We’ve just taken delivery our review sample of the Ulefone Power, take a look at our hands on photos.
The Ulefone Power is the first large battery phone from Ulefone (with 6050mAh battery) and their first phone of 2016. Ulefone will be selling the power in a couple of different colour options, but I’m really happy that they model they sent to us is the white version with wooden rear panel.
First impressions are very good. As usual for Ulefone the build quality of the Power is really good, in fact I would say the alloy chassis around the large screen Power is the best I have seen yet of any smaller Chinese phone maker.
The face of our white Ulefone Power has a front facing 5 mega-pixel OmniVision OV5648 camera, 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 FHD display (yes, with black borders) and 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass panel. Between the receiver and the proxmity sensor there is a small RGB notification light, and below the screen a round home button (back and menu buttons are on either side of the chin, but there are no icons or back lights we can see so far).
There is a lot to see around the metal chassis. Starting at the top there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack and IR remote. Down the right side there are three metal buttons that fit really well with no rattles. The largest of the buttons is a volume rocker, the middle button for power, and the round central button is for using the camera (it’s actually in the perfect location for your thumb or index finger when held in portrait).
Gizchina News of the week
In the base there’s a micro USB which us also how the 6050mAh battery is charged through and finally a SIM/SD card tray on the left.
The wooden rear panel isn’t a actually wood but a non removable plastic cover with wooden texture to it. Ulefone told us that there will be a few different textures so Wood look Ulefone Powers will look different to one another.
The rear is also where the fingerprint scanner, rear Sony IMX214 camera, dual LED flash and large speaker area are located.
Android 5.1 comes on the Ulefone Power running on an octacore Mediatek MT6753 processor and 3GB RAM. Ulefone have added their own U Launcher to the system to give a really clean simple looks and also added a few of their own options for the fingerprint scanner, notification light, and Hot Knot, plus lock screen gesture options.
Ulefone have already stated that they plan to release an Android 6.0 Marshmallow update sometime in the year (March we believe) and we’ll be sure to make a review of the phone with the current ROM and the update once available.
Ulefone Power Gallery
Ulefone Power Features
- 5.5-inch FHD display
- 2.5D, Corning Gorilla Glass 3
- 6050mAh battery
- 9V/2A-3A Quick charge
- 3GB RAM
- Micro SD
- Dual SIM
- Fingerprint scanner
- IR Remote
- Physical camera button
- High quality alloy build
Ulefone Power first impressions
I have to say I am really happy with the Ulefone Power so far. There are no red flags cropping up so far and everything is working as it should. Pricing is $180 (or there abouts) which is a good price of a well made phone packing huge 6050mah battery and scheduled Android 6 update.
Keep your eye’s peeled for tomorrow when we will have our Ulefone Power hands on video.
Does it also have NFC built in?
No it has Hotknot
bummer !
its only hands on and we already more than a couple of minuses !
guess even with all the ‘Power’ , this one’s in for a tough ride.
hard luck Ulefone !
Geh, I thought it would be a real wood like Doogee, Oneplus, Xiaomi.
wow. .. Doogee used real wood ?!
why don’t you go and check it yourself? Doogee F3 Pro.
nope… dont have surplus
check the review / youtube video, I didn’t ask you to buy it
k den
a link woulda been all nice and polite !
oneplus with the back cover, which is also plastic, otherwise there will be problems that cover snaps.
Yes, it’s plastic, but laminated with real bamboo (I had one). So the part that I always touch is the real bamboo, not the plastic part
Those black borders look pretty damn thick don’t they..?
They sure do. I would much rather have bigger bezels than these.
*sigh* i hoped Ulefone would learn from all the world bashing Elephone for the EXACT SAME GODDAMNED reason … guess old habits really do die hard !
well , some will have to live with it…
It’s a fake-bazeless like letv: on the sides there are no bezels at all, it’s all black border (unlike elephone, wich has bezels PLUS black ones).
On the black version i think they’ll look better than the white
dint Kingzone Z1 pull of the v.same tactic and was bashed non-stop ?
I don’t quite remember something like that, but maybe i just lost that one among the other million issues that device had
Now you are playing with power…and really huge bezels 😀
mr.buzzkill is back !
atleast let the poor guy go thru the rigorous review
the hater is back 🙂
Nah, just when I saw POWER though of that old Nintendo commercial, and was gonna post it, but they I saw those huge bezels and had to fuse the two 🙂
Really looking foward to the final review!
As i said countless times before, I’ve been searching for months now a battery phone with some nice add (ir sensor) and decent audio and camera, and this looks like a nice deal.
Also i wasn’t worry about build quality (ulefone doesn’t seem like overlooking that area in almost all of their phones) but hearing that it’s well build is always nice.
As for the review, may i suggest to try out some alternative app too? Like camera fv-5 or some other camera app to see if it brings any improvement in that area… On my older phone i used to use “a better camera” and it really did better than the stock one…
Also i use noozy to listen to music: it has simple options but it works fine and, again, better than the stock app
Everyone I know that has a Ulefone says the build quality is very good. The first thing I do on any new phone is test out the camera app, very few companies actually have a good camera app (even stock Google app is only good, not great). I always end up using either Open Camera or Lenovo Super Camera.
Yep, and considering how bad mediatek stock camera is, I’m really interested to understand how the phone goes with a decent camera app!
PS: i tried both open camera and lenovo camera, along with hundred of other apps… I don’t get why, but none of them is on the same level of the (options poor) stock camera on my gionee e7… Was it the same for you?
No my E7 I used Lenovo Super, thought it was best.
