finder). White color leans toward warming tones just like my old iPhone 4.

green orange n1 screen

I’m really happy with this resolution, especially since i discovered it eats up only 2% of the battery!

Camera – 13 mega-pixel camera is beautiful!

You can judge by yourself, the 13 megapixel back camera shots are beautiful,
with detailed colours and contrast in good light.

Green Orange N1 photo samples

Low light shots are better than i expected, but N1strong LED flashlight can help sometimes. Green Orange’s MYUI ROM (not the same as the Xiaomi MIUI ROM) has a lot of built in filters and effects to help you tweak your photos to look how you want in no time.

Green Orange N1 video sample

Battery – Great for heavy phone and internet use!

Since i have received it, N1 is always in my hands. I don’t play games, but i’m an expert battery drainer. I read news, write emails, watch videos, play music and make about 30 phone calls a day.

From 100% to 0% battery lasts about 34 hours, so by the end of the first day, starting from 8:00 am, i still have 50% juice, and it’s a good result considering my sim card only supports 3G.

Sound – Rich, but quiet speaker.

The built-in Green Orange N1 speaker has a rich sound with and wide frequency spectrum, but output volume is not loud enough in my opinion.

There’s an “earphone sound enhancer” option in the Audio profiles menu called BesAudEnh (?), which totally ruins the sound when listening to music with earphones or aux connection.
It pushes mid frequencies, cuts low-end, and significantly reduces stereo width.
Completely useless. Turning this option off will make the sound clean and warm with a nice bottom end and clear and wide hi frequencies

Performance – Just as fast as I hoped!

N1 Speed is based on a quad-core MTK6589T clocked at 1.5Ghz. Everything runs smoothly as expected except for the custom MyUI launcher which is slightly laggy. Nova Launcher was the first app i installed and performance is much better.

green orange n1 speed antutu

I have downloaded Angry Birds Star Wars for the sake of science and GizChina readers.
It runs perfectly, but i don’t know how resource intensive this game is, so if you have any suggestion just comment and i’ll be happy to make a new test.

On First Antutu benchmark N1 scored 15987, but i didn’t take a screenshot. Here you can see the second test score.

Green Orange N1 review

green orange n1

I’m truly satisfied with this phone, it perfectly matches my taste and needs. Green Orange has done a great job launching a really solid product with a great personality and smart software solutions.
Let’s hope they keep on this track for the next models. I’m sure we can expect other great value phones from them.

[templatic_contentbox type=”author” title=”About the Aurthor”] Klive Reytan is a 27 year old university student, security technologies retailer and a great traveller. I’ve been following Chinese phones news and rumors daily since my last trip to China where i discovered the Android Eldorado. Truly inspired by this dynamic market i turned myself into a convulsive android phones freak. [/templatic_contentbox]
Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

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94 Comments

  1. SnapdragoNFaN
    June 24, 2013

    Good review!
    Hope you will enjoy your phone :)!

  2. daniel
    June 24, 2013

    Perfect review, thanks a lot!

  3. June 24, 2013

    Good review! Its fantastic that Gizchina lets readers get involved and submit reviews. Lets us get good, first hand experiences

  4. Tim
    June 25, 2013

    great review.

  5. Sergio
    June 25, 2013

    >>The micro usb at the top is also handy when using the phone while on charge.
    It’s not that obvious 🙂

    Anyway, great review!

    • June 25, 2013

      Thank you 🙂
      I prefer having micro usb at top because you have more space to touch the lower buttons.

      • Sergio
        June 25, 2013

        But answering the phone while on charge can easily break fragile micro-usb connector, if the latter is on top 🙂

        • June 25, 2013

          Got your point, i will take my time before answering calls while on charge from now 🙂

  6. Abir
    June 25, 2013

    Great review, looks like a really good phone with good build quality, also like that it has a 720p screen.

  7. Scott
    June 25, 2013

    Great review.

    Thanks :0)

  8. June 25, 2013

    Nice Review! Does this have a notification led? If yes, then is it a RGB type?
    Thanks!

    • June 25, 2013

      No LED notifications for this phone

      • July 19, 2013

        why many chinese companies forgot to install a simple led for notifications?!?!?!?

        • July 19, 2013

          They don’t forget they either leave them out for costs or in this case it is likely due to lack of space this phone is pretty stacked and measures just 6.98mm!

  9. Arun Raj
    June 25, 2013

    Is the battery 2000 or 2500 mah??

  10. Refugal
    June 25, 2013

    Battery is 2500mah.

    My experience with the N1 is overall good. However it is difficult/impossible to get a GPS signal with this phone. Google maps and “look around” from Weixin will not work properly. (I live in Shanghai)

    The camera is OK unless things are moving fast.

    Wifi signal is reasonable.

    Screen is perfect.

    Size of the phone: a bit too big for my taste. The screensize is the same as the Galaxy s4 but the space above and below the lcd-screen is too large.

    @Klive Reytan: what is your experience with the GPS signal?

