The CUBOT H1 Smartphone Test: A Month with 3-4 Days of Battery per Charge
by Ian Cutress on December 23, 2015 9:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Battery
- CUBOT
The Feel
The device fits in my hand comfortably, although not easily to use one handed as I mentioned above. I've been using it in the silicone case, and I have no issues with that - it gives the edges a curve meaning I'm not subject to something sharper such as the Galaxy S6 Edge or One M9. Actually more often than not I'm playing with the case when bored, flicking it off at the edge and reattaching it, in some weird sense of being therapeutic. People who are used to small or light phones are going to notice a difference here as it certainly isn't either of those, but neither are excessive. There's a reason the 7 inch P8 max smartphone sells well in China, for example.
Audio quality is satisfactory on the H1 - my use case for this as of late has involved taking it into the bathroom and leaving it on the side playing music while I shower. This way if I know how long the track is, I can ensure I don't spend too in there if I'm in a hurry. I place the single speaker facing a wall to act as an odd form of amplification, and it only needs to be at around 90% volume to be over the sound of the water. That being said, there is a jump up in the last 5%, causing some minor distortion. As anecdotal as that seems, if you're playing something to a group of people in a noisy environment, it is worth noting. I've mainly been playing melodic or 8-bit speed metal and the clarity at reasonable volume levels are not degraded by a fast paced tune.
Phone call connection quality is also good, despite the fact that I live in an area that seems to have lead paint in the walls. Using it both for audio calls through the air or Skype video calls over Wi-Fi while on business trips came through without issue.
The Camera
On the camera side, of course we weren't expecting anything great and my own results confirm that. Based on my broken DSLR, I was left with the H1 as my photography device for the recent SuperComputing 15 conference. In the interests of taking pictures to as reference material it was good, as long as I was sitting in the first few rows. In the varied light of the show floor, bad light photos were pretty junk even after post processing in Windows but in light photographs were satisfactory for publication.
For home use, in natural light, the camera provided a much nicer response, giving shots suitable for family albums assuming the subject was still. Cue pictures of cats, food, the theatre and a bookshop (click through for full resolution):
London Coliseum, before The Nutcracker
Carturesti Carusel, A Bookshop in Bucharest, Romania
The camera software is the standard android app, and with the H1 it is noticeably slow when taking an image. Focusing is noticably longer than a high end device but if you need to capture one photo in an ongoing scene, it is best to hold down and take up to 40 continuous photographs and then delete most of them. The camera does come with a form of EIS which is great, but the stability range is limited, making a burst capture of at least 2 or 3 required to get the best shot. There are motion capture modes, as well as beautify and panorama also. With Lightroom now free for Android, at least basic photo editing can be done almost immediately.
For an image comparison, I took photographs of three scenes using the devices at my disposal (caution, large images). It is worth noting that the HTC One Max I have suffers from the purple effect, due to the image low-light amplifiers burning out on some early models.
The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
A quick note on the rest of the software - despite the origins of the phone, mine came with an English based kernel / OS. I changed the default home screen to Google Now (because I'm using it a fair bit these days) and all of my usual software and games (Kairosoft, naturally) including Fallout Shelter seem to work and can be switched between easily using the long press on the home button. I have noticed in the past month two apps that seem to close without an error message - it happened once after a crop in Lightroom that involved rotation, and any time I want to start TrickShot. I'm not sure if this is a compatibility issue based on the OS, the platform or the chipset, but I was expecting the H1 to handle it properly.
The Video
At this point the 16GB storage on the device hasn't become a burden, perhaps due to the microSD. Pictures come out at ~2MB each and videos at just over 1MB a second using the fine detail settings (720p) saved in 3gp format. From what I have read, the video mode on the H1 gets a lot of criticism due to the low quality or the EIS being very basic. It's true it's not the best to capture long lasting memories on, because at distance there is not much detail and requires a good light source, but it's more of an add on than a focal point.
For video comparisons, the garden and night-time road scenes were used for motion and static video:
The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
116 Comments
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Tushar11684 - Monday, January 4, 2016 - link
I saw that most of the commenters here do not own Cubot H1, so, for a change, consider this comment from someone who owns this device and coincidentally ordered it on same date as of this review for 130€ (received it in 5 days during holiday season).Last one week, I played a lot with H1 and got (average on one full charge) more than 13 hours of screen on time. I mainly bought it to do home automation using Tasker, Google Now and AutoVoice. Slowly, I am thinking to switch to this phone permanently (currently, I am waiting for the nano-sim to normal sim adapter, so that I can use the nano-sim from my iphone 5s).
For normal usage, there is no lag. everything I tried until now works except one thing. I want Google-now on screen off but until now, I was not able to make it work.
arigajoe - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
Just bought that thing. after afew minutes of using it I have to say that the typing experience on this phone is horrible ...its not responsive when typing ..I have to press again and again for one character to register..Ian try to get in touch with the guys at Cubot so that we get a patch/fix or something..escoltajuverf - Friday, January 15, 2016 - link
just a warning for those who purchase phones from this brand, they use cheap touchpanels, typing is difficult and gaming is a mess, not only this unit model but also most of their top lineup phones have touch screen issueshp79 - Monday, February 1, 2016 - link
I feel sorry for you. I mean you are a tech writer but you will be stuck on a sad device for the next two year. The company that made this phone should pay you well (I'm not implying you got paid or anything).Thanks for spending the time writing in detail the state of modern cheap phones. I know high end phones are way overpriced and I hope they go down in price even further. I have a Galaxy S6 but the battery is just too short. At least it charges quickly, otherwise I would have switched to something else already.
Asherlying - Wednesday, March 2, 2016 - link
looks a pretty smartphone, but the resolution is a big fault, and I prefer the Cubot x17, which has a smaller battery, but the higher resolution and 3GB RAM is a big advantage considering the price.http://www.tinydeal.com/cubot-px347wp-p-156821.htm...
Asherlying - Wednesday, March 2, 2016 - link
looks like an impressive smartphone, but the resolution is a big fault, I prefer the Cubot X17 more, it has 1080p resolution and 3GB, though the battery is smaller,http://www.tinydeal.com/cubot-px347wp-p-156821.htm...