Mmm maybe it’s reseller’s rom fault?! I’ll try again when i change the rom for sure
I can never get that on my blu studio 5. 4.1 or my blu dash m 5.1. I get problem parsing the package
There is usually 3 common reasons you get a parsing error:
1. Install from unknown sources isn’t checked.
2. corrupted files from the download
3. The app isn’t compatible with your hardware or version of Android.
For those 3 phones it’s most likely the third one.
Looks like a really nice phone, how does the fake wood feel in the hand? Looks pretty thin too given the massive battery inside.
Finish is not great. You can see in a couple of the pictures. For example look at the frame in the pic in the “Ulefone Power Gallery”, the one taken from the bottom left side, where the phone is almost horizontal: That is a terrible fit between frame and plastic divider. Also seems to be the case around the 3.5mm jack plug. And below that round (camera?) button: Doesn’t look great either.
PS Andi: Still not doing weights?
There is a tiny gap near the camera button, the shadow in the other images is misleading.
9th photo in the gallery. The ‘connection’ (or rather: ‘disconnection’) between the plastic divider closest to the camera and the frame to the right of it.
Think it’s just the way the lighting is hitting it
Nope, zoom in and you’ll see.
Its the light
I hope this settles it once and for all:
http://members.casema.nl/arzuomer/ulefone_power_01.jpg
1 = OK / 2 = NOK
3 = OK / 4 = NOK
I know that 95% of the people either won’t notice and/or won’t care. I’m one of the other 5% 🙂
Haven’t seen anything wrong. 😀
He did say best build quality of the SMALLER Chinese companies, hence the cheaper price compared to what you would pay for a similar product but from a major brand like HUAWEI
huawei aren’t chinese
HAHAHA i didn’t say they were, I do see where you infered I did. No problems… Although manufacturing….
Hmmm, the craftsmanship is already fantastic for a small brand and so low price. My family have used Be Pro and Paris of Ulefone. Seems craftsmanship has always been a bonus of Ulefone.
That’s what even I have noticed after Andy mentioned about good build quality!!!
Seems like you and I have an eye for these kinda things – Unlike most of the others here 🙂
Not a big deal!
Couple things I’d like to know Andi :
1. Is the battery meter accurate, without sharp cliffs it drops off?
2. How fast is the NAND on it? Does it suffer from slow multitasking when installing/updating apps?
3. Does it come with any dodgy bloatware?
NAND ? as in NAND gate ?
Storage
emmc ?
For most mobile devices, the storage is NAND flash. So Nand flash has the same meaning as storage here.
Emmc and nand are a different memory interfaces bro. The differences in speed are not big though.
thanks for adding to my knowledge 🙂
How does the ‘wooden’ back feel? Is it certainly not real wood?
Really nice, looking much prettier than i imagined.
Wow, really thin for a 6050mAh battery. Didn’t expect it would look so nice. Great job by ulefone.
The display looks impressively sharp. Hope the one which will arrive at my hand will also be like this.
Just would not go for non-removable back cover.
Why not? Phone with non-removable back cover look often better since the gap between frame and back cover will be more invisible.
Removing the cover, it must be designed to be able to disassemble the gap. The cover can be removed had to do, in addition to battery replacement, SIM card also needs to be filled in at the back cover, but since the iPhone started Insert the SIM card side, the problem is not, so we can do the removable battery, In particular, especially now with the power bank.
Why would you need it when you have a 6000mah battery?
I’m satisfied with phone so far with the battery test and photos of appearance. And the display seems good, too. Hope the the camera and software come out fine, too.
After your review, if it comes out positive, i’ll buy. Really good phone.
The CNC metal frame, looks very good, compared to wood, I updated to change the white cover, because it compare with the metal with, secondly, there is a flash of white back cover to see the lines. Good design.
I’ll get the black one, black is always my first choice.
The build quality indeed looks very nice! Nice work Ulefone! Actually I’m seriously considering this phone mainly because of the big battery and the cool design. I just wanna see some real life battery life tests.
when a full review? lte 800 Mhz? MHL? camera quality? thanks
What about the sound of the speakers?
How’s the WiFi speeds? Also how durable is the phone itself? Any irregularities or bugs so far?
I have a Be touch 2 and it is realyl nice. Everybody I show it is highly impressed by tehe build quality of Ulephone. With regards to Wifi speed and Wifi sensitivity, I would say it is as good as with my wife’s Galaxy S5. But I have issues with bluetooth in my Mercedes Benz C-Class. The phone does not automatically connect ones connected, you can not use it as it always interupts. Does not happen with any other Phone I tried from Samsung, Motorola or HTC.
Also the GPS is not as perfect as with others, but working OK.
Time to time I have a crash, but seldom.
Over all it is a great phone for the value,…and so I think the Power will be as well.
I predict 7.5/10
the ulefone power as an 32bit Android 5.1, can it be upgradable to 64bit when the update for Android 6.0?
Speakers are good, screen quality is good. Battery is bad.. By comparison I have a homtom ht6 and although (obviously) the screen is not as good, the battery life lasts a day on this. If you are say for example tormenting, or uploading files to the cloud – and that’s without watching videos or gaming.
I just did an ota update and it got stuck in a bootloop. So I had to restore… Luckily I knew what I was doing.
I cant say i’m too impressed so far though.
Also, (on my phone) there is no DATA toggle in the drop down menu, so every time I want to enable mobile data, it’s a very long winded process. Ulefone have responded to me about this. Just saying to enable it in settings… Duh. They don’t seem to bothered about their customer care at the moment IMO.
please tell me how you did this? april 1st i downloaded an OTA update for the fingerprint sensor now it is stuck in a bootloop… I need help restoring it idk what to do