    • June 25, 2013

      I agree, GPS signal is not really strong, i have downloaded a signal test tool to check. Google maps does work for me, but it takes some time to get signal

    • June 25, 2013

      After matching NTP Server GPS is fixed in 30seconds… If you have rooted your phone you chan download FasterGPS or edit gps.conf in System/etc

  11. June 25, 2013

    Don’t know how I missed this. Might be the perfect Jiayu G4 killer! Thanks for the review, Klive, hope you enjoy the phone. Looks like it’s got a great build.

    • DASDAS
      June 25, 2013

      Jiayu g4 killer? Green Orange N1 Speed 360$
      Jiayu g4 220$. The real Jiayu g4 killer is Xiaomi mi2s.

    • June 25, 2013

      thanks to you for reading @Yash3339 🙂

  12. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    Good review!
    Hope you will enjoy your phone :)!

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      I do 🙂 ! Thanks

  13. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    Perfect review, thanks a lot!

  14. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    Good review! Its fantastic that Gizchina lets readers get involved and submit reviews. Lets us get good, first hand experiences

  15. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    great review.

  16. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    >>The micro usb at the top is also handy when using the phone while on charge.
    It’s not that obvious 🙂

    Anyway, great review!

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      Thank you 🙂
      I prefer having micro usb at top because you have more space to touch the lower buttons.

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      But answering the phone while on charge can easily break fragile micro-usb connector, if the latter is on top 🙂

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      Got your point, i will take my time before answering calls while on charge from now 🙂

  17. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    Great review, looks like a really good phone with good build quality, also like that it has a 720p screen.

  18. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    Great review.

    Thanks :0)

  19. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    Nice Review! Does this have a notification led? If yes, then is it a RGB type?
    Thanks!

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      No LED notifications for this phone

    • Guest
      July 19, 2013

      why many chinese companies forgot to install a simple led for notifications?!?!?!?

    • Guest
      July 20, 2013

      They don’t forget they either leave them out for costs or in this case it is likely due to lack of space this phone is pretty stacked and measures just 6.98mm!

  20. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    Is the battery 2000 or 2500 mah??

  21. Roland
    June 25, 2013

    Thank for the note on GPS as well, thats the sector that I’m really worried about, so rooting is still needed for GPS, is the ZP980 faster or the UMI X2 anyone ?

    • June 25, 2013

      i wouldn’t say rooting is needed for GPS to work.
      After installing FasterGPS, GPS fix time has gone from 1 minute to 30 seconds.
      Yes, it’s half time, but i don’t use Google Maps for 1 minute driving distance 🙂

  22. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    Battery is 2500mah.

    My experience with the N1 is overall good. However it is difficult/impossible to get a GPS signal with this phone. Google maps and “look around” from Weixin will not work properly. (I live in Shanghai)

    The camera is OK unless things are moving fast.

    Wifi signal is reasonable.

    Screen is perfect.

    Size of the phone: a bit too big for my taste. The screensize is the same as the Galaxy s4 but the space above and below the lcd-screen is too large.

    @Klive Reytan: what is your experience with the GPS signal?

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      I agree, GPS signal is not really strong, i have downloaded a signal test tool to check. Google maps does work for me, but it takes some time to get signal

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      After matching NTP Server GPS is fixed in 30seconds… If you have rooted your phone you chan download FasterGPS or edit gps.conf in System/etc

  23. Yash Garg
    June 25, 2013

    Don’t know how I missed this. Might be the perfect Jiayu G4 killer! Thanks for the review, Klive, hope you enjoy the phone. Looks like it’s got a great build.

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      Jiayu g4 killer? Green Orange N1 Speed 360$
      Jiayu g4 220$. The real Jiayu g4 killer is Xiaomi mi2s.

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      thanks to you for reading @Yash3339 🙂

  24. Ace
    June 25, 2013

    Is the back removable?

  25. Guest
    June 25, 2013

    Thank for the note on GPS as well, thats the sector that I’m really worried about, so rooting is still needed for GPS, is the ZP980 faster or the UMI X2 anyone ?

    • Guest
      June 25, 2013

      i wouldn’t say rooting is needed for GPS to work.
      After installing FasterGPS, GPS fix time has gone from 1 minute to 30 seconds.
      Yes, it’s half time, but i don’t use Google Maps for 1 minute driving distance 🙂

  26. June 25, 2013

    Thanks for the review !!!!

  27. BrianJackson
    June 26, 2013

    Nicw review thanks

  28. Guest
    June 26, 2013

    Is the back removable?

    • Guest
      June 26, 2013

      no it is not removable

  29. June 26, 2013

    Happy you like it 🙂

  30. Guest
    June 26, 2013

    Thanks for the review !!!!

    • Guest
      June 26, 2013

      thanks for reading

  31. Furqan
    June 26, 2013

    Great review but what about the google play store? does it work after rooting?

