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):
Cat One: Summer
Home-made Marshmallows
London Coliseum, before The Nutcracker
Carturesti Carusel, A Bookshop in Bucharest, Romania
Cat Two: Cici
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 |
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Mondozai - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
Other than the complaint about a bit more technical and more thorough testing of call quality, I do greatly appreciate this review(glod medal!).I thought Ian was an entertaining and detailed writer who went through his daily routines into a lot of depth and adapted the review after it. I also appreciate AT doing these kinds of reviews instead of just the ultra-high end.
I have an imported Lenovo K3 Note and it's stunning to me that people pay 3-4X of what I paid for a phone which is better but only marginally so for real world use.
KUTGW, Ian, I hope this is just the beginning of some more unorthodox reviews from you :)
failquail - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
Nice to see there is finally starting to be some options for those of us who like sane battery life in a phone...My past two phones have had 3rd-party XL battery replacements because that was the only way to get a high capacity phone (currently a Galaxy S3 with a 4600MaH battery replacing the stock 2100MaH one) without resorting to fiddly charging banks/cases.
The general industry obsession with phone thinness and the move to fixed-battery designs which makes these XL battery replacements impossible was starting to really concern me. But perhaps things are coming around finally.
fanofanand - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
Fantastic review Ian, I thought you explained what it was like living with this phone extremely well. My Nexus 5 is nearing it's death (screen is delaminated etc.) and only gets about 2 1/2 hours of SOT, so I am slowly and sadly perusing what's out there. Nothing has seemed overly compelling, and I'm a bit of a tightwad with phones too so reviews like this are pure gold to me. Keep up the great work!Cold Fussion - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
We must different opinions on what is considered satisfactory quality for publication. The quality of photos out of that camera are absolutely abysmal, this is what I would expect from a 2002 point and shoot camera. In 2015 when quality cameras are so unbelievably inexpensive I find it unacceptable that a publication that prides itself on the quality of its content would have such low quality media.Ian Cutress - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
Wait what? I'm confused as to your comment.For AT's photos in general, you'll notice that our photos are all resized to 575px with med-high jpg compression to reduce bandwidth when viewing with a slow connection, and you click through for the full image. AnandTech has been this way for at least five years.
For the images coming out of the H1 itself, they are what they are and I really don't know what you're getting at. I'm not going to change the images coming out of the device I'm testing - that would skew the results.
Cold Fussion - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
It's in regards to the images coming from the H1 were you said they were acceptable for publication (the photos from the super computing conference). Obviously changing the images coming out of the camera to showcase what the camera of would be unethical/fraudulent.Having looked at the photos you posted from the H1 (in the biggest sized offered from the gallery mode), I wouldn't consider it an acceptable imaging device for publications. The images look akin to hand holding a vaseline covered lens in front of a camera, with poor noise and colour to boot. When a full frame DSLR can be had for less than $300, or any number of mirrorless cameras, it would be disappointing to see future publications be utilising images from the camera in the H1
Ian Cutress - Sunday, December 27, 2015 - link
Ah yes, I see what you mean now. For print publication, I'd agree with you. For our 575px images, they're OK for that at least. When you go deeper into detail, it doesn't have the clarity I agree. There were a number of SC15 pictures I couldn't make out the details on some PCB images, purely because of a lack of finer detail. But that's part of the parcel for this phone; for photos for print publication or detail, I carrying around a decent point and shoot or DSLR.blzd - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
I thoroughly enjoyed your review. Also nice to see some lesser known devices get the AT treatment even if it's not quite as in depth as we're used to.As for the H1, it appears the performance is not much of an upgrade to the One Max and the camera appears to be a downgrade compared to your (now ancient) GS2.
I hate the idea of "downgrading" anything when I buy a new device but objectively, most of our devices are complete over kill for the software they're running.
mkozakewich - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
You should mention that it's MicroSDHC. If you remember, SD went to 2 GB, SDHC went to 32 GB, and SDXC should go up to 2 TB. It seems weird that everyone spends so much time wondering about maximum sizes when we've got those three monikers.Coup27 - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
I know it's more than you wanted to pay but you can get a Sony Z3 sim free for £300 with a nice 1080p screen, 3GB of RAM, 801, waterproofing, stereo speakers, micro SD and 3 days of battery life for moderate use and some cool ultra power saving modes for when you're in the sh!t.I've had one since they came out and hands down the best Android phone I've seen or used.