Oukitel K5 Review – A Hard Sell

Oukitel produces very decent devices, but can their 18:9 Oukitel K5 make a significant dent in the budget phone market?

Oukitel K5 Review

Rocking the old MTK6737 processor, an 18:9 display and fairly slim bezels (for a budget phone), the Oukitel K5 is trying to be the bezelless budget choice in the cutthroat low end market, however does it succeed?

CutThroat Market

Oukitel K5 Specifications

Processor	Mediatek MTK6737T Processor
Display	5.7” 1440×720 IPS Display
RAM	2GB
Storage	16GB eMMC
Operating System	Android 7.1 Nougat
Cameras	8MP/0.3MP Rear Cameras, 2MP Front
Battery	4,000mAh
Physical Dimensions	15.34 x 7.11 x 1.00 cm, 205g

Oukitel K5 Hardware

The Oukitel K5 feels very heavy. It has a heavy duty metal band running around the entire phone which makes it feel solid and durable. The rear plate is made out of plastic and does have the lumia look and does not impress. The weight is secondary to the size of the phone, which tops out at almost 1cm thick, making this phone chunky at best. Bezels around the screen are fairly decent for a budget device, larger top and bottom bezels and decent side bezels.It does have a headphone jack but still uses a microUSB connector.
All in all, the phone has decently small bezels, but the thickness and weight of the Oukitel detract from its overall feel.

Thick and chunky

Oukitel K5 Display

Oukitel traditionally uses very high contrast LCDs in their devices and the Oukitel K5 is no exception. Even though it’s a 720p display, colours are very saturated and contrast is excellent also.

Maximum brightness will make it difficult to see in bright sunlight, and touch response is excellent.

Contrasty

Oukitel K5 Audio

The Oukitel K5 has great speakers for the price, which in the grand scheme of things works out to average. While the audio here is not tinny and completely bass empty, it doesn’t overpower with bass nor does it output crispy sound, all in all an average speaker.

Oukitel K5 Battery

Although you have a large 4000mAh battery, the MTK6737 is fairly inefficient as it is an old, entry level processor. However, Oukitel’s software optimization shines through, allowing this phone to get a good 6-7 hours of screen on time consisting of web browsing, Reddit, Youtube, and taking photos.

Not Bad

Oukitel K5 Software & Performance

We have Android 7.1 Nougat on this phone with Oukitel’s proprietary “Comio” UI, which while not too heavy does mess with your launcher and notification shade which Stock Android purists might not like. There are a couple of system apps that are bloatware, which means you cannot uninlstall them.
However, navigating the UI is quite zippy, owing to Oukitel’s excellent software optimization.
Launching apps proved the Oukitel K5 be the fastest MTK6737 phone I’ve ever used, with app launch times that are fairly close to the Snapdragon 625.You can do some light gaming like Clash Royale or Candy Crush, however don’t expect this to play PubG or Modern Combat.

The fingerprint sensor works fairly well, fast and accurate.

Oukitel K5 Connectivity

This phone is almost completely incompatible in North America, but it does fully support European bands so European residents need not worry.

WiFi reception is quite stellar on this device as is Bluetooth connectivity and range, however GPS does not work as well as I expected, locking on was fairly slow and the GPS jumped around a little bit.

Oukitel K5 Camera

The cameras here can take some very decent photos. If you take macro shots you can get some very nice detail, colour saturation, and dynamic contrast. However in suboptimal conditions, grain is introduced almost immediately. Colour reproduction actually stays fairly similar but the detail takes a nosedive.It has a fairly slow shutter speed which means motion blur is introduced with moderate movement.The front facing camera is pretty bad, its 2MP interpolated to 5MP, so you can guess how bad its going to be.

You can film up to 1080p video, but the detail level is closer to 720p. Colour reproduction is actually still pretty decent, but detail is bad enough to make the video quality bad.

Oukitel K5 Camera Gallery

Oukitel K5 Verdict

The Oukitel K5 is not a perfect phone, even compared to entry level devices. It has a fairly weak camera that does not excel in anything but the most ideal circumstances. The phone itself while boasting fairly small bezel is thick and heavy, and network connectivity precludes pretty much the entire North American market from using this phone at all.

The price of this phone is another pain point, starting at $110, the Xiaomi Redmi 5A at $93 is an infinitely better deal if you are looking in this budget range.

Pricey

Oukitel K5 Gallery