    • June 26, 2013

      Nope, you must do this:

      Root the phone first with a MTK6589 root.
      Then you have to download on the phone:

      GoogleServicesFramework
      GoogleLoginService
      Google play store

      Copy them in system/app with RootExplorer
      Press mount R/W
      Set permissions like the other files in that folder:

      R-W
      R
      R

      Reboot your Phone and open Play store

  32. Brian Jackson
    June 26, 2013

    Nicw review thanks

  33. Guest
    June 26, 2013

    Happy you like it 🙂

  34. Guest
    June 26, 2013

    Great review but what about the google play store? does it work after rooting?

    • Guest
      June 26, 2013

      Nope, you must do this:

      Root the phone first with a MTK6589 root.
      Then you have to download on the phone:

      GoogleServicesFramework
      GoogleLoginService
      Google play store

      Copy them in system/app with RootExplorer
      Press mount R/W
      Set permissions like the other files in that folder:

      R-W
      R
      R

      Reboot your Phone and open Play store

  35. Dmitry
    June 28, 2013

    Guys, does this phone have microSD card slot? I was waiting for Faea F2 but they have changed tech specs and ruined all my plans about of buying it.

    • July 10, 2013

      no..this phone does not have card slot..only internal memory..

  36. Guest
    June 28, 2013

    Guys, does this phone have microSD card slot? I was waiting for Faea F2 but they have changed tech specs and ruined all my plans about of buying it.

    • Guest
      July 10, 2013

      no..this phone does not have card slot..only internal memory..

  37. July 11, 2013

    Can you give me a contact Email from android-cream? I ordered a day ago with paypal and i have not even revived a confirmation Email! Also nobody has answered the messages I wrote in the “Contact Us” option.

    • July 11, 2013

      I don’t know who Android-cream are.

      • July 11, 2013

        Thanks Andi! The question was more ment for klive reytan, because he wrote that he had contact with them.

        • July 11, 2013

          SPAM folder is always the first thing to check 😉

          • July 11, 2013

            I am going to have to dig a deeeeeep hole for this embarrassment… 😀
            thanks again!

            • July 11, 2013

              Are you good at Android tweaking? pls contact me when you receive N1, i want to ask you a question

  38. July 11, 2013

    I have been playing around with my HD2 and various ROMs but I don’t think that counts as good 😀 I will do that!

    • July 11, 2013

      i guess you are still better than me, i’ll be waiting for your email

      • July 11, 2013

        Will see, till then! 🙂

  39. Guest
    July 11, 2013

    Can you give me a contact Email from android-cream? I ordered a day ago with paypal and i have not even revived a confirmation Email! Also nobody has answered the messages I wrote in the “Contact Us” option.

    • Guest
      July 11, 2013

      I don’t know who Android-cream are.

    • Guest
      July 11, 2013

      Thanks Andi! The question was more ment for klive reytan, because he wrote that he had contact with them.

    • Guest
      July 11, 2013

      SPAM folder is always the first thing to check 😉

    • Guest
      July 11, 2013

      I am going to have to dig a deeeeeep hole for this embarrassment… 😀
      thanks again!

    • Guest
      July 11, 2013

      Are you good at Android tweaking? pls contact me when you receive N1, i want to ask you a question

  40. Guest
    July 11, 2013

    I have been playing around with my HD2 and various ROMs but I don’t think that counts as good 😀 I will do that!

    • Guest
      July 11, 2013

      i guess you are still better than me, i’ll be waiting for your email

    • Guest
      July 11, 2013

      Will see, till then! 🙂

  41. KennyG
    July 19, 2013

    Really good review and very informative. @Matthiess did that company get back in touch with you about your purchase?? I maybe in the market and need a reliable vendor to buy from…

    • July 20, 2013

      Everything cleared up! 🙂

  42. Guest
    July 19, 2013

    Really good review and very informative. @Matthiess did that company get back in touch with you about your purchase?? I maybe in the market and need a reliable vendor to buy from…

    • Guest
      July 20, 2013

      Everything cleared up! 🙂

  43. August 24, 2013

    Launched by XOLO in India in the name of Q1000S, for 17,999 INR which is quite a bit less than what Chinese stores ask for the device! I think this device is a major win.

  44. Yash Garg
    August 24, 2013

    Launched by XOLO in India in the name of Q1000S, for 17,999 INR which is quite a bit less than what Chinese stores ask for the device! I think this device is a major win.

  45. sap
    August 27, 2013

    In india its named as q1000s
    i was just leaping to buy ths device bt i believe its not upto the mark
    1 sim slot only
    no sim card support
    no gorrila or dragontail glass
    also i see as per this review benchmark is not upto the standard,the downgraded ver of this phone which is q1000 scores above 13500 in antutu,so plz lool before u leap.

  46. Guest
    August 27, 2013

    In india its named as q1000s
    i was just leaping to buy ths device bt i believe its not upto the mark
    1 sim slot only
    no sim card support
    no gorrila or dragontail glass
    also i see as per this review benchmark is not upto the standard,the downgraded ver of this phone which is q1000 scores above 13500 in antutu,so plz lool before u leap.